Deer Hunt

So this years deer hunt was a blast! Well all deer hunts are great fun, but this one was ever better! Mainly because this year I actually got a deer! All by myself. You see Mr. Mont Connell here has had some issues with hunting and actually succeeding at it. I've shot 2 big game animals in my 10 or so years hunting. I got my first deer back when I was 16, and an antelope 2 years ago. Those were great hunts, but the deer hunt was starting to get pretty dang frustrating.

So this year the group decided we were gonna try an area that they had tried a few years back when I didn't have a tag that somewhat worked out for them. Man was I not excited about this area lol. Mainly because it was gonna take a 4 mile hike up a mountain to get to this area. Oh did I mention that there was no trail to this area either? So we got all set up and ready to go. The nice thing is the first time they did this hike was at 2 in the morning, this is not something that they wanted to do the second time around. So my boss and I took Friday off and we met up at his house got the group together and headed up the mountain. We got to the parking lot at the base of the mountain and got our packs all ready to go. Looking at this mountain I thought to myself and said what the crap did I just get myself into? This was gonna be all straight up. Crazy! I was reassured that there is a good chance that there will be some good size bucks up this high. So off we went. Man it was a long hike. Took us about 4 hours to get up the mountain and find a decent flat spot to camp in the trees away from the elements. We found a good place set up camp and our beds, which were pine leaves thrown on the ground for a bed cushion and a tarp. Pretty dang awesome. Then we decided to go scout around some. There was a pretty lake off to one side that was surrounded by a huge cliff. Yeah most likely will not be trying to shoot something off that side. We did see a buck down in that valley though. On the side where we were hunting just before nightfall we did see a few dozen deer with a few bucks in the mix. What we were hoping would happen in the morning is that the hunters that were on four wheelers or walking around would push the deer our way up over the top and right down the mountain right past us. From the deer that we had seen running around we were pretty hopeful for the next day. We got back to camp built a small fire and mad dinner and just chilled by the fire till we all got tired enough to sleep. Not much you can do on the top of a mountain at night so we went to bed pretty dang early around 9. Which is no problem since we would be waking up around 530 6 to get ready and set. We were in bear country and I had a pistol with me in my sleeping bag just in case. The guys all had their rifles loaded as well. I've always found it hard to sleep the night before the hunt cause I get way too excited. That night was no exception. I also thought a bear was in camp. Scared the crap out of me. I was awoken by something bumping into my leg then bumping my head. Well bears do that to see what it is and if it's alive or not. So I tried to stay as still as I could, cause I could hear deep breathing and was like well this just made the hunt a lot more interesting.......being attacked by a bear the night before has gotta be some sort of record on the list of crappy stuff to happen to someone while hunting list. I was about ready to look out to see what it was and point my gun and shoot a few rounds, when I realized what it was. I was sleeping next to my friends dad Keith and I was facing him. He moved and hit me and he snores like a beast. So I told him in the morning and we all laughed about it. We got up in the wee hours of the morning and started our hike up to our spots. Gerard and me were going up higher and the other 3 were gonna head straight out and wait by some trees. We got set and within about 20 minutes of the opening day of the hunt we saw our first deer head over the hill. All does. A few minutes later another group came up, the 3rd deer back was a buck! So I tried to get all things ready but we were on a weird angled hill and the deer wouldn't stop moving. So by the time I got ready they were too far away. So we sat for another hour or so looking at does and birds when I heard something rustling in the trees next to me. So I figured I would keep my eye on that spot for a while. Well after about 30 minutes a deer stepped out with it's head down eating some grass. I kept my eye on it seeing as it was only about 50 yards from me. It finally lifted his head to take a look around and it was a buck! A nice 4 point. So I took aim at it to make sure it was and told Gerard to take aim as well. Well that was a huge mistake....I turned around got my sights on him again. He had no clue we were there. I was ready to take my perfect broad side 50 yard shot on a nice buck. Had my finger on the trigger, held my breath, started the pull and the deer fell over. My heart sank. Here I was seconds away from taking the biggest deer I've had a chance to shoot at and I missed my chance. Keith noticed the buck way before we did and was watching it and was worried that it was gonna get away so he took the shot. Which is great! He got a really nice one. I was worried though. That shot was probably heard through the whole canyon and it would be a long time before another group came by. Or so we thought.

