Where to live?

Fort Collins, Colorado

I found this quiz from the Fisher's blog. This quiz asks questions to find out the perfect place to live. I wasn't happy with my first answers so I did it again, and then tried to get the answers I wanted but never did at least not in the top 6. I wanted NYC & DC which I was able to get but not in my top ten. So I posted my top 6 from my first two runs. I'll have to have T take this to see if we would live in the same place or not.

I guess I'm just a medium sized city boy who has to be close to outdoor recreation. I have been to Fort Collins, it's nice, not sure I would really ever live there. I wouldn't mind living in Burlington Vermont for a time, I have been there also and it's a great place. Missoula is nice but not sure I could live there longer then a year. And no way in anyway would I ever live in Provo-Orem or Odgen!!! I think I'll just stay in Salt Lake!

1st go top six
1-Fort Collins, Co
2- Shelburne Falls, Mass
3- Provo-Orem, UT
4 -Burlington VT
5-Missoula Mt
6- Ogden, Ut

2nd go top six

1-Albuquerque, New Mexico
2-Charleston, West Virginia
3-Fort Collins, Colorado
4-Hartford, Connecticut
5-Burlington, Vermont
6-Shelburne Falls, Mass

Remembering Grandma

A few weeks back the Bartholomew's got together to remember Grandma Bartholomew who passed away 15 years ago. It was fun to get together, seems that we get together less often every year. Well, maybe that's because I now have two families and have to miss the activities of one to make it to the other. I'm the the third oldest of the grandchilren with the next one's down besides my sisters being 7-8 years younger then me. I feel bad that my cousins were not able to grow up with their grandma Bartholomew. The picture above is my grandpa with Elenore whom he married a few years ago, her husband passed away also.

My grandma was a great women, she was always doing something for somebody else. She always had goodies at her house, cookies, cake, bread, all homemade or some candy stashed somewhere. One of my funniest memories, I was riding in her car, we were at a stop light and some young punks pulled up next to us, and she said something to the lines of "I love to race these young guys, they think their so fast" and then she raced them off the line. Good times, she is missed.




Some of my cousins are bringing the '80's back! This is why I keep all of my clothes, so my kids can wear them, assuming that I was in-style. Actually, Im not sure what happened to all of my flannel, I bet that Marcee stole them all while I was on my mission. You know if the neon colors of the '80s are back, then grunge and flannel will be back for sure! Seems as though every generation brings their parents generation style back into style, too bad the '70s style didn't stick around longer, probably one of my favorites. When is the '20s coming back?

Below is a picture of a good portion of the family. My grandparents had 9 children, some of them adopted. I lose count how many grandchildren they now have, for some reason I'm thinking in the 30's. They have 9 great-grand children. I might have to change these numbers after my mom or sisters read this and call me to tell me the numbers are off, but they're close enough.





Jet came after the camera, he's getting pretty ticked! He has one of the biggest tempers I have seen and he doesn't forget that he's mad. When something doesn't go his way, he yells, kicks, screams, and throws things. If there is nothing close by to throw, he'll walk/crawl over to something he can throw just to throw it. T doesn't agree with me, but I think that it's because he's the baby and he can't be bad. A great example happened tonight, at pea pods b-day party he had a cup of ice cream and a fork. When he was done, T took them away from him. You'd have thought that she slapped his face! He didn't just cry, he threw a huge fit, walked into the middle of the room, trying to get sympathy not breathing because he was crying so hard. He then buried his head into T's lap until T shared her ice cream with him. This is just one example out of many.

Wednesday Tunes

I had a hard time choosing today's tunes but concluded on this one. Hope you like it.


An animated music video composed entirely of machine-knitted frames. The music is by the Montreal band Tricot Machine (which translates to ‘knitting machine’). Via http://drawn.ca/2008/11/09/knitted-animation/

Private Blogs

Blogger allows you to set your blog to private and only allow those you want to view your updates. Some people have done this, we have talked about it but have not felt we need to take that step. If your blog is on my list of blogs to the left and you have it set on private, add me to your list of people who can visit!! I know there are a few that I can longer visit because they are set on private. Of course, maybe you don't want me to visit, I get the hint though I'll just act like you forgot to add me to your list!

