Sun baked and Ready to GO!

I had wanted a new something for when I am riding. I wanted something with pockets and stuff. This is what I ended up with.



I removed some of the pockets from this tactical vest and made some new parts. I removed the shoulder pads from my chest protector and added them on this.




I took my old war horse camelbak and removed the straps, added some Velcro loops and now it attaches to the back.

The belt has these cool button loops to hold the belt and vest together, this is doubly cool for me, this keeps my pants tucked in and my kidney belt from getting hung up on stuff. I also added these loops to my new riding pants to hook to the belt button loops to keep my pants from getting pulled down around my butt! So far I have only been out on one ride with it. It doesn't breathe quite as well a the chest protector did but I am loving the new pockets and all of the other stuff.

So as some of you may have heard I am the Young Mens president in our ward. You know I love having the stake presidency know me really well, unforuntatly that means they also kow who your bishop is. Our Stake President had my bishop ask me to shave, so until I move or get released here I am. I know, nobody will recognize me. Kari and I are still having to get use to this. I don't know if I will ever get use to it. You can really tell how much my face was messed up from my accident. Left side bad, right side ok.

Well it is cooling off and I can start reworking my motorcycle. I am wanting to convert it into a cafe style bike and in the process hope to shed a few pounds off of this hog. I am currently making a new 4 into 1 exhaust from a 2004 GSXR 750 header, CBX 1200, and some small pieces of my stock exhaust. I cut them all up and am rewelding them back together. Most of it is from the GSXR exhaust. There are many more mods on the board. I will keep yall posted.

I know some of you get rain on a regular basis, but us Arizonans it is a pretty rare thing. This is what our backyard looks like when we get 1.5" of rain, we get a little stream that runs through our neighborhood and out our backyard. It is a good thing that our yard is graded so that all of this drains off when it stops raining. This was an awesome day.

OK, some of you may know that Kari has a sleep over in early summer for the nieces that live here. I had the great opportunity of being present this year. They ate ice cream, made music videos, got to see the chickens next door, went roller skating, and had pizza. Now on to Dwight. One of the nieces wanted to take an egg home from the neighbors chickens. We said no problem, she asked for a pen, I thought she was going to write her name on it so that we would know which one was her's. She ended up naming it Dwight.

Man it has been a while since I blogged last. Usually I blog quicker than I visit, but i have been busy the last couple of months. Last week I went up to Utah to ride for a few days with Dad, Kevin, and Eric. I think next year I will come up to ride for a month. I did not want to go back home to the heat or the non heavily forested hills around the valley. Kari and I started to roller skate several times a week. It has been really fun to get out and do some active stuff with her. In case any of you are wondering, Kari is the Activities committee chairman in our new ward and I am the Youngmens President. More fun more meetings, at least Kari and I get to go to ward council together.

On Memorial day weekend Kari and I went up on the rim by Happy Jack Lodge to camp out with Mom and Dad, Angie and Justin, and their friends. We went up Sunday after church and missed all of the big rain storms and mud. Here we are just chit chatting and lunching on Monday.

Last weekend Kari and I went up to the White Mountains by Show Low, Sunrise ski resort. I needed to go up and look for camping spots for our scout camp this summer. After we spent 4 hours driving around the forest by the lake we found a really nice spot. On the way out, Kari and I decided to stop for some lunch by the lake. It got cloudy and started to sprinkle so we thought it was really nice, so we sat on a big rock and enjoyed the weather. Everyone else on the lake decided it was time to go and hide. It was a really nice day, much better that the 106 degrees and sunny in Mesa.

While trying to add some text to the photobucket slide show some how it was disconnect/terminating the link the the slide show. Any ideas why that would be???? Any who we have just a few pics from some of the kiddie stuff. I guess we were to busy having fun.

We had our annual District Camporee this last Saturday. These are two of my Scouts. For a full write up and more pics check out my BSATroop367 blog. It is on my sidebar.

Easter was fun. The Wednesday before Easter Kari's brother asked if we wanted to come over to his house for Easter, we said sure but we had plans at Mom and Dad Sorensen for dinner. So Friday after work we drove over to California for a day of fun. Saturday we went to Magic Mountain with Matt and Becca and their kids and Kirk(Marcus), Erica, and Livvy. We spent the Morning and afternoon with the kids in the kids area, later in the afternoon Matt wanted to take Robert, who is 7, on some of the roller coasters. So we made a list of all the roller coasters that he could go on and rode those, including one that had a loop, yeeee haaaaaa. After that it was getting to be around dinner time and so we left for dinner. We went to the stone fire grill and had some really yummy food. We took the ladies and the kids back to the house and the big boys went back to hit some of the more intense roller coasters. Sooooo much fun. Sunday we woke and had breakfast and the kids looked for Easter baskets, and to our surprise the Cardons had a Easter basket for Kari and I. Big surprise. Thank you! shortly after that it was time to drive back to Arizona so we could make it in time for dinner with the Sorensen's. More fun. Dinner, talking dirt bikes, and a fun game. Then it was time for home and some sleep. Thank you for all the fun everyone. I love being with our families.

The framing and sheeting is done. The window is also reused from the little blue house. So far I have spent less than $100 for lumber and nails and such. I love being thrifty.

Sometimes you make food yummy enough you wish you could share with everyone. I made this last week, I was a little board and wanted to see what I cold come up with out of the stuff I had around the house. This is nothing real fancy but it was super yummy. The base is a puff pastry shell, and then I loaded it up with layers of strawberries and ice cream, more strawberries, and more strawberries, and a little chocolate sauce on top. It was really yummy. I hope this makes you hungry.

It is so cute, Kari has been feeding our neighbors chickens greens and oats. Now every time one of us walks out in the back yard all of the chickens run up to the fence to see who is coming and wait for some food. She gets to have all of the fun of having chickens without having to really take care of the chickens.

This is Kari's sweet new ride. You think it was mine since I have things to fix on it first and she does not want to drive it until I have finished. Maybe the fixes will take a little longer than she expects. HAHA. I love driving this car. I now know why the Mazda commercials go ZoomZoom. Every time I drive it in my head I am saying ZOOMZOOM and I am smiling. Weeeeeeeeeee!!!!

Here is our finished shower stall we are still waiting on a few things like a shower door, paint, and floor moulding.

Here is the fun that Kari and I were having this weekend. Those are little marble stones that are flat on the top and bottom. They came in sheets as you can see. Kari did the custom fitting around the drain and between the tile segments to help break up the mating edges. Once the grout is in is should be hard to see where the joints are. Dad came over on Monday after we went for a short ride in the morning. He helped lay out and cut tiles for me while I ran them up the wall. I forgot how much harder it is to put thinset on a wall instead of on the floor. Oh well more practice for me. This is not where it is stopping, it was just a good stopping point for the night.

Ok, so here's the deal, Kari and I were putting in the concrete backer board last night for the shower enclosure. Part of this was that we had to cut the corner folds of the pan liner and glue them together with this special glue. The glue is similar to PVC glue. If you are familiar with it then you know it is smelly stuff when you are outside, now imagine using this stuff inside, in a little bathroom. At first it wasn't so bad, then Kari said she had to get out of there. After putting up one board I decided since I was feeling a little dizzy and my head started to hurt I should probably get out of there before I was unconscious. So then the plan was short bursts, 10 or so minutes, that worked for 2 more boards. After that I figured it was not very healthy to continue exposure. I will do the other 2 corners and the last piece of concrete board tonight. Maybe I should go invest in a gas mask or something.

This last weekend we took our scouts up in the snow for a camp out. Here are some pictures of me. For a full read up and more pictures you can check out my scout blog. It is on my side bar.