After about waiting for another 10 minutes or so and watching Keith make his way to a buck which had fallen down a small cliff, Gerard and I saw two deer come up over the top and stop between two trees. We couldn't tell what they were with our eyes cause they were about 420 yards away so I got set just in case and Gerard took a looksie. All of the sudden I hear they are both bucks! They were both 2 points, but the one in the back was bigger. I was excited! But also pretty dang freaked out. I had never taken any animal from farther then 220 yards. So even though I believed in myself that I could make the shot, I wasn't having my hopes up. The nice thing is that on the way up I told Gerard that I was willing to take any deer, he offered to help if I needed it. So I had him as a back up. This all went through my mind within about 30 seconds. I got ready took the safety off, braced myself, breathed then held it put my finger on the trigger, got the distance and wind and took a shot...................bang! The deer took off and the stopped another 10 feet from where it was. I shot below about and inch. So I put another round in and shot again.......Bang! High I hear...crap! This buck was not getting away. The other 2 point had already taken off was long gone, but for some reason this deer couldn't figure out where the bullets were coming from so he just stood still after running off a few feet. Ok I thought to myself. First shot was low second one was high aim in between those two spots and shoot again. Bang! Thud........That noise is always a great one...and a scary one. We looked at where the buck was and he was no longer there.....Did I hit him? Did I make the 420 yard shot? Gerard confirmed that he also couldn't see the deer. So I put in three more rounds and took off towards where he was. That walk took and seemed like forever! I really had no idea how big he was cause I just saw horns and put my cross-airs on a body. I didn't know if he actually was down, or just wounded and running. I got up to where I thought he would be and there he was just sitting down. I did wound him. Which made me sad. So I got set put in another round and got ready to fire...He saw me got up and tried to run. Bang! Hit, still going, another round bang! He ran a few more feet and fell. The adrenaline and excitement that ran through my body is something I can't describe. When I came up on him I got a view of how big he really was. He was a monster two genetic two point. What does that mean you ask? Well a buck will lose it's antlers after the rut each year. They grow back a few months later and will always grow back different. What was a huge 5 point one year could be a spike the next. It just depends. A genetic buck means that they grow the same points every year but they just get bigger and bigger. Which could actually be a good thing for breeding if the buck was a good size deer, but seeing as this was a two point he was just gonna produce more two points. Which could be cool, but from a hunting perspective not so great. So apparently I was doing justice to the population.

I got up to my buck and poked him with a stick to make sure he was done. I then jumped up in the air and gave the sign that he was done! Ah man I was so happy. Suddenly all that climbing and hiking was worth it and my 7 year stint without a buck was done. I had a huge buck. He was fat and had some really pretty antlers. Keith made his way up and said that was the biggest two point he had ever seen. We got to work boning out the deer and packing him up, then headed over to Keith's animal which was also a big bodied buck. We had tons of meat coming our way. We got back to camp and sat everything down, ate and took a nap. Time came to take the long trek back down and man was I not excited about this part. my pack alone now went from just weighing maybe 30 pounds to almost 90. Going straight downhill with no trail and a huge pack was gonna be killer. The hike only took us an hour and a half but it felt like forever...That thing weighed so much and I have never taken anything like that down a mountain. We got back though and got ready to go. I still couldn't believe I had gotten my deer withing the first maybe 4 hours of the opening day. It was so worth the climb we had to do to get our deer. The group went back up there later in the next week and we ended up filling 8 of 10 tags that we had. It was a great hunt.

Crazyness

They are great days aren't they? This one for some reason hit me pretty good. I was thinking a lot about a lot of different things and I'm pretty sure that those things are still all jumbled up in a huge mess in my brain, but we are gonna try to get them out in a way that makes some sort of sense to me and those of you that read this.

The last couple weeks o so have been interesting ones to say the least. Ever since I got back from Spain they have been this way. Not sure why, but I have been in a more pensive mood then before and these last couple weeks have been good for that with some of the things that have gone down.

I got a text about 3 weeks ago from a friend of mine that directed me in a show almost 2 years ago now. The show that she had gotten cast in was looking for someone to fill in a role and she wanted to know if I wanted in to give it a shot. I can't really ever turn down a role that sounds somewhat interesting, so I went down to UVU where they practice and they had me run a scene with them, so I ran the scene and got the part. My guess is because they just really needed someone to fill in for the part so the show could get going. I know that I am somewhat talented, but I also know I tend to be the guy they just call when they need someone to fill in a spot. I got the script and headed home to look it over. The show was opening in about a week and a half and I need to see exactly what I had just gotten myself into. Well I opened the script and was kinda blown away by the amount of lines I had to memorize, along with a huge monologue that I had to get down pact as well. Needless to say rehearsals kinda went pretty slow and as we got to the moments where we moved to the new stage a lot of us were pretty worried about how the show was going to go. It also rained on us and was freezing cold the whole week, so that was gonna suck. We got to opening night and of course it rained and was butt cold. It was the same on Saturday and Monday nights as well. Surprisingly though the show went really well those days as it did the rest of the run. We had a lot of funny moments and it was a good time. We had some of the usual drama that shows have but all in all it was a pretty good time. Even the writer of the show showed up to a few performances and after one sat us all down and talked to each one of us. Told us what he liked about our performances as an actor and what he liked about how we portrayed his characters.

