The Berryhill / Powell Connection

The last few days have been a blast! After much talk something happened that I never thought would happen. All the male cousins from my Mom's side of the family (Berryhill is her maiden name) got together for a fun weekend on the lake. This was something that has been talked about but you figure it will never really work out where everyone can come due to jobs, families, lack of money etc. It did happen and it was such a good time. We all went to Lake Powell down on the Utah/Arizona border...WHAT AN AWESOME LAKE! The best part of it and the part that absolutely drove the wives and aunts (my Mom has 4 sisters) crazy was it wasn't planned out, we knew where we were going but that's it, we didn't know where we would sleep, eat, or do everyday but just spontaneously winged it every day, it was great. One of my cousins (Scott) brought his boat and we went boating, swimming, cliff jumping, tubing, wake boarding, skiing, and played tons of board games. The first night we all arrived about 1 or 2 in the morning which would usually mean it's time for bed but we didn't go to bed, we instead went and explored the marina, docks, and house boats. When we finally did decide to go to bed we went to the parking lot blew up air mattresses and slept in the boat and truck beds. We slept for like 3 hours woke up and went out on the lake all day. Lake Powell is a canyon lake with miles and miles of channels, bays, coves and canyons to explore, you can find your own "private" lake area any where you go. The second day it ended up raining and being windy but that didn't get us down we ended up going and getting a single person hotel room in Page, AZ all snuck in our air mattresses and covered the floor with them to sleep on, and played games(Liar's dice, Settlers of Catan, Risk, Axis and Allies) all day long...So Fun! We would go somewhere nice to eat every night and just eat snacks during the day. The next day we slept in and then saw it was a nice day and even though we needed to leave for home in 3 hours, we decided to go back out on the boat and get the most out of our time. Then back home we went, which was an adventure in it's self, 4 of us (Scott, Chae, Brandon, and myself) came from Salt Lake (the others from Arizona and New Mexico). Well since Scott's Suburban had broken down a few days before we were to go, he had to borrow a truck to pull the boat, the only problem...it was a single cab pickup. Leaving SLC we all 4 squeezed very tightly into the cab, until we got out of the city. Then we blew up an air mattress put it in the back of the truck put one person back there covered with a sleeping bag and travelled the rest of the way (5 hours) we would take turns riding in the back and sleeping...again it was great! As you can tell we had a lot of fun. Can't wait to do it again in 2 yrs (don't tell the wives but we made a deal we would be doing this every other year)...I'm counting down the days! The view we woke up to the first morning.

RP and Caleb "Let the tube wars begin!" We had a tube war single elimination tournament Chae ended up winning.

Brandon and Wyatt in tube wars

Doing a little exploring

Chae has conquered that cliff!

"Check that out!" Cruising the lake looking at the amazing scenery. (see more below)

This is Ace jumping off the 40-50 ft cliff that we all jumped off of. You don't realize how high it is until you jump... as you'll see/hear in the video.

The Pact has been voided!

Well, if you've have known Em and I for very long you know about our pact we made for our family when we got married...WE WILL NEVER OWN AND DRIVE A MINIVAN! Well the pact is now obsolete. Finance and space issues have beat out style, power, trend, and coolness. We got a minivan. This goes against everything we believe, but now that we have it, we kinda like it. Call them what you want ("Mom Mobile", "Mormon Motorhome", "Turd Taxi", "Kiddie Cart", or "Wiggle Wagon") minivans are convenient, affordable, and efficient. We do have to love how easy it is to get the kids in and out of, and we don't have to take Jordyn's wheelchair apart anymore (it fits in the back fully assembled YES!!!). Evan is mesmerized by the power sliding door that opens "magically" anytime we reach our destination. We were somewhat forced into getting a new vehicle this weekend, it has been in the plans due to the growing family (our car would not fit three car seats) but due to the car falling apart and breaking down this week it expedited the process. Of course, we first looked at SUV's, but for the money you can't get anything less than 10 yrs old and with less than 100's of thousands of miles for a decent price (by decent I mean something that fits in our budget). So the next time you see us pull up in the van, if you would, make us feel a little better by referring to it as our "Family Ferrari" instead of the "Loser Cruiser" that would be nice...Thanks!

