HEY EVERYBODY!!!
This is Oliver again with your update on the twins!
When we last left you, we were travelling to Salt Lake City to watch the Utah Jazz play Basketball. Since that time SO much has happened. On Sunday night we stayed at the Hilton. Somehow we were able to get really cheap prices.......I think..... Don’t quote me on that, although I'm pretty sure it's true. It was pretty nice. There were only two double beds in the room for Myself, Ben, Jason and Bruce.........Jason and Ben slept on the floor. Life is great.
The next morning we woke nice and early and figured out what to do that day before the game that night. Jason wanted to show Ben and I a shop called Cabela's. It is MASSIVE!!!!!! It's basically a shop for every different hunting you can think of. This shop wasn't just a random hunting shop that hunters can get some normal bait from; this shop would give you a choice of 50 different types of bait for any one fish. There was a fishing section that was about the size of Coles at the Hyperdome. (For those who don't know, the Hyperdome is a shopping centre near our house in Australia and Coles is a big shop in it) The hunting section was even bigger. There was a mini arcade in this place where you could pay a dollar and play one of those hunting games were you get the plastic rifle and you have to hit the small targets. So much fun. Inside the shop they also had a fudge shop. We got two different types of fudge, two packets of sugared almonds and two packets of hard boiled lollies. We only did this because it added to the overall experience. The part of the shop that made me feel naughty was the gun section. It was about the size of IGA (another shop close to home that's a bit smaller then Coles.) It was so strange to see a bunch of guns just sitting on the rack for you to buy. I was tempted to buy one except that it would cost way too much and I would probably be arrested when trying to go back to Australia. The amount of stuff wasn't the only awesome thing about this shop. This place was decked out! The decorator must have had the same budget as the builders. There was a mountain in the middle of this place with running streams and everything. There were fish in a pond down the bottom as well. Covering this mountain was about 40 DIFFERENT types of animals that had been shot and stuffed. The more you looked at the trees and rocks that made up this mountain, the more animals you could find. It was crazy. There was also a tunnel that you could walk through in the fishing area that was an aquarium. There was a total of about 300 fish in there. (NOTE: the fish were alive, none of them were stuffed.) To add further to this, there was another add on to the shop that was about the size of IGA again that was devoted to presenting the biggest and best catches. There were deer, moose, bears and so many others that were MASSIVE. It was crazy. I could see Bec, Bruce and Wendy loving that shop. I think that means that Michael should start saving, right Bec?
After spending about 3 hours in that place, we headed back to the hotel to pick up Jason's dad and check out. This involved us all quickly packing up the truck with all our stuff and leaving. That was about 12 noon. The game was at 6. So we killed some more time. We drove down the road and found a park at the 'Gateway'. A mall in Salt Lake City. The first thing we did when we got there was go find the movie times in case there was a movie we could go and see. (NOTE: if you ever need to kill a bunch of time, movies are a great way to do so.) As we got there, the movie '2012' was just about to start in two minutes and so we ran. We all liked the movie. It was unbelievable in parts but Jason's dad continued to think about what he would do and what he needs to get ready in case that did happen. When we got out of the movie, Jason's dad went to go and move the truck because we had parked in a 2 hour zone while Jason, Ben and I went to go window shopping. We stopped in 5 shops to have a look. The first was the AT & T store. This was a phone store. Jason has a phone from them that just recently broke. (When I say recently broke, I mean that morning) He talked to the people who worked there about getting it fixed while Ben and I walked around looking at different phones pretending that we could be interested in buying one. We then left. The next shop we stopped at was a shop called "Fannz". This was a shop were you could get any Jersey/jumper/pants/shirt of any team you support. There were some pretty nice Jazz things but we decided to wait for mother and father to get here until we made any decisions about buying souvenirs etc. The third shop was called Lovesac. Yep, the Lovesac, and that's what it sold - Lovesacs. They were AWESOME. They use some kind of weird material and fluffing but it was amazing. They make couches, foot stools and massive cushions. Imagine the two cushions that mum made, now multiply the size by 7 and make them silent and about 10 times fluffier - You now have a Lovesac. I want one... or two... or four..... Christmas anyone? The final store we went into was the apple store. We basically just walked around in there until we needed to meet up with Jason's dad who had decided to take a nap in the truck. Jason checked his emails, Ben played with and iPhone and I just listened to the music they had put on the iPod Nano to advertise them. After hanging around in that store for a while, we met up with Jason's dad at the food court on the top level of the mall. We still weren't ready for dinner yet but Jason REALLY wanted some sushi. So off he went to get some sushi. When he got back we all shared his tiny meal during which Jason got a spot on his hoodie. I've never seen someone so desperate to get the keys to his father's truck just to change his jumper. After asking about 15 times, Jason finally got the keys off his father after much teasing. We told him where to meet us and then watched him run off in the direction of the car. (NOTE: the spot was about the size of an ant). We then all enjoyed dinner at a seafood restaurant. We all ordered the steak, the only non-seafood item on the menu.....interesting. After eating we set our path to the 'Energy Solutions Arena' to watch the Jazz.
We got into the stadium just like we would with any other sport game and found that there were heaps of things to do outside the actual stadium. (i.e. inside the building but outside the seating and court.) We first went to a small area that had been set up with a small hoop. They had a few small balls and anyone could line up and try to get them in the hoop. Anyone who did get the ball in the hoop was able to get a small face towel with the Jazz logo on it as well as a coupon for a free jazz jacket if they signed up with some bank. So we all had a turn at shooting. After getting a towel each, we headed over to the other side of the stadium where we saw Thurl Bailey. If you don't know who Thurl Bailey is, you can Google him. We got photos with him and also got him to autograph our tickets just for funnsies. After that, it was about time that we went to our seats. Our seats were on the southern end on the stadium 16 rows back and just to the right of the hoop. They were awesome seats. We were able to see everything so clearly. The Game was AWESOME. It was one of the best games we could have possibly asked for. The Jazz were playing the Spurs. The final score ended up being only 3 points difference (104-101). It was amazing. One of my favourite parts was watching Deron Williams Dunk it over Tim Dunkin right in front of us......good times. I have never seen the last 9 seconds of a game take so long! It was so tense the whole time. After the game we had to run out to the truck to leave as soon as possible so that we could get back to Rigby as fast as we could. We then drove back to Rigby Idaho.
