Time To Say Goodbye!

The time has come to say goodbye to Utah. We make our big move to San Diego this Friday and it's a bit bittersweet. We're very excited to be moving on to the next phase of our lives and for me to be able to continue flying and move closer to my career. We are also very excited to be able to see Cassidy's family everyday and for Scout to spend more time with her Grandma and Grandpa Dean. We can't wait for the beach and the sun (I told Cass that maybe Scout will finally become the brown baby she was meant to be) and all of the fun things that San Diego has, although I don't know how much time I will have for fun with school.
At the same time we have made so many great friends here in Utah and especially in our ward and it will be sad and hard to leave everyone and the relationships that we've built here. It's pretty crazy and hard to believe that we are actually leaving. Ever since we got married Cass has always talked about how much she wants to live in San Diego and how much better California is than Utah. She couldn't take the winters and wished she was closer to family and now that we are leaving I am starting to think that she might resent me for making her leave Utah.
It's definately tough to be leaving all of our family and friends, but we are also looking forward to being closer to family and friends. We plan on being back to Utah plenty of times and hope that our friends can even come down to San Diego to visit so please keep in touch. So long Utah, you've been good to us. Thanks for the memories...

Spicing up our Date Night/FHE Part II!

You may remember a while back that I had posted about trying to have more fun and get more creative with our date night and also our family home evenings. Well after our first attempts we had a lot of fun, but it was getting hard to keep coming up with ideas and then to try and put them together. We've still done it as often as we can and it's been so worth it. Hopefully I'll have some more updates each month. This past Monday Cass had been starting to get things packed up and boxed and she decided that we needed to do something fun for FHE. So we called our friends the Wilsons (you may recognize them from posts such as "The Halloween Party") and also our firends and next door neighbors the Heatons and invited them to go on an African Safari. Cass made an excellent dinner of Lion Chops (Fried Chicken), Safari Smashed Potatoes, African Happy Juice (Lemonade), and a Savanah Sampler which included vegetables from all over the desert. We ate at our base camp before going on the Safari (Planet Earth - Great Plains, Deserts).








Then this past Wednesday we had our weekley Date Night. Many of you may have heard me complain about this, but before Cass and I were married I asked her if she would go golfing with me. She promised she would and I took it to mean that she would "happily" go and it would be something that we could do together as a couple OFTEN, but apparently I misinterpreted it and she was thinking that from the time we got married she would have the rest of forever to one day go golfing with me once. So I decided that I would just take matters into my own hands. I got a babysitter and told Cass Wednesday night that we were going on a date and it wasn't until the last minute that I actually told her what we were doing. At first I thought she'd just have fun driving the golf cart, but when she found out it was an extra $10 she vetoed the golf cart saying golf was too expensive. Then we get out to the first tee and just as the group in front of us is getting ready to tee off Cass starts talking. I let her know that you can't talk during someone's backswing. That brought another round of how rediculous golf is. So after two strikes and about 30 strokes, 30 mulligans, 45 minutes, and two holes later I was thinking that this might not have been such a great idea, but then she caught on and started to hit the ball and we ended up having a lot of fun. Cass ended up playing really well for her first time and I think that I may get another round out of her. Even if it takes me another three and a half years, I'll take it.







So the first time Cass hit it into the sand trap she just walked on in and picked it up and put it down on the grass and then hit it again. I didn't say anything, but then as we were walking to the next shot she says, "so what's the penalty for hitting it in the sand?" I told her that there isn't a penalty but you just have to hit it out of the sand. So that's why you see the video above. It was just after that swing that she asked me what the rake was for. She's not a fan of "etiquette."

A Trip To Temple Square!

So this past Sunday, my mom was in town. This isn't that rare of an occurrence, but my little sister also moved up here to Riverton a few weeks ago so we were able to get together with her and her little girl too. We met in Salt Lake on Sunday afternoon after church for a picnic at Liberty Park and then spent the rest of the afternoon at Temple Square. It was really pretty with the flowers out (notice the new Blog picture) and I was excited to go to the Museum of Church History. There is an exhibit on the renovation of the Salt Lake Tabernacle that I have been wanting to see for a long time but we never found the time. Thanks for spending the afternoon with us Mom, Aubri, and Ellie. We had a lot of fun.



Aubri, Ellie, Mom, Scouter, and I at Temple Square



Scout and Ellie






Some more Scouter and the flowers






In the Church History Museum they had a childrens section with a Nativity Scene and also a scene from Lehi's Dream from the Book of Mormon and you could dress up. Scout had a lot of fun there and also in the little replica of the Tabernacle Pulpit.

Happy Easter!!

April Showers Bring May Scouters!

West Yellowstone, MT

So we had a big trip planned a couple of weekends ago to go down to Phoenix and see Cassidy's family and some Spring Training baseball, but it didn't work out. We were worried about the 10 hour drive down and how well Scout would do so we decided to fly down on a couple of my Mom's buddy passes. I guess it was a pretty busy weekend in Arizona because we couldn't get on a flight for anything. Both Phoenix and Tucson were full, there were a couple of times when one of us would have been able to go, but with how full the flights were we didn't want to take a chance of having one of us there without the other.

We spent all day in the airport and weren't able to get on a flight. We thought about trying again the next day, but weren't to optimistic considering the day we just had so we decided to just bag the whole trip. Cass was disappointed because her family was going out there to meet us and we wouldn't be able to see them and I was bummed because for the first time the Dodgers were in Arizona instead of Florida and they had just signed Manny and I wasn't going to be able to see them.

I had already taken the time off of work and we were in the vacation mood so we decided to take a shorter three hour drive and head to Idaho and we had a lot of fun. It was a different vacation than we were planning on and we got snow instead of the warm sunny weather we were looking forward to in Arizona but it was still a great trip. We were able to see and hang out with an old mission buddy Scott and Katie Ulrich and their family. They made us dinner and we watched some March Madness and had a great time. We then were able to spend some time with my parents before heading to West Yellowstone, Montana for a few days.

My parents have a time share up there so we had a lot of fun hanging out in the room, watching movies, swimming, waking up at 3:00 AM when the fire alarm went off and trying to keep Scout happy. Yellowstone was still closed for the winter and it was freezing cold out side so we weren't able to go into the park, but we had a lot of fun. We even saw some Moose on our way home.

All in all it was a great trip, a little different than we had been planning and I told Cass I would make it up to her, but still it was a great trip.


Me with my future pet.


Cass with the Moose we saw.


Scouter enjoying the view from the front seat.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! So we had our annual St. Patrick's Day Party last month (I realize it's a bit late) and we had a lot of fun. We had a couple of families from our ward over and had a great night. Cassidy and our friend Riannon made some green Chicken Alfredo and our neighbors the Heaton's and the Webb's came over and brought some food and we partied.


Little Leprechaun Talan and Brandon, Me, and Leprechaun Isabella


Scouter trying to crawl.


The O'Malufau Family