Bad boots

Sort of a strange conicidence, but both Harper and Hudson had funny boot malfunctions this year.

First, last winter season, Harper's boots started falling apart. The soles began tearing off. I tried glueing them on but they didn't hold and by the end of the season it was completely hanging off.

It was so bad that Harper started riding goofing so the worst boot (the one wear the tread was completely dislocated) would stay strapped to the board.

The next one involved  Hudson and her hiking boots. Funny enough, Harper actually got these boots from a random lady she visited in Montana, but the boots were a much better fit for Hudson. The lady must have known the boots were at the end of the life. 

The first time Hudson used them, was a 7 mile hike to 5th hot springs. We had a blast but not long after we started, the soles began peeling off.  Since we had to wear micro spikes, we were able to jimmy rig them to hold on for the majority of the hike, but by the end it was a pretty sad sight.

It's a lifestyle

I previously posted a while back about how Reece was having a phase with nudity and how frequently he would be naked or in his underwear. 

I have now come to the conclusion that it wasn't a phase, but rather a lifestyle decision. This kids has a comfort with being naked that I think even strippers would envy.

I genuinely believe he'd be fine just wearing his underwear outside but only covers himself with a 'modesty' blanket for the sensitivities of the general public.

Cardboard Regatta 2025

Morgan city's cardboard regatta is in its 7th year and this is our 3rd year participating. And it was probably our best year yet.

Each year we get better and faster at the construction and we add more kids to the boat. This year we added cousin Claire. That made five kids in the boat.

The construction was very different this year. First, we didn't use glue connect the cardboard, just duct tape. and secondly, I was better prepared ahead of time with the parts I needed.

So, firstly, glueing takes a long time because it has to be braced and dry before you can move into the next part. This year, we used 17 rolls of duct tape!!! but it was so much faster.

And second, we just had a better plan. We knew what we wanted to build way ahead of time so we are able to get the cardboard pieces we wanted. In fact, one of the young men who grew up in our neighborhood now works in flooring and was able to supply us with many many cardboard tubes. Very useful for our project.

We used all sorts of power tools including chainsaws to speed the process up.

This all paid off because we were able to build the boat in one day, as opposed to multiple days.

Probably the best part was that we were able to get in the parade. The previous couple years, the boat wasn't completed in time for us to make it to the parade. The kids really enjoyed that part. I enjoyed it too. It was especially cool to use Harper's Jeep. This gave it a very military feel.

The Big Island with Harper

Harper and I finally went on our trip. We went to Hawaii, specifically the Big Island (called the island of Hawaii). Not to be mistaken for the main island (which is what Harper kept telling people). 

Here were a few of our adventures:

Boogy Boarding Death Run

Harper expressed some interest in Boogey Boarding. I was like, "Heck Yeah!", so on the day we planned to be our chill beach day, we rented some boogie boards and followed the advice of the employee who told us we could go over to Honl beach, a 4 minute walk down the street.

We get to the small beach and there are about a dozen kids boogie boarding out in the water. Sounds good, right?

I go out and try to catch a wave and as I'm flailing aorund I slice my foot open on the water. I try to ignore it and attempt to catch a few more waves. The kids come by me a couple times and tell how that this is a very dangerous place to be becaues the waves push you into the reefs; so you have to be able to steer yourself away from them. I finally got the hint and left. Luckily Harper stay in the tamer area and didn't get thrashed.

Harper had to put her medical assistant skills to use to fish sand out of my cut with a plastic knive. Very sanitary.

Later in the day, we did find a very sandy fun beach to get some more boogie boarding in.

"If I see that employee again, I'm gonna give her a knuckle sandwich."

Beware the Nene

Harper and I kept seeing signs everywhere about nenes. Nene crossing, don't feed the nenes, don't touch the nenes, don't look at the nenes (I made that last one up). But we had no idea what a nene was.

We started getting freaked out about what a nene was. Eventually we found out a nene is Hawaii's goose; one of a few of their endangered animals. Phew

Harper won't take pics with me

Apparently, I'm a bad photographer, because Harper doesn't want to be in any of my selfie pics. Her face says it all (in most of the pics in this post).

Dark Chocolate and Nuts

In a strange moment of our trip, we made a stop at Target to pick up some supplies and snacks. I left Harper in charge of picking out snacks. It wasn't til we left that we noticed everything we bought had dark chocolate and nuts in it. It was a little odd. Like Harper was subconsciously craving it.

Snorkeling

We took an excursion to captain cook bay to do some snorkeling. Really nice, fun place.

Just come - Jaden/Carson

Hawaiian History Course

Harper didn't realize this trip doubled as an in-depth Hawaiian History crash course. the first hotel we stayed at was the Royal Kona Resort and it had paintings of all the Hawaiian Royalty, starting with King Kamehameha I, the first King to unite all the Hawaiian islands. 

Coincidentally, one of our excursions was a hike to the  Pololū Valley Lookout and the restrooms happened to be right next to the King Kamehameha I statue. 

But that wasn't even the weirdest part. The day we were checking out of the Royal Kona, happened to be "King Kamehameha" day; complete with a festival and parade. So, we watched about a billion horses go by (seriously, I think there are more horses on Hawaii than in Utah).

Pretty crazy.

Volcano

The volcano Kilauea, has been quite active with repeated periods of little eruptions called fountaining. I was super hoping we would catch it. And it did happen the first day we were there but I wasn't paying attention. So, I signed up for notifications and started checking the live feed. The last day of our trip was the day we had scheduled to visit Volcano National Park. I had high hopes because it was bubbling up, oozing lava and occasionally splatting lava out.