2002 Dodge Grand Caravan other wise known as...The Bybee Bullet!

Tiger Striped Pigs?

It's not very often that email "forwards" are worth more than a quick glance, and then into the trash file, but I found this one entertaining, inspiring and interesting. The pictures are great!

In a zoo in California, a mother tiger gave birth to a rare set of triplet tiger cubs. Unfortunately, due to complications in the pregnancy, the cubs were born prematurely and due to their tiny size, they died shortly after birth.

The mother tiger after recovering from the delivery, suddenly started to decline in health, although physically she was fine. The veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused the tigress to fall into a depression. The doctors decided that if the tigress could surrogate another mother's cubs, perhaps she would improve.

After checking with many other zoos across the country, the depressing news was that there were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to the mourning mother. The veterinarians decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment. Sometimes a mother of one species will take on the care of a different species. The only orphans" that could be found quickly, were a litter of weanling pigs. The zoo keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin and placed the babies around the mother tiger. Would they become cubs or pork chops?





Don't know if this is all true but it's entertaining all the same.

What to do in Twin Falls, ID

This past weekend we took a trip to the world famous Twin Falls Idaho (OK it isn't that famous). The Wilkins, our good friends from my mission, met us half way between Salt Lake and Boise and that just happens to be Twin Falls (not exactly halfway but the only civilization in between). We had a hard time coming up with things to do there but we had a good time just visiting and being our crazy selves. The whole Wilkin family came up, all 9 of them, it was a blast. Who knew it was so hot in Twin? We all stayed in two hotel rooms, had a hot picnic, and viewed the sites. The sites consisted of the Shoshone Falls, some public swimming hole made on the banks of the river, and a big bridge. The swimming hole ended up being fairly entertaining not because of the good swimming but because of the Twin Falls locals. This place looked more like a Kentucky backwoods family reunion-in other words for lack of a better phrase total white trash chaos (I don't want that to sound mean because I'm a little white trash myself at times and proud of it). Anyways, if you didn't have at least 6 tattoos on your chest (male or female) and at least one dangling earring somewhere on your bare overweight body you did not fit in there. It was a people watchers heaven if you could stand to watch. Man I sound mean but it was pure entertainment. The next day we spent a lot of time at the I.B. Perrine Memorial Bridge (longest span bridge in the west at 1500 feet long-that was for you Susan.) and we found some entertainment here also. It is 486 feet above the Snake River and I guess a great bridge to jump off of with a parachute (base jumping). It was pretty cool to walk with the random people out on the bridge and stand right next to them as they jumped. Their adrenalin was shared with the spectators as it seemed at least on one jumper (a girl going for the first time) that her chute was not going to open, that made all of our hearts skip a few beats. Overall Twin Falls turned out to be fairly entertaining, but if any of you know the Wilkins these events above don't hold a candle to how entertaining the Wilkin family is...they're are all extremely fun to be with and make everything you do exciting! Thanks Wilkins for the good time we had a blast!!!


Evan didn't like the cold water but sure liked the mud!

The bridge

You could feel the bridge flex when a semi drove over

The girls enjoying a blistering hot day under the bridge


Jordyn's new friend Aubrey


One of those crazy adrenalin junkies

Ketchup taco's and sweet cottage cheese!??

