Who does this remind you of?

 

Andrew and Emily: I set this up especially for you. Remind you of anyone we know?

Roping

Roping for “Dummies”, Thursday, July 26^th 11:00 a.m – 2:00 p.m. Come learn the fine art of roping with veteran Big Piney team roper. No need to bring your horse, your rope or a calf. Lunch is included. Meet at the Pinedale Rodeo Grounds at 10:45 a.m. These events are free and open to the public. Please call to register. . .

We saw this ad at the local grocery store and then again in the news paper. So in keeping with my theme, “When in Rome, do as the Romans,” I called to sign up.

James was really into it. I think he did more practicing than anyone else there. He even wanted to skip lunch to practice. I convinced him to take five bites before returning to his lasso. One of the other adults commented about how hard he worked and how patient he was. He wasn’t real natural with it, I am surprised that anyone can be natural with a lasso, but he just kept trying. James has been asking for a lasso since we went to the Rodeo on the 4^th.

Anna was not interested in roping. She hung out on a blanket for the first hour. Just before lunch I went over and showed her how to rope Mom and then she decided that it might be fun after all.

Mom roped a little, and was roped a little, and talked a lot. People in Wyoming aren’t scared to talk to each other. I made a few new friends. It was a great afternoon!

Minor error

A previous post somehow did not manage to post completely. Like Brenda, I too was intrigued. Mrs. ClarksInWyoming is aware of the issue, and has promised to remedy the situation.

Soon.

I hope.

Roping

Things I miss from life in Salt Lake

The following is a (more or less) comprehensive list:

• Golf. Or perhaps I miss getting together with Anthony, Josh, Bob, Kevin and the rest of my golfing buddies and playing and shooting the breeze.
• Tanner LC. I had a great time working there, and there are some people there who I wish were working with me here. I’ll see some of them next year when they come back for the audit, but that’s still a few months out.
• The 24th of July Parade. For only the 4th time in as long as I can remember, I will not be attending the parade. I missed twice during the mission, once because I was in training at Marriott, and today because I am new here, and don’t have vacation time. It’s all good, though, because at least I can watch it on TV. Oh, wait. No I can’t.
UPDATED: July 26, 2007
• Bagels. How could I forget the easy access to bagels?

First Trip to Grand Tetons, subtitled Visiting Cousins in the Park

We took our first (first of many, we hope) family trip to the Grand Tetons yesterday, and had a great time. We started our day at about 11:00 and drove up through Daniel and Bondurant, and into Teton County. We stopped next to the Hoback river and had lunch. My favorite part was watching the bird who lived in the hollow tree next to our spot come and go with bugs and things to feed its babies. Lamentably, I wasn’t quick enough to get a picture of the bird, but I have the memories in my mind.

We enjoyed a nice picnic lunch, prepared by Julie on Friday night. After lunch, Julie and the kids took a wade in the river to cool down, while yours truly manned the camera.

We continued our trek north into Jackson and Grand Teton National Park. We stopped and enjoyed a Clark family tradition, when the car (for some strange reason) lost control, and pulled into a Maverick station. Since we were there anyway, we got some cool sodas. [Side note: It is interesting to me that this particular tradition was started when my dad bought a car that didn’t have air conditioning, and how easily it was revived when we are driving cars that don’t have air conditioning.] After refreshing ourselves, we continued into the park. For those that aren’t familiar with the Grand Tetons, when you drive into Jackson from the south (like we did) you go through the town, past the National Elk Refuge, past the National Wildlife Art Museum (Which, by the way, is a really neat museum, and there is a great café where you can pick up lunch on the cheap. I recommend the turkey sandwich with smoked gouda cheese. Wow.), and past the National Fish Hatchery, and then all of a sudden there they are: The Grand Tetons. Spectacular!

We picked up an annual pass to Grand Teton and Yellowstone, partly in preparation for next year’s annual hoopla, which I have affectionately dubbed (as of this very moment, actually) “Hoopla Dos” (BTW: It will never meet or exceed the fun had during Hoopla Uno, so don’t get your hopes up. Andrew and Kristi really know how to party.) We drove up to Colter Bay and visited with Emily Minchew and Kaylie Harline, Julie’s cousins who are working up there for the summer. Emily celebrated her th birthday on Friday, so we took her out to dinner. Kaylie had to work all night, so we didn’t get much time to visit with her. But we did get a picture of everyone. Say cheese!

On the way out, we stopped to take the photo that you see above, and we met some really nice folks from Pennsylvania, who offered to take our picture. Then they took a picture of us for their scrapbook, and we took their’s for ours. Then we drove home, and everyone (except me) slept. Hope you had a great weekend!

Life in Wyoming

This week has been our first in Wyoming without visitors from Salt Lake, we moved in June 26th. I must admit it has been a little bit lonely, but I figure, “when in Rome. . .” So yesterday I took the kids horse back riding and today we rode our bikes to the fair ground and watched some team roping.

Needless to say every other sentence Anna speaks is about Maggie, and Rooster, these are the names of the horses they road, and James has decided he wants a lasso. I understand Ranches and Rodeo have an important role in our history and economic society but it is a life style that I am not yet ready to embrace. Next week the kids start swimming and soccer lessons. I think as long as the kids do not decide they want to do some mutton (sheep), or bronco bustin’, we can all live here together, in little Big Piney, in peace.