We arrived at about 1 o'clock at which time we all went straight to bed. The next morning was Tuesday. Yay for Tuesday! We all slept in until about 10:30-11:00. When I say 10:30-11:00, that means that everyone else woke up at 10:30 and Ben woke up at 11:00. We then sat around for about 5 minutes deciding what to do that day. We came up with the following agenda. We would go and get Jason's phone fixed (He needed to go to the store in Idaho because the store in Salt Lake City couldn't help him) we would then meet up with Chris (Jason's older brother) and have lunch with him. Following lunch, we would go and get fitted with snowboards, boots, bindings and whatever else you need to go Snowboarding. We then start packing for Wednesday and Thursday when we would be going snowboarding. By the time we finished that, we would go to a mutual activity and then we would travel up to Jill's house. (Jill is Jason's older sister who we would be staying with on Wednesday and Thursday because they lived MUCH closer to the snowboarding). We were able to stick to this plan fairly closely with a few minor adjustments. As the plan stated, we began by getting Jason's phone fixed at the AT & T store. While waiting in that store, Jason talked with the people trying to get the phone fixed while Ben and I walked around once again pretending to be interested in buying a phone. Ben did use this time to check his email on an iPhone, so it was slightly productive.
We then went on to Chris's house. We went to lunch to a place called "Mongolian Grill". It was almost identical to dad's Japanese restaurant. You would choose a bowl size and then fill it with all the different veggies and meats that you want. After you had chosen all the food and sauces that you wanted, you would take it to this small man at the back of the shop who would cook it all on this massive hot plate thing. (Imagine a circular frying pan, that is about a meter in diameter and then take the sides off it so that it is just a flat cooking pan thing. It also had a catchment area underneath to catch any food or sauces that ran off the top.) It was really good, not as good as dad's but it was still pretty good. Hanging out with Chris was pretty fun. It was funny to see them trying to beat each other all the time. For example, while leaving Chris's house, Jason started drifting around the corners. (It's REALLY easy to do because of the snow everywhere) So Chris started. It finished when Chris spun too far and ended up facing the gutter. He lost. We then went to get fitted for snowboarding gear. Unfortunately, the place we were going to rent from is not renting out snow gear yet because there isn't enough snow yet and their gear is more likely to get damaged. That was annoying but to make up for this disappointment, we went to the church parking lot and did some donuts. After this short but thrilling experience, we drove back to the Hampton's house to pack for our little trip. This took most of the afternoon but we were also pleased to receive a phone call from our older brother Jonathon. So he already knew most of that. So now we are getting to the parts of our wonderful holiday that he doesn't know about. The packing was uneventful. We then went to mutual.
It was FREEZING!!! What we did was re-enact the birth of the saviour. We started at someones house where we got prepared for the trip. There was a couple in the ward who owned a donkey and so they dressed up as Mary and Joseph with Mary riding on the donkey. We then proceeded to walk and carol to two different houses and asked if they would allow us in to which they both said no. (In their defense, they had been told before hand not to let anyone in). What I found kind of strange is that we travelled to the houses right next door to where we started. They were still fairly far apart, but the funny thing is that they were all members of the church. Three houses in a row were Mormons. It was kind of strange and cool at the same time. Anyway, after being rejected twice, we travelled a bit longer to a third house we're they sent us to their barn. We all crowded around inside and sat down on some hay bales and watched as Mary and Joseph acted out the scene with the help of some wise men and shepherds while the owner of the barn read the story from the bible. It was so cool. I've never really seen something like that. All the plays and re-enactments of the birth of the saviour stay in one place, and you just sit there watching, but actually walking around from door to door like Mary and Joseph would have done was pretty interesting. After the re-enactment was finished, we all stood around talking to different people while warming ourselves up with the heater. (NOTE: while walking around outside for about an hour, the temperature was -17 degrees) There were some donuts and hot chocolate.....but we didn't really want to leave the heater. After this all finished and people started going back to their homes, we drove back to Jason's house to grab our bags that we packed and took off to watch Jill's husband Cody play basketball.
That was funny......in a bad sort of way. According to Jason, it was the perfect game to show us exactly how most Americans play basketball. It started off pretty normal but towards the end of the game there were a tech fouls called. (Tech fouls are fouls when one of the teams is back chatting or yelling at the ref OR they are intentionally hurting the other team.) Cody's team won by 32 points which was good, but there was a guy on the other team who continued to yell at the ref for another 30 minutes after the game. It wasn't like the 4 tech fouls would have made any difference to the outcome, but they seemed pretty intent on the idea that the ref lost them the game and he should be fired. It was almost humorous to watch. Then we drove for about an hour to get Jill's house. When we got there, it was REALLY early in the morning and so we all just flopped on our beds and dreamt of snowboarding.
Wednesday morning! What a letdown.
