Utah Refwections

Well, it's been nearly a month since my last update, but I have a good excuse. I was busy and half of my blog-checking audience was in my immediate vicinity.

It was fun being back in Utah for the holidays. I was able to relax a bit, work a little bit, and spend a lot of time with friends and family.

I was able to conglomerate my rock collection...

Christmas, of course was great fun. We had our usual family parties on the days leading up to Christmas, Christmas Eve, and Christmas itself.

At one point I discovered Tim Tams at the local Target store and it made my day.

Why?

Well the Tim Tam is an Australian chocolate biscuit of world renown, which, until recently, was only available in select countries in the eastern hemisphere. Stories were told of its goodness, there were a few scattered instances where I was actually able to eat a Tim Tam or two over the years, but never had I had any abundance of this heavenly confection.

But one doesn't just eat a Tim Tam... they must "slam" it.

Let me explain:

You take the chocolate-covered biscuit and nibble off opposite corners like so...

You then take a bowl of hot milk and put one end of the nibbled Tim Tam into the milk...

You then drink up some of the milk through the Tim Tam like a straw and then pop the whole thing in your mouth letting it melt from the inside out.

The experience is pure enjoyment...

Alana, Haley, and I slammed until we had had our fill...

One day a few of us cousins went up Big Cottonwood Canyon to the Cabin, built by our Great Grandpa Layton in the 1940's...

The snow wasn't as high as in years past when we would go later in the Winter. Nevertheless, through our engineering prowess, we created a fine tubing run...

That evening we built a roaring fire in the living room and had fun in our jammies. We slammed some Tim Tams of course...

And we played some cards...

The next morning we awoke to over six inches of snow and our tube run was even better the second day.

We went home late in the afternoon, driving through the snow...

New Years was fun..

We played games...

I pointed at things while Josh plotted his revenge and Ivy looked on...

There were cats involved...

And I practiced my photo bombing...

Another event that occurred while I was in Utah was the inauguration (or "initiation" as we say on the West Side) of my brother Mike to the office of mayor of West Valley City, Utah's second largest city.

There was a bit of a crowd at City Hall...

...and food provided by you taxpayers...

In West Valley, when they do the swearing in, the city recorder just gives the elected official a high five and calls it good...*

Mike gave a nice speech, except for the awkward moment at the end when he said, "and I say these things in the name of...ermmm..." *

Other speech highlights:

"My first order of business in this city can be summed up in one word: tunnels."

"Neighbors and friends, did you know that by rearranging the letters of WEST VALLEY CITY, you get phrases like: 'YELL TWISTY CAVE,' 'A WETLY EVIL CYST,' and my favorite: 'SLY CATTY WEEVIL?' Now this is a great city..."*

The First Fam with the First Parents...

And this exclusive from the mayor's first office photo shoot...

One day I persuaded my friends Haley and Lewis to take me out to the shores of the Great Salt Lake for a winter photo shoot. Here they are...

We took a lot of photos that would work well for rock band album covers...

We followed the animal tracks towards the shore...

Lewis snapped a few photos of me in action and Haley looking amused.

Here you can see London, you can see France...

There were also hunters in the distance!

We crossed the snowy beach and so did the hunters...

All to shoot a bunch of ducks...

And us to shoot a bunch of photos.


Here's a nice one that Lewis took of my tracks as I ran ahead of the others...

Great Salt Lake!

The Saltair resort...

Really it was just fun tromping through the untouched snow...

And take jumping shots...

It was fun.

The last week of my stay I went with my friend Alan on a Southern Utah National Parks roadtrip. But that will be next week's blog entry. Here's a little teaser though...

Web-savvy Grandma Winder, a missionary at the Family History Center, showed me how to get registered and find my way around the new Family Search website. It's not every day you see a grandma teaching her 20-something grandson how to get around on the internet...

The entire family came over for a pizza party before I left...

On Wednesday morning I got to the airport around 5AM and flew out at 7AM to Atlanta and then to Munich. I enjoyed having empty seats next to me for both flights so I was able to spread out a bit more than usual.

Here's the sun just hitting the tops of the Uintahs...

Flying over the Colorado Rockies...

I got back to a snow-packed Munich on Thursday morning and now it's back to life as usual in Germany.

I had had a great four weeks in Utah! Thanks to everyone who made it fun!




*-embellished or made-up occurrence.

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