P.s. Sorry, no pictures! One of these days when I’ve got a spare hour I’ll find my camera manual and figure out how to download pictures.

No posts from Julie

Due to large number of readers from the other side of the family, I’m quite surprised at the lack of clamor to see more posts from Mrs. ClarksInWyoming. I happen to be privy to the fact that Julie and the kids rode horses in Pinedale, and that they took pictures. But shouldn’t Julie be the one to tell you about that? Can I get a witness?!? Let’s here some “Amens” in the comments please!

James before he was lost

Doesn’t he look so happy and innocent, so unaware of the misfortune about to befall him? In a previous post, I said that David was like a papparazzo taking photos of everyone from around corners. Well, here are some of the photos he took. We’re much obliged to him for taking and sharing these photos, for sure.

Happy monday morning

I hope you all enjoyed a pleasant weekend.

Changes to the template

I did a little customization of the blog today. I mucked about in the HTML and CSS code of the Blogger template, so if it looks strange on your computer, let me know, and I’ll change things back.

Monday Bike Ride

First, I apologize for the dearth of posts this week. Our regular reader probably missed them. This week is a big week in accounting, and there has been a lot to do. Happily, though, I completed the reconciliation of debt for the past six months tonight. And there was much rejoicing. (Yay...)

Monday evening for FHE we took a bike ride through town. We started north of town and the fairgrounds, and rode five miles through both towns to the Church. In between Marbleton and Big Piney, Anna and I stopped to shoot some pictures. We hope you like them.

 

We had a lot of fun riding bikes. Anna rode in our bike trailer, and I pumped with her most of the way through town. Surprisingly, I didn’t keel over dead after riding five miles, like I thought I might. James rode his bike the entire way, Mary Jean rode Shelby’s bike, and Julie and Shelby rode Mary Jean’s tandem bike. I didn’t realize that I had left my memory card for the camera in the computer, so I didn’t get any photos of anyone else, but David had his sweet camera, and took quite a few photos. It was like having our own paparazzi, actually.

After a bit, Julie and I switched, and Shelby and I rode the tandem bike together. We went through one of the neighborhoods on the way to the Church, and James tried to follow us, but we didn’t realize it. Julie and Anna had gone straight in an effort to beat us, and they didn’t realize that James had given up on Shelby and me, and was trying to follow them. Needless to say, when everyone showed up at the Church and James was not in the group, we all got really nervous. Julie kept her head in the game, though, and suggested that we say a prayer. A quick, but heartfelt prayer was offered, and we started backtracking to find James. We were fairly confident we would find him (there are only so many places a kid on a bike can go in this town), but it was good to know that the Lord was on our side, too.

I started out of the church parking lot going about 20 miles an hour, and headed down the road for about 2 minutes when I spotted a little red bike and a little red rider. (James had on his red outfit.) I was so relieved that he was OK. I talked to him for a few minutes, and he had realized that he was lost, but knew where to go, and kept coming to find us. We all met back up, and said another prayer of gratitude that James had been found. How grateful we are for a Heavenly Father who watches out for us.

A Day of Rest

Mary Jean, David, and Shelby drove up early this morning to make it to church with us at 9:00 AM. They got here about 8:10 or so, while we were getting ready for our first Sunday as official members of the ward in Big Piney. It takes about 10 minutes to get to the Church house from our home in Marbleton, which really isn’t too bad when you consider how far some folks drive to get to church. We were greeted at the front door by a member of the bishopric, and when I told him my name, he said, “I already knew that. We got your records last week.” Nothing gets past anybody in a small town.

The meetings were pleasant, the speakers were both inspiring and enjoyable, and the spirit was felt by all present. David and I went to Priesthood together; the Elders and the High Priests typically meet together because there are so few bretheren. I’m pretty sure that we were supposed to have a lesson from the manual today, but it turned into a discussion about cattle and swear-words used to “bless” the beeves once they’ve been roped. I have to admit, it is certainly more fun to attend priesthood meeting here.

After church we came home and had a quick lunch, and enjoyed one of my favorite Harline family traditions: happy hour. Happy hour is a time when all the kids are quiet and play nicely, and the grown-ups take a nap. After seven hours of driving yesterday, and barely six hours of sleep last night, I was ready for a nice nap. It was wonderful. The kids did a great job of playing quietly, so everyone enjoyed a pleasant mid-afternoon nap.

After our nap, we decided to embark on another Harline tradition: the Sunday drive. David had a couple of places in mind that he wanted to see, one of which was the green river. It was absolutely gorgeous today. I’ve posted a couple of pictures here of the river. It made me want to run home and get my fishing rod just to see how many fish I could catch. And the great part is, it is only 5 minutes away from home. How cool is that!

We’ve returned home now, and are just enjoying a low-key evening. Tomorrow I return to work, and Julie, Mary Jean, David and the kids have a day of fun planned. It should be great.

