This is what it is all about...................

Lightning and thunder.........................time to go !!!!

I love catching fish, too bad i can't eat this one.

Even Grandma had to try it!

What a beautiful day !!!!! Our outing to Clear Creek was fantastic!! The weather was perfect, the creek was perfect, and the food was perfect. (Deanna spread the mayo on my sandwich with her finger----it was the best.) Micah, Denver, Dillon, and I went cliff-jumping and rope-swinging and it was really cool. Maybe a father should have other thoughts, but I do love watching my family fly through the air with arms and legs flailing, screaming like banshees, and then smacking their various body parts on the water. It is a bonding thing.

We did leave a little early due to the threat of rain, but the trip could not have been any better. Well, maybe an improvement would have been if everybody could have been there........Scott, Kim, Aimee, Dennis, Allen, Danelle, Vince, all the kids, and Marvin. I would love to see Marvin shooting down the water slide!!

Jurassic Park.......For REAL !!!!

From tiny to humongous, there were a bunch of different tracks!!!

I tried to get a photo to show how this was built up on the island shelf overlooking the desert

Pretty soon I will get my own professional bass show, specializing on catching bass that are only an inch or two bigger than the worm. For people watching their waistlines and such......

I had an interesting week. I went fishing with Brian Steffler below Bartlett Dam. We took two inflatable rafts out with the intention of sleeping in them while we pulled in giant Flathead catfish. Once out on the water, we realized my yacht had a leak. We spent the night together in one raft. Yes, cozy!! Not a single monster took our bait.

I am still working in Flagstaff and we got rained out one day, so we checked out some Indian ruins. It was amazing! You know how you see that landscape with the big flat rock outcrops and the desert is eroded down to expose those giant island shelves? That is where these Indians built this house. It covered the whole top, so it looked like a hovering castle in the middle of the desert. Fantastic!

I then got sent up to the Navajo National Monument to check on their gutter system. When we were working and travelling up there last year, we passed this sign that said "Dinosaur Tracks". We must have passed that sign more than twenty times, and the guys never wanted to stop!! This time I was by myself and I stopped. Now you never know what to expect. Is it going to be one or two cheesy indentions that could be tracks? No, it was awesome!! It looked like it was a watering hole that has since turned to rock. There were a hundred tracks of all different sizes. Some of them, you could see where their claws went into the mud at the end of their toes. Very cool. My brother, Cory, and I found a couple of tracks in the canyon behind our house in Snowflake. I don't think many people believed us. He would have enjoyed seeing all these tracks and how much they looked like the ones we found.

Oh, and I got some work done too...................

Working hard........Playing hard.........

One the coolest formations I have ever seen while spelunking----5 seconds before I pulled
an "Indiana Jones Ice Slide of Death"!!!

I hope any safety people do not see this photo....

I thought I would share a couple of things from my week. First, I am working up in Flagstaff. Missing out on the triple digits in Phoenix? Priceless. This is a remodel job for N.A.U., and it is not fun. The roof is a 45 degree angle, so we are on ropes all day. The school wants to spend as little money as possible, so instead of new panels, we wire brushed and painted over the rusted areas on the metal and re-installed it. (very nasty and very temporary) As you can see from the photo, we had to build a jig, fasten it to the basket, tie the panels to it, and take them up one at a time. The wind blows every afternoon which makes the whole process that much more adventurous!!

I strongly believe in the philosophy: "Work hard, Play hard", so one day after work, I took the guys to the Lava River Cave just outside of Flag. It is simply a tunnel that was created by flowing lava, but it is really cool. Literally. In the cooler months, the water that drips or seeps into the cave freezes. It is always different--you never know what it will look like. This time, a frozen waterfall was just inside the entrance as we made our way down into the cave. It was free-standing. We could put our arms completely around it!! About five seconds after I had my picture taken next to it, I started to move for the next person. I stepped on solid ice and disappeared. I slid down into the black abyss. No light. No idea how far I was going to go. No idea what was waiting at the bottom. Everybody was yelling and then shining their lights down on me. When they saw that I had escaped injury, they all were laughing. Oh well, I am used to that..........

A Better Part of Our Legacy...........

Dillon clearing the winning height-----man, he was flying!!

Gold medal grin?? What is it with kids and taking good pictures?

Our children are capable of a great many things. Hopefully, they tip the balance toward the favorable side. I love my kids and they constantly amaze me with the things they do. A couple of them, which I will not name, seem to be following after Darth Vader and the Dark Side of the Force. I try to be a loving and supportive father, but their actions sometimes take my patience to the limit.

Then they do something cool.

Does it wipe the slate clean? Not necessarily. I just wish they would do cool things more often. (My idea of cool. Not theirs)

Dillon won first place at his school's Track and Field Day in the high jump. He was then invited to the Regional Track and Field Event. We went today and he got the gold medal for fifth grade at four feet! Simply amazing.

I feel very proud of his abilities, and I like to think that I had something to do with it. But I know better. When our kids do something awesome, we might think we are leaving an incredible legacy. When they do something less than great, we have to brush the dust off and help them continue on.

But I will take gold medals any day............