We had a stake football tournament during this run and it was a blast! Basically it consisted of one day and it was single loss elimination. The rules are kinda lame, no blocking with your hands, no running behind your teammates when you have the ball and lots of other dumb ones. You have to have at least 4 girls on the field at all times and they have to touch the ball at least once in a series of downs. Emails were sent out to all that wanted to play and we had a couple of practices before our games. Friday they played, I couldn't go cause of opening night, and we won. Sounds like that game didn't really matter cause all the teams that loss were there on Saturday as well. We had a really good turnout for the games, I think only one team had more then we did show up. I misses the first game because it was at like 8 in the morning and I wanted to sleep in some. We won that game and advanced on. After you played a game you would wait about an hour and then you would play the next game, so I showed up for the next game and was there the rest of the day. It was a blast! Our girls were amazing! They played so well. We ended up sweeping the whole tournament. We had one game that was pretty close, but other then that we blew everyone away. I guess it helps to have a bunch of players on our team that played football and rugby in high school and college lol. All in all it has been a pretty good last couple weeks.

Conference Weekend

Last time conference went around I was in a pretty bad place. Things just went south with someone really special to me(one sided here) and I kinda didn't really want to do much for conference or even watch it. It had brought a lot of bad memories back to me for some reason.

Well this time around I tried not to think about it too much. I woke up at the butt crack of dawn cause we had football practice and it turned out to be a lot of fun. Met some really cool people and even came away with a knock down and some gashes on my legs. Most of us then headed to our bishops house for breakfast and to watch the first session of conference that morning. I was sitting next to some new friends just talking about each other when I got a text message on my phone. It was from an old friend of mine that was right there with me through a lot of the downs of that last relationship(sorry for those times).... The message just plain and simple said will this conference be better for you then the last one? I was confused for a bit then remembered what she was talking about. So that was kinda my motto for this time around. I was going to make it a better one, as a matter of a fact the best one I have had in a long time.

The day was off to a great start. I didn't stay too long after a few people left cause I had some things to take care of before Priesthood session. So I listened to it in my car on the way home and sat and watched once I got there. I then headed up to Sandy to pic up a few of the things that I needed that day. Ended up picking up a few more things then I needed but it worked out. Went home and set those up as well. Watched the next session or as much of it as I could while I went over lines for my new show. Priesthood session is probably my favorite session out of all of them. The talks seem to always be directed at me. Or at least a few of them do. There was a couple through the whole 2 days that really impacted me. After we ate as a group for priesthood some of us met up and headed down to thanksgiving point for a turn on there haunted mazes and such. Those were way fun. Made some new friends that night too. Sunday was just a relaxing day of going over lines watching conference and learning a thing o two I didn't know before about our savior. Sure do love the guy.

I thought back to what my friend asked Saturday morning and I did have a better conference this time around. The person that took 9 months away from me for nothing was still on my mind but it's more of a why was I with them in the first place kinda thing. I her and her fiance a few weeks ago and they just seemed so awkward to me. She is getting married this week and it just seems like another day to them. Like they don't care. Not sure about you but I want my wedding to be a big event! Anyways, I'm glad things went the way they did this October. I look forward to the rest of the year.

Day 4

Today was a pretty cool day as well. Woke up played games with Javi and headed to Baton for the parque de attracciones...Why it's called the park of attractions and not some cool name I have no idea. When we got there the place looked typical Spain...which is so cool! They have tons of random weird stuff that I love! We got settled in and got on some rides. The rides were all pretty cool but pretty short at the same time. Most of them lasted maybe a minute o less, but they were INSANE! one twisted and turned the whole time we were on it. One takes you straight up and then Shoots you in the air backwards. Loved it. My friend got a little sick so we chilled after that one and then decided to try a water ride...Did I mention that these water rides to everything they possibly can to make sure you leave completely soaking wet? The first one we did takes you right through a water fall at the end..Soaked. The next one drops you 15 feet into a pond...Soaked...But great fun non the less! I was kinda tired the whole day so I got bored pretty quick. The place was way fun though. What always interest me though is how different people here react compared to back in the states. People were taking off their shirst on rides, girls walked around in nothing but a bikinni, which I'm not gonna complain about, although there were a few that should of been approved to wear one before they did........but the people and rules here are so different.