We woke up earlier then we had all holidays with the intention of getting there as it opened. We first had to go and rent a board and boots etc. because the other shop had been closed. This shop didn't open until 8:30......the Ski runs opened at 9:00......it took 45 minutes to get to the ski runs from the shop.....DOH! We were able to rent the stuff pretty quickly and it was fun trying on all the stuff for the first time. The guy who was fitting us was pretty cool; he even gave us a discount because we were from Australia. SCORE! (It only ended up being a $6 discount, but it was the thought that counts.....right?) We then took off to go snowboarding for the first time EVER! We were so excited! Abby had said that it was the best day ever (I'm sure this has changed seeing as she got married, and for some people this would be the best day ever.....but I might be wrong, you would have to ask Abby) We got up to the place and there was some snow! BUT only the small hill was open. There wasn't enough snow for the others to be open......Let down number one. The second problem was that the snow wasn't recent. It had fallen a long time ago and now it was basically ice. The third problem was that it was -21 degrees not including wind chill. This was apparently the coldest it has ever been for Jason when he has gone snowboarding and it wasn't fun at all. The final problem was the air. It was all completely hazy. You could barely see 20 meters away and everything was just grey. Add onto all this that it was our first time and we ate it pretty hard; this first day was the biggest let down ever. We began having thoughts in our heads like "Was Abby delusional?" and "Why does anybody ever want to see snow? This is dumb". Yes, our thoughts and feelings towards snowboarding were pretty negative. As we went to lunch time at about 11:00am we had all had enough and decided to leave then instead of staying until it shut at 4:00pm. (NOTE: we did have fun, but in the end, the weather and atmosphere got to us) We left the slopes and started heading back to Jill's house. On the way there, we talked about different ideas to make tomorrow more fun. Ideas like waiting until 12 noon to go, that way it would be warmer etc.
when we got to Jill's house, Jill and Cody set us up with 'Rock Band'. For all those who don't know what rock band is, here is a simple explanation. Rock Band is an X-Box game that involves four different people at a time. One to play the guitar, one to play the bass, one to play the drums and one to do vocals. The vocal player would use a microphone to sing into to hit the right notes. Meanwhile the bass player and the guitarist use controllers in the shape of a guitar/bass to play the right notes on the screen as they came down. The drummer had a little drum kit that they use to play the right beats at the right time. All in all, it is SOO much fun!!! We got on there and we played until dinner time about 3-4 hours later. I was on the guitar, Ben was on the drums, Jason was on the Bass and Cody was too shy to do the vocals, so no one sang. After dinner, we all went to see where Jill worked. We didn't go there out of interest only. Jill works at a spa. That includes steam rooms and hot tubs. SOOO NICE! The hot tubs were outside in the snow but it was set to 36 degrees. It was like having the snow all around you but without the cold temperatures. It was awesome. I sat in there for about an hour or two. Jason was there at first but then he had to hop out and got Jill to cut his hair for him. (Jill is a hairdresser). It was the most relaxing thing EVER! I was also able to make a snowball about the size of Jonny's head. Every time my hands got too cold I would just dip them back into the water to heat them back up. This was a great way to end the day. It also sent our moods way back into the positives. Tomorrow was looking up for us.
Prayers are answered.
On Thursday, we stuck to the plan. We woke up at 9:00 in the morning planning to get to the ski resort at 11:00. What a dumb idea. Thursday was PERFECT!!!!!!!! Throughout the ENTIRE day Jason repeatedly told us that this was the best day we POSSIBLY could have asked for. A lot of snow had fallen the previous night meaning that there was about 6 inches of powder on top of the snow that we had gone on the day before. The skies were the perfect colour blue. The temperature was back up to around -10 degrees (which we considered warm). It wasn't snowing which meant the Jason was able to take videos and pictures of us snowboarding without fear of damaging anything. We had gone to the rental shop to get the next boot size up which meant my toes weren't squished. It was perfect. I can EASILY see why Abby had said it was the best day ever. It was AWESOME! It was easier to turn, you sprayed up snow when you turned, if you fell over it didn't hurt, we crashed about 1/8 as much as we did the day before. It was so much fun. We have all the videos and pictures to show you all when we get home. It would be useless for me to try and explain how much fun it was in words. You are just going to have to ask us when we get back.
That day we stayed until 4:00 and we are still kicking ourselves for getting there two hours late. After we finished up for the day, we drove back to Jill's house and packed up all our things and said our goodbyes. We drove back to Jason's house. On the way he got a phone call wondering if he was going to go and see the Rigby High School basketball game. We had never seen a high school game in America before so we chose to go. Oh if only I was famous and I would be too if I played basketball in America. We had called Jason's older brother Chris to come and watch it with us. It was so weird. It looked like the entire school rocked up. They were selling merchandise with "Rigby Trojans" printed on it. My personal favourite was when they announced over the loud speaker, the names of each player as they ran onto the floor. Imagine High School Musical, but substitute 'Wildcats' with 'Trojans' and change the colours to maroon and gold. That was what it was like. They weren't exaggerating at all in the movies. IT'S REALLY LIKE THAT! Rigby actually lost in the end but we don't like to talk about it. It was so strange to see so many people at a High School Basketball game. They even made you pay $4 to get in?!?! If only Australia had been like that. Sigh. That was pretty much the end of Thursday night except that we managed to find our beds right where we left them on Tuesday.
Friday was interesting.