Tonight as we were making our taco's there was only enough sour cream for one taco, so I let Emily have it. I rummaged through the fridge looking for some other condiment I could liven up my taco with... hmmm pickles... no, cottage cheese...possibly, mustard...no, I usually do put ketchup on my taco's and so do a lot of my family, but there was no ketchup. Well I came across the cream cheese spread and thought, "what the heck it's kinda like sour cream it couldn't be too bad", and well it was quite good if I do say so myself. I got to thinking while eating it the strange things that I put on food that doesn't seem "normal." One of those like I said is ketchup on my taco's that is a norm on my Mom's side of the family and I grew up thinking it was normal but then once I got out of the house everyone thought it was wierd. Other things that seem different are sour cream on my scrambled eggs and ham, milk poured over cake- as long as it's chocolate cake with chocolate frosting I heat it up in the microwave till it's piping hot and then pour cold milk over and eat it like cereal...mmmmm good! One other thing I enjoy is bannana's on my peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich that is a new one for me that I tried and really liked it. I come from a family that puts wierd things on other things my mom with the ketchup but that doesn't compare to my dad who puts sugar on his cottage cheese, salt on his catalope and eats saltine crackers crushed up with milk over them...all things I never adopted. So what strange things do you do to your food I'm curious and need some more ideas to try.

First Official Business Trip

Well all you may be tired of me only posting about my job all the time, but this is what takes up most of my time and I haven't come up with anything else to blog about, so more about the job.
My first travels for my job send me to Tamarack, CA where I will be giving (mostly learning how to give) technical assistance on how to stack one of our log houses.

I don't know California very well and didn't have any idea where Tamarack was and I basically had only had one place to compare it to that I've been to; Tuolomne, CA. Well it just happens that it is only about 60 miles away (I'll be darn!).


I'm excited to learn the process although it's going to be hard work in hot weather but it should be fun. Something funny happened when my boss told me I was going he said "I've booked your plane tickets" and told me what day I would be leaving and what day I would return (for example "you'll be leaving Wednesday and returning on Friday") I thought OK I'll be gone for 3 days, but then when I looked at my flight schedule it was 9 days. So I went home and told Emily that I was going to be gone to California for 9 days, she was freaking out not knowing what she was going to do for 9 days in a town where she doesn't know anyone. The next day I was telling my boss about how I thought it was 3 days but was actually 9 and he was all confused saying "WHAT?! It is only 3 days!" he had actually scheduled my flight to return 9 days later instead of 3, but luckily it was a refundable ticket and he fixed it. He said "Thanks for catching that; I don't know what you guys would have done down there for an extra 6 days." Anyways I'm excited and enjoying the job more each day as I meet more and more clients and help them achieve their dream of a log home.

The new job, new home, and new name

First of all our status has changed, as far as where we live, and with that the name of my blog must change too, as has been brought to my attention by a few people. I did change the name but I will leave the web address the same, to save you all some work.

Well, as you all know I have started my new job. I'm enjoying it so far and think it will be a continuing good challenge (which is good). I really think I'll enjoy it, especially meeting with the clients and keeping them updated on their project, which is our (the project managers) main job. It consists of a lot of e-mailing, and calling clients, builders, engineers etc. Again, the part I've enjoyed most is , meeting the clients, another part of our job is to do a presentation in the design meeting-a meeting where the client comes to the office, when they've decided to go with our company, and talks with the arichitect, designer, salesman and the project manager in a confrence room- my presentation consists of explaining our "client connect" feature on our website (a tool the client can use to see the status and stage of his/her project) and then to explain the expected schedule and how things will be done. My region that I thought I was going to cover (see last post) is being covered by someone else, so now I'm in charge of all clients in California, and then every thing east of, pretty much, the mountain time zone line,(so Jenny and Chris when you want to build a cabin talk to me, since Joel and Maria already have one, you guys are my only potentials -although you'd be one of the few clients from Kansas since it's not known for it's MOUNTAIN homes-, oh I guess you from Cali. also would be under my jurisdiction). The region is interesting to me since I haven't been out east very much, and from the clients I've met so far, they're a different breed of people then those here in the West (at least those from the far East). I'm enjoying the people I work with and the company, it's fairly laid back (jeans and a polo job), there seems to be a lot happening right now and a lot of potential for the employees. Otherwise we are really enjoying our new house and what little we've seen of the Boise area.