I know I get ready to head home in less then 10 days but sometimes I feel like I'm here on my mission again and have another 2 years to go. mainly because I can't use my phone here o see Melinda, who I miss! Some days I just wanna go home o to a place where I can talk to her o my family. Oh well though, I remember the other night when we were at the ccm and realize welp those guys still have 7 weeks before they even get out of that building then another 21 months after that in Spain, and I feel better...horrible yes, but it works..Being in that building though gave me the feeling of the spirit more then I have anywhere else besides the temple in a long time. I missed that feeling. Being with the missionaries and talking to them after was just great fun. I can't wait till they get to go out and experience what I did for 2 years. Some days I felt just like I did today. I wanted to go home so bad and just be with familiar faces and places. Some days were like the other days of this trip, I loved being there and couldn't wait till the next challenge came my way. Helping the Lord find his lost sheep and letting him take my full self into his life. Hopefully they feel the same way...

Well until tomorrow night! After we go to a city I have never been to before! Super stoked for that!

Day 3

So I now realized that since I have actually been on vacation since last Sunday that this should technically be called day 6. I just don't care to change it...So day 3 it is. Today was a pretty nice easy day actually nothing too bad at all. I woke up around 1 cause I had to meet a friend in Madrid so we could go to a theme park. Well she called me from work and told me that she would prefer to go on Thursday cause she was super tired and didn't want to go today. Which is totally fine with me! Yes I'm on vacation and yes I'm supposed to be doing great awesome things every day, but think about it. It's not like I'm in the states. I'm in Europe. Just going out and sitting on a bench watching people here is fun. People here are quite hilarious actually. So I actually just slept a little bit longer and got up and ate breakfast. Javi came in and we got talking about his girl and how he was in Madrid all morning. His mom and grandma were in the living room watching one of their many favorite t.v. shows, los bandaleros so Javi was actually really bored lol. So I went back into my room to do some homework. Got a good amount done when Javi wanted to play some video games. Which I was cool with cause lets be honest people...the kid looked bored to death and needed to do something. So we played for a couple hours till his the ladies of the house wanted to watch another of their t.v. shows that they watch here every day. Which I was cool with cause I wanted to get some more homework done. So I went back to my room turned on some Home Improvement on the Youtube and watched till about 7. I was meeting a friend in Madrid around 8, so I had to get ready to leave. I asked Monica to come with me cuase if she didn't when the night was over with Jorge I would be wandering around Alcala trying to find my way home. So we took the train and then the bus down to Madrid, Plaza Del Sol to meet up with Jorge. Jorge is a really good friend of mine from a city called Guadalajara...not Mexico...Spain...His city was my second area in Spain on my mission. He has a family and a great wife with now 3 kids. Only one when I was there. We met up went out to eat and had a great time. Had one of my favorite dishes....Paella..love the stuff. Basically awesome rice with great other things. At the end of the night after a good conversation and 2 bowls of icecream, he took me and Monica who went to visit her aunt back to her house. I'm planning on staying with him next Friday night so he can take me to the airport in the morning since no one will be at Monicas place...she is going to Denmark Friday morning and her Mom doesn't really know how to get me there. All in all it was a great trip and tomorrow is the theme park day!

Day 2

Today was a really fun day. I'm still a little wacked out from the time change, it's probably around 7 back home which means its like 2 in the morning here, but because of the time change I can't really sleep well. Last night I slept for a couple hours, woke up, watched some youtube shows and went back to bed and woke up at like one here. It was nice. I got ready ate, caught the bus and went to Avenida de America to meet up with a friend to go see the sights of Madrid. Now most of you are probably thinking you have spent 2 years there, didn't you see all that already? Well yes most of it I have seen, but it was different this time. Before I was a missionary. Everything was planned and most of it all happened on pday. Which meant yeah during the week I would see it but it was on a time limit and so on.

We went to eat first at TGIF Fridays. It was actually a lot better then in the US(I got sick the last time I went in Utah and haven't been since). Then we walked around the city a bit. We went to the Palacio Real which is where the king and queen of Spain used to live. We went to the huge freaking church across the street from there. That was way cool and weird inside. Old churches are pretty cool to see though. Then we got ice cream. After that we went to an egyptian temple. Why in the crap they have a temple from Egypt in Spain I have no idea, but it was pretty cool. We then took off to a park and just chilled. That was one of my favorite parts of the day. We could just go sit down and take it all in! No being rushed no having to stop people to try and talk to them, we just sat and chilled. Which was really nice. Around 8 we grabbed the metro and headed to the CCM which is the MTC that they have here in Spain. It's like a mini Temple Square. They have the temple a stake center and the ccm. We went there to be fake investigators for the missionaries so they could teach us. I was kinda not really wanting to go at first, but when we got there all the memories of when I was in the same place that all the missionaries are now it was great! We had a good time with them and I felt their pain. They were pretty new to Spain and didn't speak very well and it brought back a bunch of memories from when I was there. It was a really neat experience though. It was also awesome that I went there but didn't have to stay! lol I love being able to do what I want here. It makes for an awesome trip.