It began like every other Friday. We woke up. But this time we were in a foriegn land in a foriegn bed but we knew the owner so it was all good. We slept in until about 10...ish at which time we had already decided what to do. Eat breakfast! It was so nice. Sister hampton had gotten up at a normal time and made crepes. We ate them with home made rasberry jam, cream, banana and icing sugar......SO GOOD!!!.....not so healthy......but SO GOOD! after this delicious breakfast. We ventured off to the AT & T store for the third time but this was to be the last time. Jason only needed his contacts moved across. After this, we did what Tammy requested. Jason, Ben and Myself ate lunch at Cafe Rio. That's right, we ate lunch at Cafe Rio. Jason had a salady kind of thing. I had a steak burito and Ben had an echilada. Jason and I enjoyed our meals very much. Ben however did not. He had just asked for an enchilada. After realising that they only put the sauce and cheese on the enchilada he noticed that what he was suppossed to say was either a chicken enchilada, or a beef enchilada. But he did enjoy his meal anyways. We then sat around for a little while until the clock finally ticked over to 3:00pm. This meant that Go-Karting was now open for business. It was a small track but it was an awesome track. Because it was in door and the go-karts were somewhat powerful, drifting was easy to do. The trick was to drift AROUND the corner and not INTO the corner. We got the best deal ever. because no one else was there, we had the whole track to ourselves. we could have bought a single 20 lap race for $10. Instead, for $20 we got unlimited racing for an hour. In the end, we ended up doing 120 laps. that's $60 worth of laps. We think we're awesome :D Jason however, wasn't awesome. That so called friend of ours was T-boning us just to get ahead. (NOTE: T-boning is were one car runs straight into another car on there side thus making the cars look like the letter 'T' from above.) but in the end, Ben and I know that we won while playing fairly. After the Go-karting, we tried as hard as we could to get as many tickets on the arcade machines to get us each a go-karting key ring. Which we can show you when we get home :P That night at the Hamptons, we didn't really do that much, we just played with Jason's little nephews and ate dinner etc. It was fun, but after being shot for the 100th time with a foam bullet, I decided I didn't like the game we were playing.
This is Oliver again with your update on the twins!
When we last left you, we were travelling to Salt Lake City to watch the Utah Jazz play Basketball. Since that time SO much has happened. On Sunday night we stayed at the Hilton. Somehow we were able to get really cheap prices.......I think..... Don’t quote me on that, although I'm pretty sure it's true. It was pretty nice. There were only two double beds in the room for Myself, Ben, Jason and Bruce.........Jason and Ben slept on the floor. Life is great.
The next morning we woke nice and early and figured out what to do that day before the game that night. Jason wanted to show Ben and I a shop called Cabela's. It is MASSIVE!!!!!! It's basically a shop for every different hunting you can think of. This shop wasn't just a random hunting shop that hunters can get some normal bait from; this shop would give you a choice of 50 different types of bait for any one fish. There was a fishing section that was about the size of Coles at the Hyperdome. (For those who don't know, the Hyperdome is a shopping centre near our house in Australia and Coles is a big shop in it) The hunting section was even bigger. There was a mini arcade in this place where you could pay a dollar and play one of those hunting games were you get the plastic rifle and you have to hit the small targets. So much fun. Inside the shop they also had a fudge shop. We got two different types of fudge, two packets of sugared almonds and two packets of hard boiled lollies. We only did this because it added to the overall experience. The part of the shop that made me feel naughty was the gun section. It was about the size of IGA (another shop close to home that's a bit smaller then Coles.) It was so strange to see a bunch of guns just sitting on the rack for you to buy. I was tempted to buy one except that it would cost way too much and I would probably be arrested when trying to go back to Australia. The amount of stuff wasn't the only awesome thing about this shop. This place was decked out! The decorator must have had the same budget as the builders. There was a mountain in the middle of this place with running streams and everything. There were fish in a pond down the bottom as well. Covering this mountain was about 40 DIFFERENT types of animals that had been shot and stuffed. The more you looked at the trees and rocks that made up this mountain, the more animals you could find. It was crazy. There was also a tunnel that you could walk through in the fishing area that was an aquarium. There was a total of about 300 fish in there. (NOTE: the fish were alive, none of them were stuffed.) To add further to this, there was another add on to the shop that was about the size of IGA again that was devoted to presenting the biggest and best catches. There were deer, moose, bears and so many others that were MASSIVE. It was crazy. I could see Bec, Bruce and Wendy loving that shop. I think that means that Michael should start saving, right Bec?
After spending about 3 hours in that place, we headed back to the hotel to pick up Jason's dad and check out. This involved us all quickly packing up the truck with all our stuff and leaving. That was about 12 noon. The game was at 6. So we killed some more time. We drove down the road and found a park at the 'Gateway'. A mall in Salt Lake City. The first thing we did when we got there was go find the movie times in case there was a movie we could go and see. (NOTE: if you ever need to kill a bunch of time, movies are a great way to do so.) As we got there, the movie '2012' was just about to start in two minutes and so we ran. We all liked the movie. It was unbelievable in parts but Jason's dad continued to think about what he would do and what he needs to get ready in case that did happen. When we got out of the movie, Jason's dad went to go and move the truck because we had parked in a 2 hour zone while Jason, Ben and I went to go window shopping. We stopped in 5 shops to have a look. The first was the AT & T store. This was a phone store. Jason has a phone from them that just recently broke. (When I say recently broke, I mean that morning) He talked to the people who worked there about getting it fixed while Ben and I walked around looking at different phones pretending that we could be interested in buying one. We then left. The next shop we stopped at was a shop called "Fannz". This was a shop were you could get any Jersey/jumper/pants/shirt of any team you support. There were some pretty nice Jazz things but we decided to wait for mother and father to get here until we made any decisions about buying souvenirs etc. The third shop was called Lovesac. Yep, the Lovesac, and that's what it sold - Lovesacs. They were AWESOME. They use some kind of weird material and fluffing but it was amazing. They make couches, foot stools and massive cushions. Imagine the two cushions that mum made, now multiply the size by 7 and make them silent and about 10 times fluffier - You now have a Lovesac. I want one... or two... or four..... Christmas anyone? The final store we went into was the apple store. We basically just walked around in there until we needed to meet up with Jason's dad who had decided to take a nap in the truck. Jason checked his emails, Ben played with and iPhone and I just listened to the music they had put on the iPod Nano to advertise them. After hanging around in that store for a while, we met up with Jason's dad at the food court on the top level of the mall. We still weren't ready for dinner yet but Jason REALLY wanted some sushi. So off he went to get some sushi. When he got back we all shared his tiny meal during which Jason got a spot on his hoodie. I've never seen someone so desperate to get the keys to his father's truck just to change his jumper. After asking about 15 times, Jason finally got the keys off his father after much teasing. We told him where to meet us and then watched him run off in the direction of the car. (NOTE: the spot was about the size of an ant). We then all enjoyed dinner at a seafood restaurant. We all ordered the steak, the only non-seafood item on the menu.....interesting. After eating we set our path to the 'Energy Solutions Arena' to watch the Jazz.
