Fishing at Deer Creek Reservoir

Tommy (Jessica's cousin) has been nice enough to help me learn how to fly fish and let me just say it is AWESOME.

A couple of weeks ago we headed up to Deer Creek and had a great time. We found some great spots for fishing. In one hole we estimated there were about 60 fish between 12-20 inches. It was amazing you could see them hit your bait. It was quite an experience.


Tommy showed off by catching this monster.

Coming home from the south

On our way back to reality we had a layover in Houston. Pat and Jen decided to come pick us up from the airport and introduce us to Houston life. It was so fun to see them. Jen made a sign with our fantasy football names and waited for us with the rest of the chauffeurs in the airport. We then went to Subway where Jen got way too many cucumbers on her sandwich. We saw some real Houston mobsters and we were also introduced to the Chocolate Bar. It was the best layover EVER! See Jen and Pat's blog for pictures and more Houston adventures.

More Fun in Cancun

I didn't have time to finish telling about all of our adventures in Mexico. Since I already covered our daily activities, I will tell you about our off-site fun. On Sunday we grabbed a taxi to take us downtown to the church. They have rebuilt the church since the hurricane. It seems to be double the size of what I remember it being in 2004. The building is really beautiful I wish I had a picture, but we forgot our camera that day. My next offsite adventure was with my uncle Richard. He left in the middle of the week and before he left he wanted to go jet skiing. The waves were breaking pretty far from the shore that day so we had to stay far from there. We had fun, and got a lot of air off some of the waves. Another day we went shopping at the mall. My favorite discovery was a little step stool at the ice cream shop. How come we can't have one of those step stools at all of our ice cream shops! I hate having to either slouch down or stand on my tip toes just to see the ice cream, that dang bar hinders my vision every time! One night the young couples got to go downtown together. We went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner and walked around finding crazy statues to take our picture with.
One morning we woke up and played tennis with my grandparents. We thought being the young couple we might be able to run the older around the court. It was just the opposite. It's embarrassing to say, but they killed us. Grandma would hit the ball anywhere we weren't. It was a humbling experience and a lot of fun.
Probably our favorite time off the resort was at Isla Mujeres. We woke up one morning and took a bus and a community mini van to ferry that went over to an island (Isla Mujeres). We found a small boat and crew that took us snorkling at a few spots, where we saw turtles, sea urchins, an eel, parrot fish, barracudas, and other tropical fish. Our favorite part was when the guide pulled out some crackers and left them in front of Lance's face. Lance put his head in the middle of hundreds of fish trying to eat the crackers. The fish kept running into Lance's mask. I put my arm in the middle of them and once they hit me a couple of times I wasn't brave enough to put my head in the middle of that. For lunch they grilled up some of the barracuda we had been swimming with, it was delicious! If Lance would allow me I would tell you about the beautiful shell I found at our lunch spot, but he is still upset because I used our last peso to buy it! We are lucky we had Niki and Philip to help us get back to the resort. ;) We also saw a sand shark, one of the few vegetarian sharks.
We ended the week with a birthday celebration at a fun Mexican restaurant down town. Our usual place, Pericos, was reserved for some big party so they recommended this new place. It was very similar some of the waiters carried plates and drinks on their heads and a mariachi band played to keep everyone entertained. We had a great time and they even brought out an amazing cake. Lance and Levi were nice enough to share with all of us. Levi (niki and philip's baby) turned one and Lance turned 25!
Overall we had a wonderful week. It was so fun to be with family and baby Levi was definitely the center of our attention. For those of you that haven't spent time with him, he is such a fun baby.

A Week in Paradise

Well we were lucky enough to get an invitation to spend a week at a great resort in Cancun, Mexico. My grandparents have a time share at the Royal Sands and we decided to crash the party. We left right after Lance's birthday so this was his gift and I just got to benefit from it too. I'm going to have a tough time next year finding something to beat this year's gift. We spent the week with my grandparents, my cousin Niki, her husband Philip, their baby Levi, and my uncle Richard.