I've been thinking about home and I hope things are well back there. I miss you all! Especially my critters and that person that is staying in my house for the 2 weeks! Miss you person! lol

First day

Well here I am sitting at my friends house in Alcala De Henares Spain. I finally got everything more or less set up and I'm less freaking out. Lol It's nice to finally be back with a good friend, but I'm not totally sure how I feel being away from home. To be honest it still kinda feels like I'm back serving a mission again and will be here for another 2 years instead of just 2 weeks.





It's late Monday here and my trip here was kinda crazy. My dad took me to the airport around 8 in the morning so I could get everything set up and ready to go with the flights and so on. We had a nice talk about a lot of stuff going on right now. It was actually nice cause it's been so long since we have had one of those. He dropped me off at my gate and I set out on my way. I've decided that I don't really like traveling alone that much anymore. I would really like to have a travel buddy next time I go somewhere thats far far away. I boarded the plane to atlanta and sat next to a guy that was in the army heading out for a tour in Iraq, and a girl that was heading to Germany with her family cause her dad was in the army. She was gonna be there for about 3 years. That brought back memories of the first time I came here and how weird it felt to know that I wouldn't see my family for so long. She was at least with her family which was a plus. There were actually only stopping in Atlanta to get her dog, then heading to Germany. I can honestly say I'm glad I'm not going through that whole process again. I'm only here for a short period of time then I get to go back and be with my family and friends again in a place that is familiar to me. Anyway I found my next gate and since I had a little over 3 hours before I would board I decided to just walk around. It's always a bit of a culture shock when you get out of Utah. Even though I'm the least Utahn Utahn there is out there, sometimes you just forget what it's like outside of the bubble. I sat down at a table just wanting to watch the game that was on and I got asked for my Id multiple times which I always think is funny. They always look at my age and are like no way!





The time finally came for me to leave the U.S. for a couple weeks and I boarded the plane. I sat next to a nice guy from Texas that was taking his family over to visit a brother that he hasn't seen in a long time. We talked it up some about Spain and what we had hoped to do while we are here. His family and him from what it sounded like during our conversation are leaving the same time I do Saturday morning next week. So I'm sure I will be seeing them again when I get ready to go home. The flight over was kinda crazy long. I forgot how bad it was. Luckily I was in a window seat and had some decent leg room for the almost 9 hour flight. I alway love going over the ocean though I remember the first time I came here, when we all saw that it was total darkness outside but yet could see sun in the horizon. It was just as cool this time. I've had my doubts about coming here(I didn't really wanna leave on other trip so soon, but I think that was just the nerves getting to me. We landed and it was on! and by it was on I mean I got lost in a huge airport in a foreign country for almost 3 hours, my ticket said I would be dropped off in terminal 2 so I told my friend that was coming to get me that, that's where I would be. Well they dropped me off in terminal 1, which isn't totally far away but since it was a big place and I had no idea where I was going I did what any boy scout would do and walked around till I got more lost. Finally I was about to break down and just give up, go get a hotel for the night and get some internet so I could let my friend know where I was(my phone doesn't work over here) but I decided I would sit down for a few more minutes and see what happens.

Not ten minutes after I sat down and kept that little prayer in my heart did I find Monica and her brother Javi, well they found me. They had been doing the same thing I was. Walking around trying to find me. It was great fun. We got me a taxi and started heading back to their home in Alcala de Henares where I will be staying for the next 2 weeks. We got there got my bags set up in one of the rooms and was immediately feed by Monica's mom...Who I never actually got he name of, and I'm not sure if I actually ever will lol. She is a really nice lady who sat me down made me eat and then introduced me to the grandma. Who is also awesome. I kinda needed Monica to come home from work, so I could get my internet working, I mean it's nice to be here away from it all, but it's nice to be able to talk to people too. So I pretty much just chilled with the family for a few hours till she got back. She got me all hooked up and I sent some messages out to people on facebook and then we left. We met up with a friend of hers and went and ate some tapas, which is basically just a fancy word for food you get at a bar. It was actually really good! I knew the friend Mariana before when I was here for my mission, but it was a little different this time. I got to give besos which is something I will have to get used to but oh well. After we ate we talked some till she had to leave, Monica and I walked around for a while just talking and trying to figure out what I'm gonna do the rest of my time here. She is leaving on the 16 to go to a conference in Denmark so I will kinda be on my own for a day here. Which isn't too bad at all. It actually looks like I will be spending a lot of the time here with her. Which will be way nice, cause I was worried that I would be by myself a lot. Which I'm ok with, but not totally ok with when I'm in a different country. So I'm happy for that. Then We came home and here I am. Writing about my day.