We got into the stadium just like we would with any other sport game and found that there were heaps of things to do outside the actual stadium. (i.e. inside the building but outside the seating and court.) We first went to a small area that had been set up with a small hoop. They had a few small balls and anyone could line up and try to get them in the hoop. Anyone who did get the ball in the hoop was able to get a small face towel with the Jazz logo on it as well as a coupon for a free jazz jacket if they signed up with some bank. So we all had a turn at shooting. After getting a towel each, we headed over to the other side of the stadium where we saw Thurl Bailey. If you don't know who Thurl Bailey is, you can Google him. We got photos with him and also got him to autograph our tickets just for funnsies. After that, it was about time that we went to our seats. Our seats were on the southern end on the stadium 16 rows back and just to the right of the hoop. They were awesome seats. We were able to see everything so clearly. The Game was AWESOME. It was one of the best games we could have possibly asked for. The Jazz were playing the Spurs. The final score ended up being only 3 points difference (104-101). It was amazing. One of my favourite parts was watching Deron Williams Dunk it over Tim Dunkin right in front of us......good times. I have never seen the last 9 seconds of a game take so long! It was so tense the whole time. After the game we had to run out to the truck to leave as soon as possible so that we could get back to Rigby as fast as we could. We then drove back to Rigby Idaho.
We arrived at about 1 o'clock at which time we all went straight to bed. The next morning was Tuesday. Yay for Tuesday! We all slept in until about 10:30-11:00. When I say 10:30-11:00, that means that everyone else woke up at 10:30 and Ben woke up at 11:00. We then sat around for about 5 minutes deciding what to do that day. We came up with the following agenda. We would go and get Jason's phone fixed (He needed to go to the store in Idaho because the store in Salt Lake City couldn't help him) we would then meet up with Chris (Jason's older brother) and have lunch with him. Following lunch, we would go and get fitted with snowboards, boots, bindings and whatever else you need to go Snowboarding. We then start packing for Wednesday and Thursday when we would be going snowboarding. By the time we finished that, we would go to a mutual activity and then we would travel up to Jill's house. (Jill is Jason's older sister who we would be staying with on Wednesday and Thursday because they lived MUCH closer to the snowboarding). We were able to stick to this plan fairly closely with a few minor adjustments. As the plan stated, we began by getting Jason's phone fixed at the AT & T store. While waiting in that store, Jason talked with the people trying to get the phone fixed while Ben and I walked around once again pretending to be interested in buying a phone. Ben did use this time to check his email on an iPhone, so it was slightly productive.
We then went on to Chris's house. We went to lunch to a place called "Mongolian Grill". It was almost identical to dad's Japanese restaurant. You would choose a bowl size and then fill it with all the different veggies and meats that you want. After you had chosen all the food and sauces that you wanted, you would take it to this small man at the back of the shop who would cook it all on this massive hot plate thing. (Imagine a circular frying pan, that is about a meter in diameter and then take the sides off it so that it is just a flat cooking pan thing. It also had a catchment area underneath to catch any food or sauces that ran off the top.) It was really good, not as good as dad's but it was still pretty good. Hanging out with Chris was pretty fun. It was funny to see them trying to beat each other all the time. For example, while leaving Chris's house, Jason started drifting around the corners. (It's REALLY easy to do because of the snow everywhere) So Chris started. It finished when Chris spun too far and ended up facing the gutter. He lost. We then went to get fitted for snowboarding gear. Unfortunately, the place we were going to rent from is not renting out snow gear yet because there isn't enough snow yet and their gear is more likely to get damaged. That was annoying but to make up for this disappointment, we went to the church parking lot and did some donuts. After this short but thrilling experience, we drove back to the Hampton's house to pack for our little trip. This took most of the afternoon but we were also pleased to receive a phone call from our older brother Jonathon. So he already knew most of that. So now we are getting to the parts of our wonderful holiday that he doesn't know about. The packing was uneventful. We then went to mutual.
It was FREEZING!!! What we did was re-enact the birth of the saviour. We started at someones house where we got prepared for the trip. There was a couple in the ward who owned a donkey and so they dressed up as Mary and Joseph with Mary riding on the donkey. We then proceeded to walk and carol to two different houses and asked if they would allow us in to which they both said no. (In their defense, they had been told before hand not to let anyone in). What I found kind of strange is that we travelled to the houses right next door to where we started. They were still fairly far apart, but the funny thing is that they were all members of the church. Three houses in a row were Mormons. It was kind of strange and cool at the same time. Anyway, after being rejected twice, we travelled a bit longer to a third house we're they sent us to their barn. We all crowded around inside and sat down on some hay bales and watched as Mary and Joseph acted out the scene with the help of some wise men and shepherds while the owner of the barn read the story from the bible. It was so cool. I've never really seen something like that. All the plays and re-enactments of the birth of the saviour stay in one place, and you just sit there watching, but actually walking around from door to door like Mary and Joseph would have done was pretty interesting. After the re-enactment was finished, we all stood around talking to different people while warming ourselves up with the heater. (NOTE: while walking around outside for about an hour, the temperature was -17 degrees) There were some donuts and hot chocolate.....but we didn't really want to leave the heater. After this all finished and people started going back to their homes, we drove back to Jason's house to grab our bags that we packed and took off to watch Jill's husband Cody play basketball.