Another week has come and gone

This week is nearly over. We’ve enjoyed some fun adventures this week: I’ve learned about plumbing, we’ve spent time learning to like the local flavor of independence day, and most importantly, we’ve taken time to relax and enjoy the world around us. That is definitely one of the things that drew us up here. I can work as an accountant in any big city I choose, but where else can I also enjoy the quiet and peace that comes from life in a small town. Yes, I suppose we pay a small premium on things like groceries and gas, and when we want to eat at a restaurant, there are only two choices, but when it comes down to it, you can’t put a price on being away from the crowds and the traffic and the smog and the hurried pace that comes with life in the city.

We’ll always love Salt Lake, and Utah will always be home, but for now, we’re taking a stab at being Wyomingites. Don’t worry, though, Andrew. We’ll never give you a chair with the Wyoming flag on it.

Happy Independence Day

We just wanted to wish everyone a very happy Independence Day. Big Piney and Marbleton really know how to celebrate the 4th of July in style.

We started our day at the parade. We arrived at about 9:30, and enjoyed watching all the people arrive until the parade started in earnest at 10:00. Once the parade started, there were about four floats. It almost seemed like the parade was over at that point, but it was just a really long break in the action. The whole parade lasted for about an hour and a half.

The kids enjoyed the parade a lot, especially when the cement truck that we had decorated at EnerCrest came by. I didn’t get a picture of it, but James and Anna were both jumping up and down as excitedly as could be to see “their” float in the parade.

The parade reminded me a lot of the Magna parade, except that there were no groups from the various high schools and junior high/middle schools present. There were no bands, but there were quite a few oil company sponsored entries in the parade. Entry rules are pretty relaxed; all you have to do is show up at one of the company parking lots in town at the right time, and you can drive through the parade.

After the parade, we drove to the county fairgrounds (about 45 seconds north of town), where the oil companies sponsor a barbecue for the entire town. As far as we could tell, everybody from town was in attendance, and some folks from Pinedale were there, too. We looked around in the parking lot, and there were a couple of out of state license plates. We actually sat at a picnic table with a family from Missouri, who comes every year to spend time on a ranch in Pinedale. We also saw Kristi (from work), her husband John, and her son John, too. They drove down from Pinedale for the parade and the luncheon. Little John and James are about the same age, and Anna, James, and John played at the fairgrounds for about an hour.

After lunch, we came home and had a small celebration for Julie’s birthday. She got some nice presents this year. I gave her a new house and a computer. We have been relaxing and taking it easy since then. It’s been a really nice holiday. I hope yours has been as nice as ours.

We’re looking forward to seeing Jed and Candace and family in Salt Lake, and David and Mary Jean in Marbleton this weekend. Brenda and Norman are coming up around the 24th.

Finally some photos

Here’s a photo of the kids playing in our front yard/road.

Here’s a photo of the front porch, taken on Sunday, July 1, 2007.

Minor update

The photo in the header was taken on Saturday night from my front porch. Hope I don’t make anybody jealous.

DIY Plumbing with Aaron

David and MJ commented the other day that if I needed help installing the garbage disposal, I should contact them. Well, I almost wish I would have read that comment before I installed it this morning.

As I explained earlier, part of the fun of living in a semi-secluded town is that you don’t have a Home Depot or a Lowes close enough that you can run to the store three or four times during a project to pick up whatever it was that you forgot. So, when I discovered that the disposal Julie selected didn’t come with an electric cord, we became creative and resourceful. I went out to our trashcan (fortunately, the garbage truck had not come yet), and dug out the old disposal. 10 minutes (and a few under the breath curse words) later I had a very serviceable cord that worked quite well with the new disposal.

After an hour and a half of struggling with the blasted thing, and salvaging a few parts from the old one, the new disposal was installed and humming like a dream. Ah, life in the wilderness.

Weekend without the woman

This is going to take a little explaining, so, Sherman, crank up that crazy Wayback Machine: When we moved up here this week, our kids were a bit nervous about not having any friends or anything to play with. Julie thought it would be a great idea to bring James’s friend Aaron along for the first couple of days to play with the kids. It was a great idea and worked splendidly, except that we had to take him back to his family. Turns out they are quite fond of him.

This whole “taking the friend back to his family in Salt Lake“ was sort of a logistical problem though, because it meant that someone had to run a 400 mile roundtrip errand just to return Aaron. Fortunately, or unfortunately as the case may be, the garbage disposal is on the fritz, the deck needs staining, and there are a host of other tiny things that need to be done in Salt Lake, so it all ended up working out for the best.

Since Julie drove back to Salt Lake, the kids and I have been hanging out for a couple of days trying to make order of the chaos that is unpacking. The kids have made it fun, though, because every time we open a box that has some treasure that they haven’t seen for a while, they light up like Christmas. They’ll ooh and ahh about how they wondered where the toy had been, and how happy they were to have it back. I doubt I’ve had this much fun unpacking ever. I’m glad the kids have helped me out, or I would have gone crazy.

So, we really miss Julie, and we also miss groceries. I was going to go to the store yesterday, but we got involved in other things, so we didn’t make it. Julie is planning a trip to the grocery store tomorrow, so we should be back on track tomorrow.