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Apache County Fair Weekend

The County Fair is always fun to go to, but much less fun now that the Horse Races don’t come to St. Johns any more. Mylea showed her goats Ryan and Agnus on Thursday, the first day of the fair, and Rustyn found the train. He and Mylea rode it over, and over again. We had our curly fries, snowcones, and other fair food goodness until 4pm when the carnival opened. Rustyn got his wristband and it was all over. He ran from ride to ride and went down the slide about 20 times. Emily, Dustin, Ty, and Jax showed up as well and everyone had some fun until the rain came. Saturday Mylea sold her goat Ryan for 410 dollars, and was very excited. We took some videos and you can check them out below. On the way home Rustyn crashed hard, and there was even a beautiful sunset to end the weekend.

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McBride Family Home Evening

Growing up I remember the majority of our Family Home Evenings were out at the ranch with our horses. Clancey came up to RV before heading to California where he is beginning a new job near L.A.. We roped and then had a bonfire of wood we had been cleaning up around the ranch. Hot dogs and smores were the treat, and we had a good lesson around the fire.

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Books | Hunger Games Trilogy

Well Audible has continued to make it possible for me to “read” books. It feels like cheating, but my morning commute has definitely become more enjoyable.  After finishing the Dragon Tattoo series, I started in on a recommendation of my sister-in-law.  The Hunger Games is a trilogy of books set in the future where a more controlling “capital” forces the cities known as districts into submission be forcing them to send two 12-18 years old to a televised fight to the death between the contestants from the other 11 districts.  The book’s story is centered around a girl named Katniss Everdeen who is from a district who’s industry is mining.  The story centers around the action of the Hunger Games themselves, love, and the struggle of Katniss dealing with the emotion of participating.  It is hard to add much more because it was enjoyable enough to not want to reveal anything that occurs in the books.  I would recommend it as a casual read or listen.

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Football, Roping, & a Reception

Football season has started, and we were able to make it to the Freshman, 8th Grade, and the Varsity games this week.  I took some fun panorama shots with my iPhone, and each one turned out different.  Saint Johns played Round Valley in Saint Johns, and we sat on the track, and even though the Elks lost it was exciting to see the game and be a small part of the action again.  Today my dad roped in Linden, and we stopped by on the way to Green’s Peak to see Amanda’s family that has a nice camp established up there.  The roping was also great, and a good time watching my dad get to rope.  Alex and Rustyn even got to ride Terry in between runs.  I am blown away at the caliber of photo that the iPhone 4’s sensor is capable of.  With Camera+’s clarity post-edit I have my new wallpaper for my iPhone. IMG_0717 and IMG_0719 are my two favorites (719 is the image a the top, and 717 is below the gallery).


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Hot is an understatement!

We drove down to the valley for the weekend for Eben’s Mission Farewell. (http://www.ebenwhiting.com)  We started on Friday with some work at a client’s office.  After they offered to babysit our kids so we met Jenn at the Temple and was able to do some “work” there.  I think that the picture I took looks a bit fake because it looks so pristine.  Later that day we went and had dinner with some friends and then headed back to the Hotel Atkin.  The next morning the kids got to swim again, and they both really enjoy the water.  It makes me sad that we don’t have a pool locally now.  We finished the weekend at Jeff’s house and had a great time.  You can see that Rustyn had wat too much fun and feel asleep while still trying to play.  Eben’s farewell was nice, and it was amazing to see all the people that came to see him off.  Rows of people i’ve never met before came to hear him speak.  Rustyn, MeeMaw, and I went and saw Blue Dog before we left, and he seems to be doing well even though he doesn’t look very healthy.  When we get back to Round Valley we ran out to the ranch to pick up Luna and our truck.  When we got there Rustyn got to met a new friend.  Tentatively name “Jean” at the moment, the miniature horse is the same height as Rustyn.  You can tell by the picture that he’s a bit excited about the new horse.

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RVRCE | August 20th

Between a horse virus and a wildfire we had to cancel two of the big rodeos that we had planned this past year. Last weekend we had our final scheduled rodeo for the season. Everyone seems to have been in a funk since the fire, and even though the majority of the people were only displaced for a week it seems to have a lasting affect on all of us. It was an enjoyable time, and Alex had her first rodeo. I think there are some pictures of it on MeeMaw’s camera. Doesn’t seem like we should be putting the rodeo stuff up and hauling wood yet. Here comes fall I guess.

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Navajo Tacos at Gwen’s

Sunday we went and visited Gwen and had Navajo Tacos.  I took a picture of Gwen, but she’s taking a big ‘ol bite of her lunch so you’ll have to deal with Rustyn playing in the tree, our drive home, and a picture of FHE the next day.  If you look enough at the Scrabble board you will see that Rustyn began to help us out with some of the words.

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Books | Dragon Tattoo Trilogy

Book/s – The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest

Author – Stieg Larsson

This trilogy was originally written in Sweden, and has been translated into English.  it is currently being made into movies both in Sweden and in the USA.  It surrounds the abuse of women in Sweden (which I didn’t know when I began the series).  I found the books to be an engaging listen, and only slow at a few points.  There are a few graphically described scenes that I wouldn’t recommend listening to say with your wife on a long trip.  Halfway through the second book the books changes back to more of an action/problem solving book, but I had already lost Amanda at that point.

The books follow two characters: Lisbeth, a computer hacker and Mikael, a Journalist.  Throughout the books they unravel a thick and twisted plot and intertwines into their own lives.  I would consider it a techno-thriller similar to the writing of Michael Chricton whom I also very much enjoyed reading throughout high school.  The books mesh together well, while the second and third book do a much better job at it.  It almost appears the first book was written, and when it turned out to be a success the next two books were written.  I understand the ending, but if left me wanting another book or another chapter to know where things would go from there.

All in all, they were a good series of books, and I would recommend with the disclaimer of the five or six graphic sexual encounters that do occur during the trilogy.  Again, after halfway through the second book it appears the author has either made his point or gotten over it, and moves on to advancing the plot.