Dallin the Handyman

Last week, we took our white car in for emissions and safety inspection . . . and we failed. I was really bummed because they gave us long and EXPENSIVE list of things we needed to fix. Actually, only one thing was required for us to pass (replace a broken motor mount), but of course it was the most expensive – $240! To fix everything on the list would have cost us over $550! Well, our brother-in-law Russ knows a ton about cars so Dallin took the car over there on Saturday and they worked on it together for almost 5 hours. They fixed almost everything on the list (and did a few other things too) for a total of only $165! I guess they went and bought the new motor mount for $94 (and took about 20 minutes to replace the broken one), so we saved $146 just on that one thing alone! It was awesome of Russ to help, and Dallin thought he was so cool for getting all dirty/greasy and fixing the car. I was definitely proud of him for learning how to do that stuff, and especially for getting our car to pass inspection. :)

Demo Derby

On Saturday, Dallin and I went to the Demolition Derby in Spanish Fork with the Salmon family. We’ve never been to one before, and we both liked it even more than we expected. I took a ton of pictures because I thought everything was so cool. I was amazed at all of those crazy/daring people driving their cars so recklessly! Those guys are pretty amazing for totally destroying their cars, and then getting them ready for the next round in only an hour or so. It was tons of fun and I can’t wait to go again!

More summer fun . . . just in time

Dallin and I are trying to enjoy the final weeks of summer before I head back to school. But to be honest, I’m really excited to start back up again – I only have two semesters left!!! Anyway, a few weeks ago we went camping up at Bear Lake with my family. My parents, brother, and sister all have trailers, so it was just Dallin and me in a tent in the middle of them all. :) We used our air mattress and had like 8 blankets – it was actually really awesome! The funny thing is that we seemed to always have the best night sleep out of everyone . . . although it definitely helps not having any kids yet. Bear Lake was packed full of fun things. We got to go horseback riding up in the mountains, which was AWESOME! I was so excited to go; I have only been one other time. I had the biggest horse of our group (Zem) – I could barely get on it! It was my sister’s first time on a horse so it was fun watching her have a good time too. Our two nieces, Melanee (7) and Alyssa (5), each rode their own horse! They had so much fun and were sad to leave at the end. The guys went golfing and shooting while the girls got to hang out in the sun, play games, and read (we were all reading “The Help”). We went out to dinner one night, played in the water (I got dumped by my brother twice), did the new go carts slick track (Garden City), and cooked lots and lots of s’mores. Oh yeah – and Dallin brought a sick-looking fake rat and fake snake to scare people all week long. He got my mom really good with everyone’s help (and had his video camera set up; we’d post the video but I don’t want to embarrass her). It was a really fun trip and glad we had the chance to spend time with our family.