Bird Murder aka Liza's Absolution

We have arrived home on several occasions to find the above pictured 'bird murder' scene in our front yard. For whatever reason, Aimee decided that Liza had acquired a taste for quail and was sneaking out of the back yard to pounce on unsuspecting quail.
A couple problems with this theory are that quail are very suspicious little birds and Liza's stalking skills are something like a giraffe practicing yoga. Just not likely, but still the accusation stood. Until recently.

Avyrlie and I came home the other day just in time to see a hawk swoop into the front yard atop a herd of quail, land on its chosen victim, and squeeze it until it quit moving. Ian arrived home shortly after and saw the hawk take off with its meal to find a quiet place for dinner.
Sadly for Liza, Aimee witnessed none of this and still harbors some suspicions ;)

Avyrlie thinks you're cute ;)

Our Next Competitor

Avyrlie asked to play soccer this year so we signed her up and crossed our fingers that she wouldn't spend most of her time crying on the field. She has never been competitive and is usually a little sensitive about getting kicked by strangers.

During her first game we were still a bit unsure. She came off in tear once after getting kicked in the back of the knee and seemed to spend the rest of the game practicing her ballerina soccer dance. Very cute. Not competitive.



Today, for her second game she caught on to the whole scoring and teamwork concept. I don't try to push either kid to be overly competitive, but I do hope they at least catch on to the general point of the game. Today Avyrlie caught on that it is not actually ballerina soccer dancing ;)

You know it's rugby if there's blood on the field

Ian left his share today...

Loose Tooth Fun

Yes, I think this is kinda gross too:

Snow Day

What better way to enjoy conference weekend than in the snow! Avyrlie, Liza and I headed out for snowmen, snow angels and snowballs ;)

(click the pic for the rest of the gallery)

Zombie Attack!

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.

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)

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 :)