Every morning we would wake up and go shelling. The first two days we were there were kinda stormy so the waves brought up some great shells and sand dollars that had not been broken. We found a lot of stuff including sunglasses, turtle eggs, shells, and money (pesos).


We did a lot of relaxing in the pool and playing in the ocean. We also had our daily 2 o'clock volleyball game on the beach. It was a lot of fun and Lance and I got to find out how out of shape we are. Our favorite time of the day was between 3 and 6, HAPPY HOUR. You can't beat 1/2 price virgin pina coladas and strawberry daiquiris with free chips and salsa. We also had fun painting ceramics, going to karaoke night with Richard (my uncle), and participating in water aerobics one morning (once was enough for us).

By request...

Here are pictures of Jessica modeling my "ACCIDENT". I wish you could have seen her trying to put it on, it was pretty funny.

Whoops!!!

Well Jessica is always trying to tell me what to put into the laundry and what not to and what goes in the dryer and what doesn't, but as you can tell by the picture I don't listen to her. That used to be a sweater she wore. WHOOPS!! (For the record Jessica is speaking to me again, and i dont ever have to do the laundry again-so I think I won this one, it was all part of my plan).

Geocaching

Lance and I wanted to go geocahcing but haven't gotten around to it until this month. We've made two attempts and both attempts we've come home with no loot. The first time we went Lance was soooo excited because this cache was inside a mine in the Unitas. Well we made our way up to the site and hiked around for 3 hours without finding anything. I was getting fairly frustrated, while Lance cracked jokes. He finally admitted that he might have written down the wrong coordinates, and he was right. We decided to call it a day. The next Saturday we came back to the same site, this time with the right coordinates. We hiked for four hours across some really rough terrain. We had a great time just trail blazing and praying that we wouldn't fall off the side of the mountain. Once we got to the site we found 8-10 inches of snow and realized we would never find the mine. Disappointed, we hiked down the mountain and made our way back to the car. Before getting back to the road we had to cross a stream, unfortunately we didn't have too many options so we scooted across this iced over log. It was a bit chilly on our buns. Although both times were unsuccessful we had a great time. Hopefully next time we will have more luck.

Field Botany

I took a block class this semester, InBio 235, and it has turned out to be my favorite class I've ever taken at BYU. Our class met 12 hours a week, spending most of that time outside looking at plants. Sounds pretty boring huh? The first day of class we just dove into the material and I was thinking the same thing you are right now, how boring. But it has been so much fun. We have learned about 240 woody plants found in North America. I am now cursed, everywhere we go I stare at the landscape and point out all the interesting plants to Lance. I'm not sure he thinks its as interesting as I do. And now all those weedy trees by our house that I paid no attention to before, drive me crazy. I just want to cut them down. Our class has gotten really close. On our last day of class and we decided to have a lunch together. One of the guys in our class is a big game hunter, so he grilled up some antelope kabobs for the whole class. Everyone else brought in cookies, chips, salad, drinks, or fruit. We had a great time. It's weird I've never been sad for a class to end, but I will miss this one.

Chuck-a-rama

While dad was in town we couldnt help but get a dinner out of him. Monday night we rounded up the troops (Grandpa, Grandma, Brandon and Ashley, Heather and baby Lester, Brooke, and Jessica and I). We had a great time, most of the jokes of the night were about the mullet that I am trying to grow. It is getting pretty ridiculous, Jessica named it and talks to it sometimes. I think we all ended up eating our weight in soft serve icecream, and I am pretty sure Grandpa got drunk on the apple beer.

Fishing Trip

Last weekend the Tolman boys got together for a much needed fishing break in WY. My Dad came out from St. Louis, and my Uncle and cousin acted as fishing guides for our trip. We ended up fishing all day Friday and Saturday and had a great time enjoying nature. After going 0-2 fishing in 2006 I broke the curse and caught a couple fish. It was a success on all accounts we had great weather, beautiful scenery, and we caught some fish. Here are some pictures from the adventure.

