Last Archery Class

This was the last night of archery class. They can still go in and shoot til the range closes on Wednesdays but class is over. Kinlie and Parker were both there with Grandma so they got to shoot also. 

 Kini Bean

 Miss K

 Parker Bum

I have called him that since he was TINY and hes finally accepted Im not going to stop. Now he just smiles when I say it.

These kids have grown up so much! Its just hard for me to believe. Parker hit 5 balloons. Kinlie hit  2 or 3. Kennedy didnt get a single one. She was trying so hard but it just didnt happen.

 Class wasnt as big tonight as it has been the last few nights. It was nice!

 Lynn and Mom gave them all participation ribbons.

 Cant wait til next season!

Indoor range, Driving simulator and parent teacher conference

We went up to the range for a little bit to help out my mom and we took our bows with it. Chris Kennedy and I all shot. We wanted to see if Chris was actually able to shoot his bow. He had a tough time pulling it back but was able to. He shot two arrows at a time for about 6 shots and then his arm was completely spent. HUGE improvement! I was really excited he was able to shoot that many arrows. 

 I played around and shot a bunch for a while. It felt good to get my bow out and go for some paper.

 Wednesday night Chris surprised us and came up to archery class. He helped Kennedy shoot.

Kennedy and Macee had a picnic in the great sunshine weather we had

 Saturday afternoon we had to do EADS (Emergency Apparatus Driving Simulator) Class put on by UFRA (Utah Fire & Rescue Academy) Its a big long 60 foot trailer with a classroom in the front half and two driving simulators in the back half. The simulator is set up for driving an engine. You have 3 huge screens surrounding you for a full view like you're in the engine. Air brake, siren, adjustable mirrors etc.

You start out in the classroom.. go over somethings and they take you back two at time to the simulator. They run you through a scenario that you're really not going to 'pass'. You don't actually fail they just have errors for you to make as learning points. Then you go back into the class for more lecture, then back into the simulator. You go through several driving scenarios each one more complex than the first. 

The class really was a lot of fun and very informative! Our instructors were great and it really was educational. Before we knew it our 4 hours were up. They can make any vehicle and any scenario they want in the simulator. It can be snowing, dark, in an engine or ambulance, tanker.. you can get a flat tire, hit people, lose air pressure etc. Afterwards we asked if they would run the tiller simulator for us. Thats where you have the really long ladder trucks that someone drives the engine part and some one steers the back. Taylor drove the engine and Zack drove the tiller. The guys were messing with us and started Taylor off with a flat tire. He didnt notice and sped up. The guy stopped us and said "I have a question.. is this how it works in Willard? You get a flat tire so you drive faster!??" We told him yep! He got a good laugh out of it.

 The tiller is awkward because you have no control but a steering wheel. You cant speed up or apply the brake and when you steer its opposite of normal. You want to go left you turn right. They have to be in constant communication over the headsets with whats going on.

 We had Kennedy's parent teacher conference this week. Chris and I took her after archery. Her parent teacher conferences have always been good so I wasn't too worried. I was really shocked at this one however. She does exceptionally well at reading and math. The reading part I know she gets from me but the math????  She had been scoring well all year but this was even better.

The bar is where the class is and the dot is where Kennedy is. 

 This one was crazy! Beginning of the year her class was at 113 and she was at 173 which was great! But by now she is at a 376 and her class is at 130! Her teacher actually called her brilliant. We were shocked.  I mean everyone thinks their kid is smart but when you hear it from the teachers too it makes it even better. Her teacher also said she is very kind and works hard to be friends to everyone. They got a new student and she was the first to volunteer to play with him on breaks.  We celebrated her great parent teacher conference by getting her two new chapter books at the book fair afterwards

Grouse Creek Burn

Wednesday night we got a call that they were going to try and do a prescribed burn out at Grouse Creek Friday. They had to wait for a burn index clearing to be able to do it. We packed all our gear, put together our packs, made arrangements for Kennedy and packed the truck just in case we got the green light. 

 We got the go ahead and headed out to Grouse Creek bright and early Friday morning. We needed to be at the fire station there at 8:30. Its about a 2 1/2 hour drive. They have a huge area that on an agricultural grant they came through and railed about 3-4 years ago. Basically they come through an area and knock down trees and bushes. They let them sit for a few years to dry out and die and then they get burned and reseeded. The land we were burning had been very thickly overgrown with cedar trees. It creates soil and feeding problems for the farmers. They run so many cows on their land and the more cedars that grow the less feed the animals have and less grazing area. So the State puts out grants and projects to help deal with it. With it being a grant that the landowners got they were able to be a part of the burn. They were out lighting with us and telling us what parts they wanted burned etc. The landowners in our group were super awesome

We had a good group of people volunteer to come out and help. We were divided into 3 divisions. Ours was the Red Butte area. They had railed the area and some of the dead trees/bushes were pilled into large bunches to help burn better. It was COLD out. The highest it got for the day was 40 degrees. We were mid 30's when we started. We took an area and lit it on fire with our drip torches. A drip torch is a big canister filled with 3 parts diesel and 1 part gasoline. It has a wic on the end that you light on fire and a little spicket where the fuel mixture is dripped out and lights on fire as it comes out of the can. The RH (relative humidity aka the amount of natural moisture in the air and in your weeds, trees grass etc) was higher that day. We had strong winds at our backs but with a high RH the fire didn't spread at all. It stayed contained to the piles we lit. It didnt even hardly burn the grass around the piles.