That was funny......in a bad sort of way. According to Jason, it was the perfect game to show us exactly how most Americans play basketball. It started off pretty normal but towards the end of the game there were a tech fouls called. (Tech fouls are fouls when one of the teams is back chatting or yelling at the ref OR they are intentionally hurting the other team.) Cody's team won by 32 points which was good, but there was a guy on the other team who continued to yell at the ref for another 30 minutes after the game. It wasn't like the 4 tech fouls would have made any difference to the outcome, but they seemed pretty intent on the idea that the ref lost them the game and he should be fired. It was almost humorous to watch. Then we drove for about an hour to get Jill's house. When we got there, it was REALLY early in the morning and so we all just flopped on our beds and dreamt of snowboarding.
Wednesday morning! What a letdown.
We woke up earlier then we had all holidays with the intention of getting there as it opened. We first had to go and rent a board and boots etc. because the other shop had been closed. This shop didn't open until 8:30......the Ski runs opened at 9:00......it took 45 minutes to get to the ski runs from the shop.....DOH! We were able to rent the stuff pretty quickly and it was fun trying on all the stuff for the first time. The guy who was fitting us was pretty cool; he even gave us a discount because we were from Australia. SCORE! (It only ended up being a $6 discount, but it was the thought that counts.....right?) We then took off to go snowboarding for the first time EVER! We were so excited! Abby had said that it was the best day ever (I'm sure this has changed seeing as she got married, and for some people this would be the best day ever.....but I might be wrong, you would have to ask Abby) We got up to the place and there was some snow! BUT only the small hill was open. There wasn't enough snow for the others to be open......Let down number one. The second problem was that the snow wasn't recent. It had fallen a long time ago and now it was basically ice. The third problem was that it was -21 degrees not including wind chill. This was apparently the coldest it has ever been for Jason when he has gone snowboarding and it wasn't fun at all. The final problem was the air. It was all completely hazy. You could barely see 20 meters away and everything was just grey. Add onto all this that it was our first time and we ate it pretty hard; this first day was the biggest let down ever. We began having thoughts in our heads like "Was Abby delusional?" and "Why does anybody ever want to see snow? This is dumb". Yes, our thoughts and feelings towards snowboarding were pretty negative. As we went to lunch time at about 11:00am we had all had enough and decided to leave then instead of staying until it shut at 4:00pm. (NOTE: we did have fun, but in the end, the weather and atmosphere got to us) We left the slopes and started heading back to Jill's house. On the way there, we talked about different ideas to make tomorrow more fun. Ideas like waiting until 12 noon to go, that way it would be warmer etc.
when we got to Jill's house, Jill and Cody set us up with 'Rock Band'. For all those who don't know what rock band is, here is a simple explanation. Rock Band is an X-Box game that involves four different people at a time. One to play the guitar, one to play the bass, one to play the drums and one to do vocals. The vocal player would use a microphone to sing into to hit the right notes. Meanwhile the bass player and the guitarist use controllers in the shape of a guitar/bass to play the right notes on the screen as they came down. The drummer had a little drum kit that they use to play the right beats at the right time. All in all, it is SOO much fun!!! We got on there and we played until dinner time about 3-4 hours later. I was on the guitar, Ben was on the drums, Jason was on the Bass and Cody was too shy to do the vocals, so no one sang. After dinner, we all went to see where Jill worked. We didn't go there out of interest only. Jill works at a spa. That includes steam rooms and hot tubs. SOOO NICE! The hot tubs were outside in the snow but it was set to 36 degrees. It was like having the snow all around you but without the cold temperatures. It was awesome. I sat in there for about an hour or two. Jason was there at first but then he had to hop out and got Jill to cut his hair for him. (Jill is a hairdresser). It was the most relaxing thing EVER! I was also able to make a snowball about the size of Jonny's head. Every time my hands got too cold I would just dip them back into the water to heat them back up. This was a great way to end the day. It also sent our moods way back into the positives. Tomorrow was looking up for us.
Prayers are answered.
On Thursday, we stuck to the plan. We woke up at 9:00 in the morning planning to get to the ski resort at 11:00. What a dumb idea. Thursday was PERFECT!!!!!!!! Throughout the ENTIRE day Jason repeatedly told us that this was the best day we POSSIBLY could have asked for. A lot of snow had fallen the previous night meaning that there was about 6 inches of powder on top of the snow that we had gone on the day before. The skies were the perfect colour blue. The temperature was back up to around -10 degrees (which we considered warm). It wasn't snowing which meant the Jason was able to take videos and pictures of us snowboarding without fear of damaging anything. We had gone to the rental shop to get the next boot size up which meant my toes weren't squished. It was perfect. I can EASILY see why Abby had said it was the best day ever. It was AWESOME! It was easier to turn, you sprayed up snow when you turned, if you fell over it didn't hurt, we crashed about 1/8 as much as we did the day before. It was so much fun. We have all the videos and pictures to show you all when we get home. It would be useless for me to try and explain how much fun it was in words. You are just going to have to ask us when we get back.