A Weekend Getaway

Well we were invited to spend the weekend at Lake Powell with our brother-in-law's family. We have never been to Lake Powell, so we had a great time experiencing the canyons and fun rock formations in the area. The Nelson's showed us a great time. My favorite moments were on the boat; we got to try out wakeboarding and I loved it. Lance's favorite moments were with a fishing pole. He was really missing Tommy on this trip. Overall it was exactly what we needed before a hectic week at school.

Luchalibre vs Suma Waliki

vs

Well it was a victorious week for luchalibre (Jessica) in fantasy football. Thats right folks you didn't read it wrong, I beat Lance in fantasy football. I am very proud of this accomplishment. Final Scores: Jessica 131.30 and Lance 125.63. This brings my season to 2-0-0 and Lance 1-1-0.

The First Snowfall

We got our first snowfall! Aren't the mountains beautiful! I love this time of year when the mountains are snow capped and the base is covered with red maples, green pines, and all the other colors of fall.

Jessica Strikes Back

O.k. I had enough of Lance always beating up on me, so I took action and busted his lip up. 13 stiches in 3 places (on his lip, just under the lip, and under the chin). Well you probably didn't believe that last story; here is what really happened. Wednesday night Lance had a flag football game. One of the guys on the other team was bookin it down to the end zone. Lance ran across the field and dove to pull his flags off. It was a great play, however as Lance was in the air the other guy's cleat met his face. He decided to stay on the field as there was only a few minutes left in the game. After the game I asked him why he stayed out there. He replied, "Well I'd be bleeding the same off the field as I would on." He's a great thinker. We went home after the game and as I was helping Lance clean up his face I noticed his cuts were more like tears. We headed to the student health center only to find that it was closed, so we made our way to Riverwoods Urgent Care. They were great and stiched him up. While they were fixing his face they decided it was time for a tetanus shot and a vaccination for whooping cough. It was a fun night for Lance.

Our Road Trip

After 2 1/2 weeks in Michigan we had to come back to Provo. Lance and I had a great time driving home. We took 4 days to make the trip, so we got to stop at a lot of fun places. We were able to stop at a few more lighthouses while driving through Michigan, and then once we got to Wisconsin our first stop was Lambeau Field (Home of the Green Bay Packers). That was a favorite for Lance. Then we stopped in Madison, WI so that I could meet up with one of my professors for a conference. This is me in front of the poster we presented at the conference there. We continued through Minnesota and South Dakota. In South Dakota we found the corn palace, Badlands Nat'l Park, Wall Drug, Mt. Rushmore, Black Hills Nat'l Forest, a biker convention, and a hot hot night in a local campground.

Hunchback of Notre Dame

Well the other morning I awoke to quite a scare. I rolled over to say good morning to Jessica but found out that during the night Jessica had turned into Quasimodo. Needless to say it scared me pretty bad. I mean just picture her with crazy hair, morning breath, and this crazy eye. It was enough to give me nightmares. Ok all joking aside you will all be happy to know that it was just a bacterial infection and she is back to looking as beautiful as ever.

Our New Home

Since we've been back from Michigan we have moved out of Grandma Burnett's home and moved into our own little place. We are living in a 4-plex just south of BYU campus. We have a great location. As we were moving in we realized we need a little extra counter space in the kitchen. Lance built this shelf in the physics wood shop room. While Lance hasn't mastered the handy skills quite like Phil we were pretty proud of this kitchen addition.

More of the Upper Pennisula

Well we wanted to share a few more pictures of our summer fun. While we were in the U.P. we went to Picture Rock National Lakeshore. It was absolutely beautiful! We took a boat ride along the coast and were able to enjoy unique lighthouses, mineral-stained sandstone cliffs, great rock formations, waterfalls, and the clear water of Lake Superior. The water was so clear that you could see up to 50 feet below. After our boat ride, dad had to pick up some smoked whitefish at the local fish house. Then we all headed for a fun hike to a waterfall and then to the beach. We swam in Lake Superior for a while and then headed back. Unfortunately we took a wrong turn and we barely made it to the parking lot before night-fall. On our way out of the park we had a baby black bear dart out in front of our car. We didn't see the mamma bear, but the baby was really cute.