I'll have to be honest though, I was really looking forward to this trip till the last couple days and especially when I was on the plane. I'm not totally sure why, but I kinda felt like I was leaving a lot behind that I didn't want to at that moment. I haven't really been home much in the last 2 weeks because I went to Florida for work, and then came back for only a week before I took off again to come to Spain. I have a great girlfriend even though I don't really seem to give her the credit for it. I really wish she was here. I miss her tons and it's only the first day. I have my own place now which I really just enjoy sitting there and doing nothing sometimes. It's a nice change from when I was living with a bunch of guys. I really think it comes down to the fact though that having this much time on my hands is really gonna make me think about things I've been thinking about for a while. Things at home, my personal life, work and school. Things I think I came here to get away from, but they have come with me and I'm glad. I also think there is a bit of home sickness. I felt like a missionary again when I first landed and kinda didn't wanna be here. don't get me wrong, I loved my mission, but the idea of being away from my home for another 2 years kinda hit me hard. I'm glad I can now do all the things I couldn't do before. Well it's late and I'm off to bed. I'm gonna try and update every day with new adventures here in this great country that I have learned to love. Buenas noches!

Free Time

So the show I was in, The Princess Bride, is now over. We ended on Saturday and I have no idea how I survived the whole thing. I got a message from a friend of mine that directs shows. She kinda worked with me in a religious show a few years ago till I decided to drop out, because the show wasn't going in a direction that I wanted to be a part of. I wanted to work with her more, but she moved to Park City. I live an hour away which is kinda hard for me to drive an hour up and an hour back. She offered me this part though and I couldn't refuse it. So I decided to finally give in and give the show a shot. Luckily we had a carpool set up so I didn't have to drive nearly as much as I thought I was going to have to. Only like twice.

Here is the kicker though, the show was going to be a total of 3 weeks. No that isn't just performing time, that is everything! So needless to say things have been insane the last couple weeks. Those three weeks were pretty crazy. Get up, go to work straight from work to rehearsals then the gym. Once the show started I couldn't hit the gym as much cause we got back way too late. The show was fun for the most part. We didn't have a stage because we were invited to perform at a church. So we used their like recreation room thing. Nice place just no stage, so no area to build a nice set so we did with what we had. Which didn't turn out too bad. The cast was overall pretty great. Just a few people I wanted to smack upside the head. The talent was there and we had a great run. Not too many people new about the location so we had some pretty small audiences but overall I enjoyed it. It made me realize I really can perform a lot better then I thought I could. We had literally 9 days to learn all our lines cues and what we were supposed to be doing on stage. That was kinda insane. I learned all my lines the best I could but still had my script with me for a few nights backstage.

The show ended last Saturday and man what a crazy day that was. We had 2 performances on each of the Saturdays that we did so basically we just stayed up there all day. Kinda sucked but it was fun. We saw Harry Potter the first time and the second one we just walked around Park City some. The last show while it was an amazing feeling to be done was bittersweet. I made some pretty good friends and I always love performing no matter how stressful it tends to always be. I just like being on the stage. It's way too much fun. It is nice to have some time to myself again though. Although I feel like it's way too much time sometimes lol. It does give me time to get back into my routine of going to the work then going to the gym and then whatever else happens after that. I cleaned the fish and gecko tanks and bought a new one to set up for some chameleons. I have two female and a male on the geckos and they have quite a few eggs when they breed and they keep laying for up to six weeks after the first batch of eggs, so I could probably start up a little breeding business and sell the babies to local pet shops. They would probably go for around 60 bucks a baby which is pretty awesome. I added some new fish to the tank as well yesterday. They are called African Moony fish, and are a pretty awesome addition to the tank.

I finally got everything set up in my new place as well. I don't know if I mentioned before but I moved. I know I only lived in my last place for a little more then 7 months, but it was time to get out. The guys were great but there was a lot of things going on with that house that I just didn't agree with o appreciate very much. Most of them having to do with the fact that I wasn't told anything wrong about the place when I moved in. Most of the utilities were backed up and were shut off regularly and I did my best to help the lease help pay for those but he kept not paying for them and letting them get shut off, then paying enough to get them turned back on for a little while again. Got really annoying, especially with animals that kinda require electricity for their tank to function. The roof above my bed also leaked and after many times of trying to get him to fix the problem o just stop taking a bath had failed I just got sick of it. The straw that broke the camels back came after he decided to make his movie in our front yard. All the other roommates asked him not to, but he did anyways. The movie looked cool, but it made our yard look like a waste dump. One thing with this guy is he takes forever to actually clean things up. O gets us to try and do it. I woke up one morning to yelling outside my door and went out to see this guy freaking out. The landlord had just dropped by saw the yard got really mad and decided he was giving us 3 days to move out. I have never been evicted before and wasn't to happy that I was being kicked out cause someone else was being a moron. So I started looking. Long story short we ended up getting till the end of the month and then we didn't have to leave if we didn't want to. I still decided to leave and began looking for places to live, preferable one that I could have all to myself. I'm tired of living with people lol.