That day we stayed until 4:00 and we are still kicking ourselves for getting there two hours late. After we finished up for the day, we drove back to Jill's house and packed up all our things and said our goodbyes. We drove back to Jason's house. On the way he got a phone call wondering if he was going to go and see the Rigby High School basketball game. We had never seen a high school game in America before so we chose to go. Oh if only I was famous and I would be too if I played basketball in America. We had called Jason's older brother Chris to come and watch it with us. It was so weird. It looked like the entire school rocked up. They were selling merchandise with "Rigby Trojans" printed on it. My personal favourite was when they announced over the loud speaker, the names of each player as they ran onto the floor. Imagine High School Musical, but substitute 'Wildcats' with 'Trojans' and change the colours to maroon and gold. That was what it was like. They weren't exaggerating at all in the movies. IT'S REALLY LIKE THAT! Rigby actually lost in the end but we don't like to talk about it. It was so strange to see so many people at a High School Basketball game. They even made you pay $4 to get in?!?! If only Australia had been like that. Sigh. That was pretty much the end of Thursday night except that we managed to find our beds right where we left them on Tuesday.
Friday was interesting.
It began like every other Friday. We woke up. But this time we were in a foriegn land in a foriegn bed but we knew the owner so it was all good. We slept in until about 10...ish at which time we had already decided what to do. Eat breakfast! It was so nice. Sister hampton had gotten up at a normal time and made crepes. We ate them with home made rasberry jam, cream, banana and icing sugar......SO GOOD!!!.....not so healthy......but SO GOOD! after this delicious breakfast. We ventured off to the AT & T store for the third time but this was to be the last time. Jason only needed his contacts moved across. After this, we did what Tammy requested. Jason, Ben and Myself ate lunch at Cafe Rio. That's right, we ate lunch at Cafe Rio. Jason had a salady kind of thing. I had a steak burito and Ben had an echilada. Jason and I enjoyed our meals very much. Ben however did not. He had just asked for an enchilada. After realising that they only put the sauce and cheese on the enchilada he noticed that what he was suppossed to say was either a chicken enchilada, or a beef enchilada. But he did enjoy his meal anyways. We then sat around for a little while until the clock finally ticked over to 3:00pm. This meant that Go-Karting was now open for business. It was a small track but it was an awesome track. Because it was in door and the go-karts were somewhat powerful, drifting was easy to do. The trick was to drift AROUND the corner and not INTO the corner. We got the best deal ever. because no one else was there, we had the whole track to ourselves. we could have bought a single 20 lap race for $10. Instead, for $20 we got unlimited racing for an hour. In the end, we ended up doing 120 laps. that's $60 worth of laps. We think we're awesome :D Jason however, wasn't awesome. That so called friend of ours was T-boning us just to get ahead. (NOTE: T-boning is were one car runs straight into another car on there side thus making the cars look like the letter 'T' from above.) but in the end, Ben and I know that we won while playing fairly. After the Go-karting, we tried as hard as we could to get as many tickets on the arcade machines to get us each a go-karting key ring. Which we can show you when we get home :P That night at the Hamptons, we didn't really do that much, we just played with Jason's little nephews and ate dinner etc. It was fun, but after being shot for the 100th time with a foam bullet, I decided I didn't like the game we were playing.
Saturday was going to be eventful and it was but not the way we had planned it. We began by going sledding. This involves tieing the tire to the back of their quad bike. We had had some snow on Friday night and we had decided to test it out. Jason was driving and I jumped on the tube first. It was so much fun. Then it came Ben's turn........hmmm What could possibly go wrong? I'll just let you watch this and then I'll tell you the whole story.
He was knocked out for a few seconds. He doesn't remember much and he doesn't remember why he didn't jump off but I think he might be doing better off now then he was before. Now he knows to jump off things that are about to crash. That's a valuable piece of knowledge he now holds dear. The rest of the time was trying to look after Ben. We finally got him inside with Jason basically carrying him. (Ben claimed he was perfectly fine but we began to worry when he stumbled sideways when trying to walk straight and when he told us it was Thursday on Saturday morning. It's the most sense he's ever made!) Ben is perfectly fine now, nothing wrong except that the cut on his nose makes it uncomfortable to put his glasses on. We had planned to go and watch some chariot races but Ben wasn't really up to it at the time. instead we filled the rest of the day with everyone else having turns on the tube. Jason's older brother Brett came over. He had a great idea. He pulled out a little plastic saucer (Almost like a very shallow plastic bowl about 75cm in diameter.) and tied that to the back of the tire. No one else got hurt. and the rest of the day was really fun. That night, Jason had planned a small party. A sort of get to know other people party. It was pretty fun. Nope, I change my mind. It was REALLY fun. There were two other guys named Landin and Justin, and then four girls named Morgan, Esther, Natalie and Cree. At first we started playing pool. Games like Australia versus America but when they realised that no one could beat the Aussies (NOTE: this is actually true. Ben and I cleaned up with in 3 turns everygame) they all turned there attention to Wii. The game chosen to play was Wii Olympics. The ironic part about this was that Australia won again. We won the fencing, swimming, hurddles and ping pong. The Wii was short lived. Then we all ran up to have pizza that sister hampton had made. Half way through dinner Morgan had to leave but then Natalie realised that Esther had left a board game called "Curses" at her house which was right next door. This game is the BEST GAME EVER!!!!!! Here's how it goes. There are two types of cards and a bell. Challenge cards and Curse cards. On your turn, you have to pick up a challenge card and do whatever's on the card. An example of a challenge card might be: You are a werewolf. Show everyone how you morph in the moonlight. Once you have completed your challenge card, You can pick up a Curse card and give it to another player of your choice. An example of a curse card might be: You must profess you undieing Love everytime a player rings the Bell. Someone may have 6 curse cards at any one time and he must do all of them. If he forgets to do one of them, Someone can ring the bell and call him up on it. If that happens then they loose that card. Once a player has lost three cards, he is no longer in the game. It is amazing what some people can do. Ben for instance had to do the following. Bite his tounge whenever he spoke, before he spoke he had to clap twice and say "attention class!", He had to hicup while he spoke, because he was Mr T. he had to say "I pitty da fool" every time he spoke and he also had to cry like a baby every time the bell rang. I dare you to try it! Can you see why that would be such a fun game. I don't remember the last time I laughed so hard.