Preparedness Fair

Our Stake had a preparedness fair a few weeks back. We were inadvertently involved in the fair. I believe that because I work for emergency services that I become the default preparedness guy. Which is funny because I am probably one of the least prepared and if it wasn't for my mother-n-law I would have nothing for preparedness.

No, I really don't mind though we were asked if we would help come up with ideas for heating, cooking and lighting when the power and gas went out. That turned into providing the ideas which then turned into providing everything related to what we were asked and manning the table. It really was good for us and was actually a great experience. I usually get nervous about preparedness fairs, they seem to bring the crazy people out but it wasn't so bad, only a few crazies and they weren't really that crazy.

For cooking, I just brought my camping stoves and my mother-n-laws dutch oven and huge propane stove. I really should get a good dutch oven and learn how to use it. We also had heat in a can and some other storage heating stove. We had a pamphlet that my mother-n-law gave us that we passed out talking about emergency lighting, heating and cooking. If you haven't already noticed the theme here, it's that I have no clue about emergency preparedness, while my mother-n-law is a preparedness pro!

I am going to do some name dropping! That's how I roll! Yes, I am standing next to Salt Lake City Councilman Carlton Christensen, by far one of the best if not THE best city councilman anywhere. Also we met Gov. Gary Herbert, not a fan, but still the Gov. He said that he had a business partner that was a Bartholomew and I quickly asked for a job! No, just kidding. I told him that I didn't know the man but pretty sure that we were related.

Wolverines!!!

I love Red Dawn! I went to Hunter High school, they are the Wolverines. So my senior year in high school, we watched Red Dawn about once a month, doesn't sound like a lot(my sister watched Grease everyday for a year, twice on Sundays) but for a group of teenage boys to watch the same movie, that was a lot! We had a lot going on. Anyway Patrick Swayze was the man. We can forgive him for Ghost.

Patrick Swayze - She's Like The Wind

Calf Creek

Part II

We took lots of pictures and had lots of fun and I didn't want to make my the last post forever long. Not as many pictures in this blog.

Sunday, we got up and kind of just hung out around camp. We had talked about hiking up to Calf Creek falls but after the experience from the day before, I wasn't sure the kids would be up for the hike. The hike is pretty easy other then it gets hot and is kinda long, especially for kids. We finally decided just to do it around 11ish. So we loaded up on water & snacks, left the pregnant woman at camp and hit the trail.




We took a dip in the pool, well Chad and I did. The water was FREEZING cold! Cash did because I dunked him, he wasn't happy about that at all. I think the girls kinda got in. T was a big wimp, actually she said she didn't want to swim in it because she didn't want to smell like fish. haha! Too funny. When you swim close the falls, there is a current and was actually kind of fun. Chad swam up right under the falls, he said once you got in close enough the current sucks you in. It was nice to cool down and lower the body temp before heading back to camp.




Cash talked the Whole way there and the WHOLE way back! He has little legs and walked about three times the distance I did. On the way in to the falls, I stuck back with him most of the way and we had all sorts of conversations, mostly about when the Indians come back alive. Not sure how many times I had to tell him that their are Indians alive now and that they live just like us. Towards the falls, T stayed back with him so I could power to the falls, Jet was getting pretty upset about spending so much time in the backpack.

Jet pretty much cried the whole way back, kept him entertained for a while with my camel pack water hose. Didn't work the whole way, so I booked it out. The crazy thing is that the girls kept right up, didn't complain, well big K and b butt didn't complain and just hiked right along. After getting back to camp, I dropped Jet of with the pregnant lady and cruzed back to meet T and Cash. They weren't too far behind, about 3/4 to a mile back. She was carrying him but said she had only carried him a little. It's a 5 1/2 mile round trip hike, the girls went the whole way, K bug was carried a bit, and Cash made it almost the whole way. Pretty good for a 3 year old. I'm surprised that he didn't get tired from all the talking!



