Cooling off up the Canyon

Well in my absence this last weekend, the family took a little stroll up Big Cottonwood Canyon and my Dad being the photog he is, took a bunch of photos.  Here are some of my favorites that I stole from his Flickr page.  For the whole rundown of the shots head here.










And last but not least, my cute wife.

Weekend Pics

Here are some pics from last weekend in Utah.  It was a busy weekend, but we managed to get a lot in.

Bennett

Ava

Jenn and I at Rodizo for our 6th Anniversary

Guarana!




Bennett at the Treehouse Museum



Deweyville Sunset

Rosa Lee M. Parkin

My Grandmother passed away last week.  She was a great woman.  Many people don't know this, but both my Grandpa and Grandma were deaf.  Obviously, this made communicating difficult, but her love and example said more than any other form of communication could have conveyed. I can't even imagine living in this world without sound, but despite her handicap, my Grandma  brought so much joy and love to everyone she came in contact with.  

The funeral service was beautiful on a beautiful sunny July day.  Below is her Obituary from the Ogden Standard Examiner: 

Rosa Lee M. Parkin - Rosa Lee M. Parkin, 85, died July 14, 2010 at her home.

She was born October 18, 1924 to Guy and La Rena Caraveau, in Garden City, Kansas.  When she was three years old she and her brother lost their hearing due to scarlet fever.  She attended the Colorado School for the Deaf in Colorado Springs, and graduated from the Utah School for the Deaf.

She joined the LDS church in 1947 and married Gilbert Jay Don Parkin on May 28, 1949, in Ogden.  Their family was sealed in the Ogden LDS Temple on April 10, 1982.  Her husband of 52 years died Oct. 31, 2001.

She retired from the Internal Revenue Service after 15 years, prior to that she worked for Kiddie Ville Clothing and Sierra Lingerie.

Her interest included traveling with her family and husband, camping in her motor home, fishing, family history work, quilting, crocheting, card games and sewing.  She is an active member of the Ogden Deaf Branch LDS church.

Surviving are her children; Dennis Parkin, Riverdale, Patricia (Stephen) Felsted, Salt Lake City, Susan Grant, Salt Lake City, Brent (Georgiann) Parkin, North Ogden, 14 grandchildren and nine great/grandchildren.

Funeral Services will be held Monday, July 19, 2010 at 11:00 a.m. at the Grandview Ward Chapel, 3680 Eccles Ave., Ogden, with LDS Deaf Branch, President Mark Erwin officiating.  Friends and family may call on Sunday, July 18, 2010 at the Grandview Ward Building from 6:7:30 p.m. and on July 19, 2010 from 10am to 10:45 am.

Interment, Leavitt's Aultorest Memorial Park.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations may be given to benefit the Utah Community Center of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, 5709 south 1550 West, Salt Lake City, Utah 84123.  Please make checks payable to : UCCD Trust Fund.

Fun Times [Lagoon]

This picture doesn't really show it, but Ava absolutely loved Lagoon. She loved the rides and wanted to go faster on many of them. At the end of the day she was asleep by the time we got back to the car.

Bennett couldn't go on any rides but he enjoyed the people watching.

Lagoon, originally uploaded by Keltose.

Me and Jenn at the haunted house ride. That stupid horn and light at the end still gets me.

Seaside Saturday

Finally the terrible rainy weather passed and the northwest was blessed with a beautiful sunny Saturday. We decided to join our friend's on nice day trip to Seaside Beach. It was a little windy, but definitely worth taking. Here are a few pics.

Astoria

Took a drive to Astoria today. Luckily it wasn't raining.

Here are some pics from the Astoria Column.

Kids

Our friend Pam took some great pictures of the kids a couple weeks and I wanted to post some of our favorites. She did a great job, Thanks Pam!

Here are some other pictures that Jenn and I took one sunny Mother's Day afternoon.

Trip to New Mexico

I have never been to New Mexico before last weekend. So, it was fun to check that state off my list and more importantly see Jenn, Ava and Bennett, whom I haven't seen in a couple weeks as they continue their 5 state tour visiting family. Ava is, of course, a wild thing and Bennett is growing like crazy and turning out to be an all-around good guy. Grandpa JR likes to call him his "All-American".

Anyways, being a short trip and having little time to play. We took advantage of the great south-west weather and visited White Sands National Park. This place was absolutely amazing! Ava was not a fan of the sand at first. She wanted nothing to do with it, then after getting used to it, she couldn't get enough. She walked and climbed everywhere. Needless to say, she crashed asleep as soon as she got in the car to head home.
Not knowing if and when I will ever return there, I took a bunch of pictures. The best ones, I have uploaded to Flickr, so feel free to check them out.

I wanted to upload some video too, but I left the Flip Cam with Jenn, so I will update this post later.
For now, I posted my few favorites here.

Valentines Day Dinner = Home Made Pizza!

For Valentines Day this year, I decided to try my hand at making a pizza. It wasn't exactly homemade, as I mostly just put things together that I bought at the store, but it was fun having Ava help spread the cheese and Jenn test tasting it. To my surprise it actually turned out pretty good, so I may be making more of these in the future-which I will try to do more and more from scratch. We'll see...

To top this night off, we all watched the movie 'UP!', which was great-Ava loved it!
I'm a pretty lucky guy to have two great Valentines!

Ginger Bread Christmas Party

A couple years my Mom put on a great Christmas party for our family and it involved making Ginger Bread Houses. It was a lot of fun. Jenn thought it would be fun to do that with some friends and neighbors this year and we had a blast. Ava in particular really enjoyed making her creations and was a big helper in building my Frank Lloyd Wright style ginger bread house. Here are some pics from the evening and the full story board on Flickr.

Merry Christmas!

Oh Christmas Tree

In keeping with tradition, (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008) we had a beautiful clear day a couple weeks ago to go up with The Tenbusch's for the second year in a row to cut down our Christmas Tree. My camera battery died, so Libby took more pictures as you'll see on her blog.
Permits this year were $5 through the forest service (Thanks Brian for snagging) and we went up in the mountains just south of Mt. St. Helens. I can honestly say it wasn't the best Christmas Tree I have cut down, but as they say it always looks different in the forest.
Ava sure had a fun time playing in the snow and decorating our tree. She was really worried we were going to leave the tree in the woods.

Here are some pics from the days adventure:






















Thanks again for Brian, Libby and Evie for going and making it a blast!

In Honor of our Veterans

My grandfather, Kelly Gardner, whom I was named after was a C-47 pilot and flew 'The Hump' in WWII in 1945. At the time he was deployed he was engaged to be married to my Grandma. While flying one of his mission's his plane went down from a lightning storm in Burma and was MIA for several weeks. Being the pilot of the plane he was the last one to jump, his chute barely opened in time before he hit the ground, but the impact was still severe. He spent time at an Army hospital in Germany and later in Logan Utah. To this day he still battles the pain from those injuries.

He is truly an amazing man.

I am sure there are a million other stories like this of our awesome Veterans. A special thanks goes out to all of them.

Here are a couple pictures that my dad scanned and another that he took of my Grandpa at an air show this year.

Our Little Soybean

Couldn't resist The Office reference...

Here are a couple pics with Bennett's eyes open.
As I take more shots, I will be sure to post the good ones,
but the rest I will upload here.
He's a good little baby.