That night ended soon after, we all talked for a while and then people left just like every other gathering but what made this one special is........get ready...... MUM AND DAD ARRIVED AT LAST!!!!!!!! Dad had pretty white knukles from driving in the snow but they both made it here nice and safely. The unfortunate thing is that I got kicked out of my own room. Sigh. Now I have to move into a messy room again with Ben. BUT I did have a clean room for a week, and for that I am grateful.
I have just realised that I forgot to put photos throughout and because I am lazy, I'm just going to put them all here at the bottom. Have fun!! - For some reason it won't let me load any more then 5 pics. If there are any stories that you would like to see photos for, say which ones they are and I'll make another entry with those photos. :D
Cya
Oliver
Oliver
This is Ben and I just at the front door of CabelasNotice the mountain in the middle of the floor
This is Me with a massice Moose Teddy thing. ben has one too, but he's kind of just sitting there really awekwardly and he went to bed so I don't know if he wants it up on the blog. But if you want to see it just request it!!
This is Jason Ben and I with the free towel at the entrance to the inner stadium.
This is the Snowball that we made
yay me!! Im the first one to blog!!! :P
ReplyDeleteand what do you think you're doing passing off my handi-work as your own (note: you didnt even know about the mountain in the middle of Cabela's until about an hour ago - WHEN I TOLD YOU!!)
:) night!
Lol - to bec :P
ReplyDeleteOliver! It's late at night, I have to be up very early in the morning, I'm wasted, and you made me read that WHOLE THING!!! crikey! Though my eyes are watering and my voice is cracking, I did enjoy it and appreciate all the effort you went to in writing it :)
oh and LOLOLOLOLOL at ben crashing into the tree! I also saw it on facebook. Funniest thing ever! Almost up there with Ben sprinting into the glass door. hahahaha. though this one might actually be better because the tree knocked him out. total win :D :D
that curses games sounds funny. you should find it, buy it and bring it back so we can play it :)
Sister Hampton's breakfasts sound lovely. I hope you're being lovely, polite and appreciative guests :)
Yay for mum and dad coming! I hope mum gets better really sooon!!!)
The game and everything else sounded like a lot of fun. I'm so glad you guys are having such a great time.
I have to sleep now sorry. Love you all very much. Say hi to jason and everyone!
Bethy xoxox
Lol, best post EVER! :) I'm late for my primary practice because I couldn't stop reading! I came on and saw it last night, but I knew then that I'd better appreciate it when I could devote my full attention, and it was worth the wait :)
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you guys ate at the same place the Hamptons to me to eat at before our Jazz game - and the game I saw was awesome and close too, except that in the last few seconds the Jazz lost (sigh).
The hunting shop sounds awful but amazing! Lovesacs sound cool :)
Mutual sounds like an experience!
Sucky about your first day snowboarding, I'm SO GLAD you went back, because it's awesome, and now you know :) I was kicking myself because I left it till the last weekend of my trip so I couldn't go back, just like you were kicking yourselves for going 2 hours late (sigh) - but at least we got to go! :)
Um, I love that you went to a day spa! That is FuNnY!!! And you loved it!!! Now you'll know to send your wives there for girly days later on lol :)
It sounds like you're being super spoilt by Sister Hampton! I'm sure you're being little gentlemen and being grateful and helping out though, right?! THey were so lovely to me when I stayed there too!!
Ben I'm glad you're okay!!! The 'after' to your accident looked bad (oliver's elbow maybe was in the way of the actual accident)!! So am definitely glad you're ok. And now you have a cool story I guess!
I went to one of the Rigby high school basketball games too, and I thought all those same things. Amazing! When we got home later, it was also weird seeing the highlights replayed on the local news!! You would've loooved that!! lol :)
Curse sounds fun! Maybe we can get it!! Did Ben succeed with all the things he had to do?!!!
And yay for Mum and Dad arriving victoriously and smoothly through the snow with Dad's white knuckles :)
Thanks heaps for the big fill-in!!! We loved reading it! I hope you're having a great last week, we of course just can't wait to see you all. Hope mum feels better!!
Love you!!! xoxoxoxox
Hey Oli! AWESOME post :) You'll be pleased to know that I've been to Cabelas. I liked the fishes and the trophy animals area. I've also been to Gateway many times (I know it well) - including the cinemas, and to the (newly renamed) Energy Arena :) I'm glad you had such a great time!
ReplyDeleteIdaho is all new to me though - so that was really interesting to read. Sounds like you guys are having a TOTAL blast!
Ben's crash had me worried though (you know me!). I've been watching too many episodes of house I think... you know that's how they start... :)
Love you guys! Looking forward to seeing you all again in a week or so!
xo Tammy
Hey Oli! I have to agree with Tammy - awesome post :)
ReplyDeleteYou guys are definitely having heaps of fun. I know Jonny wishes he was there with you. Jonny thought Ben's accident looked more serious then he first thought and I sadly laughed out loud (Ben - in my defense, I know you are ok, so that is why I was able to laugh and see the funny side of it).
I don't want to clog up your comment box, but keep the posts coming like this, even if they are a marathon to read :) You will be greatful one day looking back at this and be glad you wrote as much detail as you did. I had a look back at my Hamilton Island posts and glad I wrote what I did, because I had forgotten some of it already (blaming baby brain for that one!).
Anyway keep having fun. Hope you are all feeling well and that mum feels better.
Love Jessima, Jonny and Jenna
P.S. I vote we also hear a blog entry from Ben!!!