T has spent the past month or so deep into Harry Potter books. She was trying to finish the 6th book while we were camping and tried to read every minute she had. She has also been staying up way past her bedtime reading all the books. She has finally finished all 7 books and we can now go watch the 6th movie.

The ride home from Calf Creek was fun, it was a late night drive. We stopped in Tropic to visit my dad's aunt for a bit. She thought that I was my dad. "Oh, that's not Lani?" "No, it's his son" The kids loved it at her house, she had dogs, cats, cows and a peacock, they also have goats but they were out back. The kids were supper hyper when we got in the car and stayed awake way too late.

It was fun, we need to spend more time in Southern Utah.

Wednesday Tunes

Death Cab for Cutie: "Grapevine Fires"

Escalante

I love southern Utah and I specifically love Highway 12 and all that it has to offer. I really feel one reason why I love this area is because few people travel there. It is not close to anything and it's not a through road, it's a loop. I was able to get the Hiltons to travel with us down there for some fun a few weekends ago. It was a good time.

Sorry for all the pictures!



We were lucky to make it to Calf Creek campground to get the last camping spot left. They only have about 12 or so spots, that typically go pretty fast. While you can camp out in the wilderness just about anywhere in the area, we had a pregnant woman and kids, so it's much easier and worth the money for a campground.



We spent the Saturday waiting for the pregnant woman to get out of bed. I recently learned that Saturday is "sleeping day" at their house. We first went into Escalante, picked up some firewood and talked to the visitor center about the Hole in the Rock Road, and it's condition. The old couple told us the road was bad and they were nervous for us. Seems like they always tells us that. The road was fine for a dirt road, actually pretty good for the most part.

We visited Devils Garden. It was HOT but the kids had a blast running around on the rocks. As we were walking around we overheard Marc telling K bug that "it's really not his garden, it's just called that"



We then headed over to Spooky and Peekaboo canyons. T and I visited the area before we had kids and remembered it to be fun and easy, other then walking in 120 degree sand in 100 degree weather. When we got down to the entrance of Peekaboo, it was a bit different then what we remembered, wish I had taken a picture of it. For some reason I remembered it being an easy 6 foot wall climb, ya, it was about 15 feet and not so easy with kids and a pregnant lady. But we figured a way to get the kids up into the canyon and even the pregnant lady, who hung out at the mouth of the canyon with J man while the rest of us went up into the canyon. The kids loved it, 'cept Cash got scared a few occasions, he's not real fond of heights.


Where they waited


A look into the Peekaboo


On the back down, he was whining here.


B took the picture of me! And a picture of all the kids in the canyon.


One of the arches you climb through. The pic of b is looking out the canyon, kinda gives you an idea of how high the mouth was.

After this, the pregnant lady, T and J man hung out in the mouth of another canyon while the rest of us walked down to Spooky, about a 1/2 -1/3 mile in a HOT ravine. T had the camera so I didn't get any pics, I think that Chad did, so I'll have to get those from him. The kids thought that it was going to be a "scary" canyon because it's called Spooky. It's supper skinny and there was no way the pregnant lady could have made it far at all, the kids love it.

On the way back out, all the kids were warn out but we still had to hike out of the ravine. As we were about half way out the wind started to pick up, blowing sand everywhere, poor J man, who was on my back, just started whimpering. I felt so bad. The girls would have to stop and cover their eyes every time the wind blew. I hurried back to the car as fast as I could, as I got over the ridge the wind was insane, thought I was going to get blown off! By this time J man was crying, I hurried and put him in the car and ran back to get the girls, who were also crying and got them into the car. T was with Cash and Chad was way back with his prego wife. We all got back into the cars safely.

It rained on us all night and took away our desert sunset, Dang the clouds (shaking my fist)!!

I recommend that you wait until your kids are just a little older and that you don't take pregant woman to hike these canyons.