Unfortunately nothing happened. To be clear, it was a really cool place. The hikes and views were amazing. And we even hiked at night through the steam vents and that was really neat.

What was frustrating was the day after we left, kilauea went nuts and gave a full show. Lava thousands of feet in the air. Oh well.

Honorable Mentions

Here are some other fun things/moments worth mentioning:

Exploring some lava tubes, paddeboarding at a private waterfall (they don't let you do that at the public ones, Pololū Valley trail, eating raw coconut from the ground (stranger on the beach opened a couple and offered us some), black sand beach, white sand beach, green sand beach.

Saddest iphone in the world

I've mentioned before that harper seems to leave a wake of destruction in her path. Whether it is tearing up the church program during sacrament meeting or napkins during a plane ride (see exhibit A below):

But let's talk about her phone situation. Harper finaggled a phone earlier than either of her older siblings, partly because we had a couple light phones (simple phones) from her siblings that she started using. But she then, within a few short months, lost or broke them both. So, she got a smart phone. 

She has gone on to destroy or lose more phones and any of her siblings combined. Her current phone is in bad shape. And the worst part is it isn't even hers, it's Hudson's phone - who is currently living in Scottland.

Just look at this thing. The case and screenprotector are barely holding on. I can't even see how the screen protector is still protecting anything.

Surprisingly, it still works, but just barely. There's a little bit of karma her, because Harper can't justify getting a new phone if this one still works.

You got a Fast Car

Gideon recently got his learner's permit but hasn't driven too much, but he finally got a high-stakes opportunity. On our way back from Boise, he offered to drive.

Reece was not thrilled with this idea and took some precautions.

Gideon is really smart, a fast learner, and a law-abiding citizen. I wasn't worried about him taking risks, but it was the freeway so we were driving fast. I'm pretty sure he was more nervous than me, but he did great.  

Did he get the car up to nearly 100mph? Maybe.

What's in the box

On a recent trip to Idaho to visit Uncle Russell and cousins, we stopped at "The World's Largest Garage Sale". It was a massive parking lot with rows and rows of vendors hawking all manner of stuff.

The boys didn't find much that appealled to them but they were intrigued by a vendor selling "Amazon Mystery Boxes". They even were allowed to pick out the box; which they spent quite a bit of time doing.

Their imaginations ran wild as we drove home. They were sure the box they had picked was chuck full of legos, based on the sound it made.

When they got home, they ripped it open with all their cousins. There was a smorgasbord of stuff. From 10 packs of q-tips (500 each. that's 5,000 q-tips) to four doggy doors to large men's underwear to vitamins (that's what sounded like Legos). It was a fun exploit, but I'm guessing they probably will not make their money back. Who knows.

Everybody's doing it

Reece and his friends talked about buzzing their hair. So, on the day of his haircut, he requested the buzz. The hairstylist confirmed with him several times to make sure this is what he wanted. Reece threw caution to the wind and proceeded. Here is the before and after.

He was not pleased with the results. The good news is his friends also went through with it so at least he has some solidarity with them.

Epic Ski Season

We just wrapped up the 24/25 ski season and this year was pretty epic. 

I actually taught at Snowbasin (a couple days a week) which provide season passes for the kids and buddy passes from friends.

Poor Hudson. She's in Scotland so she couldn't board with us this year. She loves boarding. But the bigger tragedy is Tate didn't go once this year even though he had a free pass. What a bum!

Here were some of the memorable moments from the season (both good and bad),.

• Hanging out with friends and family.

My friend Ryan and his son as well as my brother Russ and his family were able to ski with us. Really fun.

• Reece's Face mask

For what reason, Reece really liked to have his face completely covered when he rode. It was a funny looking but also his black attire made it difficult to spot him. I usually was only able to distinguish him from other skiiers by his stature and riding style (a really fast pizza).

Even Gideon is giving him weird looks

• Christmas Eve Light Parade,

I got to be in Snowbasin's light parade Christmas eve. It was a really fun event.

• Harper tried snowboarding

Harper has been officially converted over to a snowboarder. Like most people, it was a struggle at first, but she was cruising pretty well at the end.

There was a day when we ate it hard, bloodied her nose and proceeded to get blood on everything. Not her best moment but she persisted.

The tide is now turned. We now have three snowboarder kids and two skiers (not sure if Tate even counts).

• The Snowboard Boot

As I mentioned, Harper learned to board this year. She was using a pair of boots that were already struggling a bit. The treads on the bottom of the boot had come off the year prior and I had glued them back on. This year, the treads immediately came off again, and then other bottom of the boot started flopping off. At the end of the season, because it was the tread on the right foot, Harper started unstrapping her left foot (going goofy) when getting on the lifts. And she was coming up out of the boot when she rode. In the final days, the boot gave up the ghost and the bottom completely came off. We certainly got our money's worth out of that thing.

• Pond Skim and Costume contest

On the last weekend, Snowbasin has a costume day and does a pond skim. Reece came in his full dinosaur outfit. He couldn't see a thing but it was a big hit. He even attempted the pond skim in it. He totally wiped out but it was awesome.

• Improvement and shenanigansPond Skim and Costume contest

We went boarding/skiing a lot this season and the kids really improved. The kids even got comfortable going to the freestyle park. And they did a lot of screwing around.

All in all, a good year.