There were 6 of us in our group. We spread out in a line and started hiking and lighting on fire. We kept the winds mostly at our back and lit so the fire followed a certain path.

 Ryan (landowner)

 There was a lot of hiking. We had draws we had to walk up. We had to stop about every 40 minutes or so and hike back to the truck to refil our drip torches. We had a lot of thick piled areas we needed to light. 

 We had to stay somewhat in a line so that we kept everyone even and safe. Sometimes we would have to stop for a minute for everyone else to catch up so we kept our line.

 Cyndi (Brigham Fire)

 Jeff

 Max (landowner)

I wore my new gear I had just got from the grant this year. Which included new boots. I tried to break in my boots before we left but didn't have much of a chance. My feet were rubbing some but not bad. Then all of a sudden I felt a blister on my heel. We were still ok and then it popped. Damn that hurt. Thankfully Chris had moleskin in his bag and I took off my boot on the side of the hill while he cut me a square and then I was good to go!

 We burned til about 1:30 and then we stopped for lunch. We had brought sandwiches and trail mix. We just sat on the ground and had our little lunch and it was back to burning again.  One of the drip torches had stopped working. They asked me to be lookout so I let Chris take my torch. My job was to hike up to the top of the hills we were on and keep an eye on everyone. At least the top half of the people. Not everyone had radios so they tried to place a radio at the top of the hill, one in the middle and one on the end. I needed to make sure I could keep a headcount of those on my side and that we had no problems and to stay hiking ahead of them. Cyndi took this picture from where she was on the bottom end of the fire. I was clear at the top and had to hike out with everyone when they ran out of fuel and hike back up and ahead of them when we started up again.

Dusty who was the manager over this whole burn (who also is Chris's cousin) came out and played with us for a little bit towards the end. 

 It was still windy and cold. We had dark clouds rolling in. The temperatures started dropping. It was nice to be able to stay closer to the fires to keep warm!

 See all those little patches of railed trees, each one had to be lit on fire separately since we had no fire running.

We burned until dark. We lit the last bit of fire at 6pm. By then it was 35 degrees. 

 The winds had shifted. The clouds dropped and the temps changed which socked the smoke in. 

Dusty and Chris in the smoke

We packed up everything and headed back to the station to refuel our gas and diesel cans and regroup. We had 3 different groups out. Our group burned about 200 acres. We stopped by mom and dads trailer to say hi. Dads teaching an EMT class for Grouse Creek so they've pulled their camp trailer out so after class on the days he teaches he can just crash there instead of driving 2 1/2 hours back home. We had our AAR (After Action Report) where we talked about how the burn went and then we headed for home. There is a short cut up over a mountain range called Cotton Thomas. We followed Dusty over that and it brings out out in Naff Idaho and into Snowville UT. We got to Todd and Janas house to pick up K about 10pm.. She was crashed out on the couch. 

The burn went great and was a lot of fun. Did I mention we got paid to do it?

Vday-The story of Elsa and Anna

Elsa and Anna woke up Saturday morning around 830. They had some breakfast and wanted to go out and ride their 4 wheelers. It was a fight to get them to put on real clothes under their dresses. They saw no problem going out in their pjs with out sock. They rode and rode and rode and rode their bikes all over the backyard while Chris worked on getting out all the huge rocks, metal poles, concrete and garbage bags we found buried in the backyard.

 Anna

 Elsa (yes her wheeler is moving)

 They called each other Elsa and Anna all morning long. I made them all take a break for Valentines presents. Kennedy has been wanting one of those stupid Snackees cups forever. We found a bunch of kid ones in the clearance section at Walmart for $3. Chris said we'd better get Ry one if we get K one (we didnt know she was spending the night at this point) and it ended up being a good thing we did!

Since K got a little box of chocolates I filled Rys cup with Hershey Kisses and she got a Frozen fruit snack too. Miss K also go her pink archery target. Chris got a Black Helmet Apparel Wildland Firefighter Tshirt and a box of Reeses.

I got a new stabilizer for my bow.

Doesnt it look so much prettier now

 Then Ash came over to hang out. Derek had to work for a half a day so she was bumming it with us. Not long after she got to our house JaNeale and Hunter showed up too. We went outside and enjoyed the great weather and sunshine! We talked Ash into taking the 80 for a spin.

 The girls wore the batteries out TWICE on their bikes.

 Then her and Chris doubled up. 

 Elsa and Anna made a fort with the wood pile at the back of the house. I grilled up some hot dogs and made Mac n Cheese for lunch.

 Hunter wanted to play on the 80 too. He kept saying 'This is just a ball of joy! I need one of these'

 Chris had too much excitement for one day and took a nap in the grass

 Everyone left after a while and Kennedy and I took a nap. It was a nice relaxing day at home all day long. Chris finished up the backyard. A lot of the slope is gone and it looks so good!

 Taylor had bought a new card game and wanted to play with all of us so later on that night we went over to Todd and Janas to play Cards Against Humanity. 

 OH MY HELL. It was hilarious. We all laughed so hard we had tears streaming. We played the whole game. You just never know someone until you've played this game with them.