What a pain in the ......

So about the time I started dating Michelle I got this pain in my ..... posterior.  Coincidence? I dont think so.  Just kidding! Michelle did not cause the pain in my posterior but a horse riding accident did.  I have had this little cyst growing over the past 4 years and finally it has started to become uncomfortable.  I obviously cant see it so I went to the Dr and he said ya that thing needs to come out.  So I schedule the surgery and a few weeks later I go under the knife.  It started off a little rough when the nurse blew through my vein.  For those of you who dont know what that means thats ok just know it hurts.  After the another nurse comes in she sticks me and in a few minutes I am in lala land.  So after the procedure the Dr came out and told my parents (who came to take me in) that the cyst was about the size of a baseball!! A BASEBALL!!! How fat is my posterior that I could have a baseball sized cyst in there!! I really need to lose some weight.

 This is before the IV incident.

I think this is going to leave a mark.  It was a 5 inch incision.

Winston Churchill made me do it

So I love quotes.  I have used a quote from Winston Churchill for years now that goes like this,"Never, Never, Never give up."  I really love this quote.  It is just so simple but a principle to live by.  I know Michelle has often thought of this quote during our dating years :)  But this day it was to get a 3 ft tall by 3 ft long by 2 ft wide water trough into my smart car with 3 bags of grain.  If I moved my driver seat forward more I think I could have gotten it in enough to close the tailgate but I only thought of that after getting in and driving away.

A Round and A Round

So as most of you know I grew up riding horses and I still own a couple.  But since we moved the horses down from Scottsdale to my brothers house we have not had an arena to ride in so the horses have been neglected.  Finally my brother decided to get the first step to a riding arena which is called a Round Pen.  He found a used one on craigslist that was in pretty rough shape.  We had to take all the wood off and re-weld all new legs on but it was finally ready to assemble!  If it had a top on it with red and white stripes it would be a circus tent!  Anyway these are the pictures of it going up.

 First you have to compact the dirt to make a solid base for the horses to run on.  This is the biggest compactor we could rent.  It also vibrates to help compact the dirt.  For about a day and a half I was watering the area down and then compacting and repeating this process.

 The first panels go up!

 We had to support the panels because they are designed to lean outward so the horses wont bump into the walls as they run around the inside.  The poles along the outside edge are holding up each panel until all of them are bolted together.

 Whew! the panels are up but we still needed to put two straps around the outside to hold it all together but the wood inserts to the panels go in first.

And wood inserts are gong in smoothly.  Each panel has two vertical 4x8 sheets of plywood with one horizontal across the bottom. 

Fast times in Vegas

On our way home from the Curtis family vacation in Midway, UT Michelle and I stopped to race a few cars in Las Vegas before ending our trip.  Below are the videos of me racing the Mclaren MP4-12C and the Porsche 997 Turbo S as well as Michelle's high speed drifting ride-a-long in a Chevrolet Z06.  I did have the top speed on the track that day in the Mclaren at 127 MPH.  All I can say is this is what I am doing for my bachelor party!

 

The Proposal

So to get to the Curtis family vacation in Midway, UT we flew into Las Vegas and rented a convertible Mustang and drove up to Midway.  We had the top down for the whole 6 hour ride up.  Needless to say after about 3 hours we were looking like lobsters.
I had planned to propose to Michelle at a place called Stewart Falls which is a "short" hike from Sundance ski resort.  This is right on the way to midway.  I had contacted Nikaela to see if she could meet us up there to take some secret photos from some hiding spots to capture the moment.  She agreed.  That might have been her first mistake.  While Michelle and I are driving up Nikaela is texting me about meeting up and if we are on time so Michelle is looking at me phone because I am the one driving and she is asking me whats going on with Nikaela and why are we meeting her.  I quickly covered my story saying that Ammon and I were going to try and go golfing.  Well we end up being about an hour late getting to Steward Falls and Michelle is freaking out because we were responsible for dinner that same night.  Michelle didn't know we were hiking to the falls until we got to Sundance.  So now she is freaking out even more.  About 3/4 of the way to the falls she asks what time it is and I say 5:40pm with a hesitation.  Dinner was at 6:30pm.  She is to the point were she just wants to get to the falls take a look and get going.  Well we get to the falls after about a 40min hike and she takes one look and says looks great now lets go.  I pull her over the the side of the falls and I tell her I have something for her.  I pull out a puzzle with all the pieces except the 3 last pieces that say,"will you marry me."  She is thinking ok lets do this puzzle quickly so we can get back to the house.  Well after she starts to put the puzzle together I ask her if she recognizes the picture.  She does and at that point starts to think something is up.  We get to the last pieces and I pull out the last ones and get down on one knee and sign,"will you marry me."  She says,"yes" and we hug and kiss.  I then tell her that this moment was captured by digital media.  She doesn't quite get it but I point to Ammon who is across the stream with a camera and then to Nikaela who is behind us with a camera as well.  The story doesn't end there, oh no.  Ammon and Nikaela hiked in the long way whereas Michelle and I took the ski lift half way and hiked the rest.  So Ammon and Nikaela are tired and thirsty so I suggest that we hike back to the lift then take the lift down.  Well there are a few issues with that; one is that we hiked down in elevation to the falls so naturally we had to hike up in elevation to get to the lift.  This was not very desirable.  Then by the time we got back to the lift it had shut down for a 2 hour break between the regular hours and twilight hours.  So we waited at the lift platform for an hour until the lift started again to take us down the mountain.  I would be remiss if I did not mention the lift attendant who was a bit fearful of the weird guy looking at her from around the corner (Ammon).  But her fears were dispelled when we just said we wanted a ride back down the mountain.  So the story doesn't end here either!  When we get to the bottom of the mountain everybody is hungry and thirsty.  We decide to eat there at Sundance.  I wanted to eat at the Tree Room but it was rented out so we asked for a table at the Foundry Grill.  Well we got there past 9pm which is the last time they seat guests.  I winked and smiled and the hostess sat us down anyway.  Apparently there is a dead zone in the restaurant where no cell service exists and we were sitting dead in the middle of it. Mean while back at the ranch, Jon and Joyzelle are getting worried because we had failed to tell the rest of the family that we were going to eat there at Sundance so Jon and Joyzelle were on their way down from Midway to find us, presuming that some misfortune had befallen us.  Well luckily we got back to the car after dinner and Michelle's phone had a bunch of texts and voice mails so she called and cleared everything up.  Whew what a story!  I thought to myself wow this did not go as smoothly as planned and I felt bad for Ammon and Nikaela for having to hike so far unexpectedly and be so hungry and thirsty and then to worry the whole family about us as well.  But you know what?  It will always be remembered even with all its craziness and I wouldn't want it any other way.
Below are a few photos of the Proposal experience.