Oregon or Bust!

Here are some pics from our trip to Oregon. First time for me.

The Portland temple.

Blow it up. You might be able to read it.

Gotta see roses in Portland.

Where else would we end up in a new town?

If you look carefully you just might see Kathy in her element.

The lovely bride!

The Hillsboro 4th of July parade is, shall we say, unique?

A coupla old duffers.

'57 T Bird

This shot's for Jacob!

This parade is one candy fest. Better than trick or treating. I came back with a haul!

We made it to the beach on the 4th of July!

Lost in the rain forest.

A Little Late

Yesterday we had the coolest rainbow here in Orem. It was actually a double but wasn't easy to see from our place and the photo didn't pick it up at all. Utah's been so rainy this spring you'd think it was Seattle! It's actually been nice to have it cool. It's made it a little tough for evening concerts. I hope Shawn Colvin's is dry next Saturday!









This is the really late part. Tuesday we saw Matt pitch for the first time. He does a great job. His team lost 7 to 2 but it was mainly due to poor hitting and too many failed attempts to steal bases. He also gave up the best hit ball I've seen since Matt started playing little league. The guy nailed a hard thrown ball and knocked it out in left center past the 2 outfielders his team had (they played with 8 people that night). It rolled out to the fence for an in the park homer that scored 2 runs. Can't really fault Matt for that one. Like I said it was a well thrown ball. The guy swung hard and level like I always preach to Matt. Bat and ball met perfectly. It really was a thing of beauty. Too bad it was at Matt's expense. Matt really has about the best control I've seen among the pitchers we've watched this year. He oughta stick with it!

SUMMER OF MY DREAMS

Last night I picked up tickets to see Shawn Colvin at Thanksgiving Point on the 20th this month. I've wanted to see her perform live for a long time. This is the first real opportunity I've had, so I jumped on it. I'm going with a friend at work who like me has a wife who doesn't share his musical interests. He's seen Shawn before and was more than happy to go with me. He describes her playing as: "Where's the second guitar?". Judging from her "Live '88" cd I'd have to agree that she really rips it up and her singing ain't half bad either. Those who are unfamiliar with her may know her from her one big hit, "Sunny Came Home". She's really not a pop artist and kind of lucked into having a major hit. It's never been her ambition. Prefers to be her own person. Anyway, I'm really stoked to see her and the venue's pretty cool too. Saw Peter Breinholt there last fall.



The other cool news is Suzy Bogguss is coming to Utah July 18th. She's taking a nostalgia tour with her family reliving her days touring the West in her Toyota Chinook camper before she became a Nashville star. Thus the old picture. They're touring their favorite national parks and picking up a few gigs along the way and just happened to schedule one at an equestrian facility in Charlston. Who knew?! I've been intending to do a write up about her for my top ten. I guess my procrastination proved providential. I'll do it after the concert and kill 2 birds. Again, I'm stoked! There are a number of other great possibilities for concertizing this summer. I'll keep ya'll posted.

More Matt

5/30/2009

Left fielder.

Covering second.

Looking to steal home.

Stealing home. Slide ------- Safe!

Idol thoughts

As I guessed, Kris Allen won AI the other night. My theory is that he had a combination of things going in his favor. He and Danny Gockey are somewhat similar and probably many of Danny's voters chose Kris. AI is one of the few family friendly programs out there in tv land these days and Kris has more appeal to middle America than Adam. The third factor would be the cuteness of Kris. I'm sure he garnered many more of the female voters than Adam. All of that being said, I believe Adam to be the most gifted vocalist to ever appear on the show. I don't think he need worry one minute about his future as a singer. It was similar to last year in the sense it didn't really matter who finished first. The top 2 are both sitting pretty. On a similar "note" I recently learned that Randy Jackson for the first time ever is promoting and producing a former Idol - none other than my favorite Idol of all time, Brooke White. She's looking pretty savvy from where I sit. I believe she has a bright future ahead of her.

Matt's Photo

Just for Shae. Here's Matt at bat from the previous game we attended. I would've taken pictures yesterday had Matt pitched while we were there .

Father's Day in May

We decided we needed a new weed whacker to take out the overgrowth that used to be our garden so we went to Lowes and got a nice Troybilt. It was last years model on sale and we also got 20% more off for taking the display because it was the last one left. Kathy used a gift card she got for Mother's day so it was really father's day for me! I guess her payoff was getting the weeds knocked down. I think I got the better of the deal. It's one of those manly tools kinda like a Sawsall - arrgh, arrgh!!! Too bad I didn't get a "before" picture. You don't really get a good idea of the job that thing did from the "after" pic. We also checked out Di and Sam's new railing. It's beautiful. Sam doesgreat work. We then went to Matt's second ballgame today. If we'd know he was pitching the 1st game we'd have been to that one instead. People gotta let us know! I also threw in a picture of our new bedroom ceiling fan. That was a real Mother's day gift. It fought me all the way. Who knew a ceiling fan could be a pain to install. Anyway, we're loving it. We're heading for a 90 degree day Monday so we'll really appreciate it. Don't have the swamp cooler hooked up just yet.