You can't win 'em all...

Megan surprised me with U2 tickets for my birthday back in June. We attended the concert in Vegas a few weeks back. The week of the concert, I learned that the BYU-TCU football game was selected as the site for ESPN College Gameday...a big deal if you are a college football fan, let alone a BYU football fanatic. So, the dream weekend was set up nicely: drive to Vegas Friday morning, watch U2, leave concert and drive through the night back to Provo, watch College Gameday live in Provo, get some shut-eye for a few hours, watch BYU-TCU live at Lavell Edwards Stadium Saturday night.

Meg and I joined brothers Chris and Mike, and sister in law Kelly for the drive down to Vegas Friday. We made good time, walked the strip for an hour and a half, and headed to the concert. All pictures shown were taken by my brother Matt and his wife Kim, whom we met at the concert.

The concert was phenomenal...from the stage to the song selection and performance itself, I was impressed by the whole thing. Attending a U2 concert was on the lifetime priority checklist...I guess that means I am that much closer to death. No worries. I've amended the lifetime priority checklist to include attending another u2 concert prior to kicking the bucket. I feel young again.

Proof that Megan, myself, and Chris attended the concert...
Our group headed out just after midnight from the concert headed back to Provo. We pulled in just in time to get in to the main area for College Gameday and to meet up with some very good friends and fellow cougar fans.



I was feeling so good, I and the rest of the group befriended some fans from the opposition.Following Gameday, we followed our appetite for some breakfast at Village Inn in Orem...a favorite spot for breakfast back in the day when I was a student at the Y. There, our group continued to relish in the concert and in attending Gameday, when the man, the legend, the myth--Lavell Edwards himself--walked into the establishment. While I sat in revered silence, Megan joined another in our group in spontaneous applause. Somewhat amused, somewhat not surprised, Lavell walked over to our table where we greeted him...I still sat in mostly revered silence. When he was at the point of leaving our company, I mustered some courage and felt it necessary to tell the coach that there was a golden retriever in Jerome, ID named after him. Lavell, the coach, laughed at the thought of Lavell, the dog. He told me that he had had people tell him they named their kid after him, but never a dog. Maybe I should be embarrassed that I have named my dog after the legendary coach Edwards...but the fact that I may be the first to bestow such an honor on a canine is somehow satisfying, like my lifetime obsession with cougar football is somehow justified. Of course I am kidding...sort of.

Could this weekend possibly get any better? Apparently not. The cougars were trounced that night on their home field by the TCU Horned Frogs, 38-7.


So, lesson(s) learned: You are only as old as you think you are sometimes. Life is good...even better when you have loved ones to share it with. And even when your alma mater's football team gets trounced on their home field.

Retrievers are very "protective"

So as excited as we are about the new vestibule addition to the home, we have a problem. One of the goals of this room was to give Lavell a place to be inside with us, without actually being allowed to come inside.

So we go out to read with our faithful pup at our feet last week only to find that he has issues with every shadowy reflection in the windows including that sinister looking retriever and humans that seem to be mimicking the same movements of Brian and I. What's even more hilarious is to see him sit in the corner not sure which retriever is more of a threat--the one in front of him or to his fight.


Seriously if any dog lover out there has advice for us we would appreciate it. He has no issues with mirrors--he's apparently not that stupid. But no matter how much we hold him, pet him, and try to show him how our movement are the same as , he doesn't get it. I also don't want to make him stop barking--that's his job. But so far, he's angry that we don't get it (runs to us, runs to windows, runs back to us), and we're fed up with the barking. Help!




This is actually pretty mild footage. When he gives up on barking (30 mins or so later), he just sits and growls.

Demolition begins

After a busy day at work, Brian comes home to a mess--makes more mess and cleans it up.

Tearing up some of the sub-floor.

Brian making a silly pose with his brick removal tools. The next day Dad conveniently remembered he has a had jack hammer sort of tool that expedited this process.

Apparently, since everything else was dirty, someone needed to join the action.

Use a sledge hammer to remove cast iron pipes

It was a dirty job...but somebody had to do it. Three cheers for my crazy parents who involved themselves in the process.

Although we laughed cracking jokes almost the entire time, my mom kept asking what sin she had committed recently to be in Hell.


Dad cut them down, then I beat them into smaller pieces and both mom and I carried them out.

An action shot of beating the pipe with the sledge hammer in order to break it into smaller pieces.
"Dad, what's the oily black stuff coming out of the pipes?" "Shit and rust." Oh, okay, one of the many times I've been sorry I asked.
Um, no wonder we had problems with our toilets flushing?