I found a place after looking at a ton of them and started the move. Then got put in the show and the move was complicated much. I have finally gotten everything I need in the place minus a couch o two, now I just have to get rid of all these boxes that I have lying around. I really like the place. It's a lot of fun and really nice. Way too big for what I need but hey I love the extra room. It's a two bedroom one bathroom basement place and the landlords are really nice. I like them a lot.

Well I'm just rambling on again, but in the end it's nice to have some free time to be able to just relax. Kinda. I have been going hard for the last few months and it's nice to do just whatever I want and not have to worry about being places at certain times. I will be performing on Thursday with the Nashville Tribute Band and I really am looking forward to it. It's gonna be a lot of fun. Later everyone!

The Nice Guy

I was recently talking with a female friend of mine one night after a rehearsal for a show that we were in. We were driving home and the topic of dating came up. How it was different in Utah(mainly in the Provo/Orem areas) then other places that she had lived in. It was interesting to get some points of views on things. She asked me why I haven't been married yet or even had a gf for a steady amount of time over the last few years. We talked about a few different things and some of them I would like to share with you today.

That talk left me with a lot of questions and I went on to thinking that night about girls I've come a crossed in the past, dates I've been on and the girls that I've had a meaningful relationship with. Also a little insight to myself, I love to people watch. It is one of my favorite things to do. Watching couples interact as they go through the day is also one of my favorite things and it has shown me a lot of what girls and guys alike tend to look for in the opposite sex and how they get it. It has also opened my eyes to a world of different tactics per say, in the way that girls look for certain guys and so on. Sorry ladies this is a post mainly to you, because being a guy I tend to not watch them as much, however I do watch how they treat you, and that is how I want to start my process today..

I remember one day in class when I was 7 a girl in front of me that I had liked for a long time. Gotta love those elementary school crushes right? She was a pretty great girl for a 7 year old. We used to play on the swings at recess together and shared lunches and all that gooey stuff that gave us cooties back in the day as kids. One day though she didn't swing with me she was swinging with the new kid. Well needless to say, I got mad and defensive and went over and pushed her off the swing. She cut her elbow cried and ran off. I know I was a little poop head, but at the time I felt pretty good for showing her how what she did made me feel hurt. Well I was pretty happy with myself till I got home. I walked into the front door of my house and my grandparents were over, yay grandparents! I loved seeing them, usually cause they took me to the beach. Well not on this day. My grandfather came over to me with my dad put his hand on my shoulder and asked me if we could go in my room and have a little chat. We got into my room sat down and my dad left the room. I had no idea what was going on. He then asked me about this girl in class and what happened that day. I was blown away that he knew about the incident. Turns out she went and told her teacher who called my parents. My grandpa then proceeded to tell me how that was one of the worst things I could do in my life. Treating a girl with disrespect. I come from an LDS family and we talked about how women are daughters of God and my grandpa even threw in that they are here to help us men become more like Christ. The conversation went on for a good hour(imagine my attention span at this point) and he left the room. Now many of you will read this and be like "really'? as a 7 year old this had an impact on you? Well honestly it really did. I have done my best to treat women like the angels they are and be that nice guy from then on. Sure I have slipped up, but I'm human it's bound to happen. Now that I am older and looking for someone that I can call my companion and wife I see that being the nice guy really isn't working for me at all. I've never really understood why.

Some of my favorite first dates that I have been on with girls is the typical going to a restaurant talking getting to know each other then go see a play, or some event. I love opening doors for girls and things of that nature. Call me old fashion but oh well, it's the way I was raised and its the way I'll stay. I've never asked a girl out on a date via text message so wrong that is...but that's for another day. Here's the thing though in our dating world today that type of nice guy has become very old fashioned and frightens a lot of girls away. Example; around Valentines day last year our bishop pulled a few of the guys out of Elders Quorum and took them into the Relief Society to have a talk. The 3 guys were kinda set up like a panel to be asked questions by the ladies about dating and what they like to see on first dates and such. One of the guys is a good friend of mine and we have the same style of dating so to speak. Neither of us get past the first date and our bishop asked why. He kinda put one girl on the spot that I had gone out with but never heard back from why she had said no to a second date and now avoided me at church(I heard about this after the meeting). She said that while I was very nice and treated her well, she thought it was too well, and that she didn't think that she deserved to be treated that well. Our bishop then asked for a show of hands of what girls in the room were turned off by a guy that treated them well. He was surprised that most of the girls in the class raised their hands. He asked the boys to leave then had a nice talk the rest of the hour about how that didn't make sense at all to him, and how they should look for a guy that does treat them like the angels that they are and to settle for nothing but.

