Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Learning From History

We headed to St. George over this last weekend for Ian's rugby tournament. I'll put up another post about the tournament later. They had some tough matches in terrible weather. Ian played great, but no wins :(

After the tournament, we headed up to the red rocks just north of town to walk around a bit and see the sights. Also, I wanted to show the kids the cliff their mom jumped off on our first date.

Aimee and I went down to St. George with some friends to bum around and hike a bit. After several trips to Zions and some slight exaggerating, Aimee had me convinced that she liked the out of doors. She had not yet specified that her style of outdoors was hanging out in the backyard by the pool with an unlimited supply of Diet Coke, electrical outlets and enough artificial nighttime lighting to suntan under. Turns out, the lighting was an especially important detail...

Incorrectly assuming that Aimee was as happy to be out hiking the day away as I was, we ended up straggling behind and didn't get heading back to the car until dusk. I was now unaware of two important facts: Aimee is has no depth perception in anything less than full sunlight and after hiking around aimlessly for several hours she was more likely to leave me behind for dead than listen to anything I had to say.

The first drop-off we came to was about 4 feet. Angry Aimee was not excited about going around it and insisted we just slide down. I managed to talk her around it and in doing so, used up the last tiny shred of patience she didn't have in the first place.

The second drop off, in the pic below, was slightly higher than the first. I pointed out the fact that the car was parked way down below us and that the path forward meant certain death. All she heard was, "The car is right there and if you get to it first you can leave me for dead."

Thinking I had made clear the imminent peril before her, I turned to head around and down to the car. I will never forget the 'WHOOSH, THUD' sound I heard immediately after turning around, or the absence of Aimee when I turned back around.

After a minute's panic as I ran down the hill and found that she was still alive and mostly unbroken, I decided she was probably just entertaining enough to keep dating.

spix100326_17661

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Another Rugby Win, sort of...

The teams were reshuffled a bit after last weeks matches and Ian was moved to the White team. The coaches are trying to keep the teams evenly matched. I'm not sure how well it worked, but the new Lowland White won 62 to 5 this weekend. Red won as well, 17 - 5 and seemed to have a tougher match.

Ian played a great game and had one of the 9 try's. He plays an aggressive game and is really enjoying the sport. I love watching the matches and have maybe found a sport I can get into. I'm not much of a sports fanatic, but the fast paced intensity of rugby is pretty addicting.

Saturday's game was windy and cold but there were quite a few brave fans out to cheer including Grandma and Grandpa Sutliff. Next weekend they head down to St. George for some tournament play and warmer weather.

(Ian's try in Saturday's match. You can hear the cows cheering in the background ;)

TRY! from aaron smith on Vimeo.


(click the pic to see the full gallery)
spix100319_16993

Saturday, March 12, 2011

First Rugby Match

Ian played in his first rugby match this afternoon and didn't fare too badly. He scored to two of the tries to help his team toward their 43 - 5 victory.

It has been a steep learning curve for him and us with this being his first year playing. The rules and terminology take a bit of getting used to, but we are all liking the game the more he plays and learns. It is much more of a coordinated team effort than football and definitely more fast paced and action packed.

Thanks to everyone who came out to support Ian in spite of the last minute time schedule changes. He loves having fans, and all the more because it's family. He's spoiled with support and we love you all for it :)

spix100312_16636