I guess that is what this post is trying to get at. I've noticed so many girls "settling" if you will for a guy that treats them like anything but the person they deserve to be treated like, but because he makes lots of money, has a nice car, house, dresses like an male model has a great body etc. they look past the way they are treated because they have the guy every other girl wants. Now, I'm not saying the amount of money a guy spends on a date is the sole determining factor, not ever guy is in a position to take a girl out to a nice dinner and so on. But it's in the way that he treats her that will leave the girl thinking this guy really has invested time and sincerely wants to get to know me for me and not just get in my pants. But I've noticed quite a lot of girls that will readily look past that and end up with the kind of guy that they think they need to be with, nice car, money, house etc. and are surprised when this guy with all this nice stuff treats her like crap. I myself have been told many times that I am too nice or treat them too well by someone that I genuinely cared about and wanted to pursue a relationship with. Never understood that. I spent many a night at 4 in the morning in a parking lot with a good friend of mine that would come to me for advice on a guy she was dating that basically only wanted one thing from her. He treated her like she was the scum of the earth until she would succumb to his every wants and needs. I sat there for many nights just listening to her go on about him and how she should leave him. The next day message would be "Oh Mont, he took me for a drive in his Camaro today I swear he is the one" I would just sit back in awe and just wait for the phone call that night of can we please go talk about him, he did this to me. He never physically hurt her, but mentally and I think that the mental abuse a woman gets from someone she thinks truly cared about her would hurt more then anything else. So night after night I went through this with my friend till one night I came to her with a list. The list was a pro's and con's list. I basically asked her to write down what the pro's and con's were of the relationship she had with him. the con's list went on for a good almost page and the pro's list was all things that were worldly things. He took me shopping to buy a shirt to replace the one he made fun of. I then asked her if she could make a list of things she would want from the guy that she wants to marry. We both looked at that list and she just started to cry. Her boyfriend at the time had almost nothing in common with the list that she had made for her ideal guy. She looked at me and said well that's ok I don't want to get married yet. Well even if you don't want to get married why are you not seeking for that man that has all those qualities that you want in a husband?


Now what does all this have to do with Provo or our little happy valley? no, they're not on some reality show flaunting their goods. But it all begets a vicious cycle that the Nice Guys are caught up in. Nice guys don't ask girls out because they get rejected...and girls reject the good ones because they don't feel they are worthy of being treated well but say yes to the wrong guys thinking that is supposed to be the norm...so the Nice Guys get low-self esteem from being rejected all the time while the girls get lower and lower self-esteem from being treated like crap by the guys that are a dime a dozen guys. And the cycle continues. Now I in now way am trying to take girls down and make them feel like they are dumb or stupid or that they don't know what they are doing in their lives, rather I ask that they take a step back and look at where their standards have been and what they are now. Have they changed from what they were when you were younger? and if they have changed what is the reason for this change? Because in the end when we finally do come to that day we take the plunge and get married, we are the ones who picked our spouse. No one else but you makes that final choice to marry that man for the rest of your lives. So wouldn't you want someone that treats you like the way that deep down you knew you should always be treated? Or do you wanna wake up next to the guy that has it all yet you go to bed at night crying because of something he said o did to you?

I may still be single and looking but believe me when I say any future girls in my life and when the time comes my wife will be treated like a queen. I know without a doubt that I will screw up in my life with her and I know that all I can do to make that better is be a better man then I was the day before, and guy's love your girlfriends and wife's from the bottom of your heart, so she will always know no matter what happens in your life's together that you are are always there for her.

The Princess Bride

This show is hilarious. I first watched it on t.v. at my buddy Cams house when I was like ten. Loved it ever since. Just barely got the book from him so I could read it. I just love the story, each character is hilarious and the show just flows so smoothly.

Well as you may know if you read previous posts, I was auditioning for Hairspray to help out a friend that was trying to help out her director friend. I was cast in the show as a teen council member, but after a few weeks of being at rehearsals and stuff I started to really not like it at all. I hate the movie anyways. So I started thinking about the possibility of dropping out. I felt really bad about it though. I was one of few really good male voices that they had(was told this) and a good actor in the group. I also tried out for Singing in the Rain at the Scera Shell, their first summer show. It was being done by one of my favorite directors Jerry Ellison, so I had to try out. I love working with this man. He's been directing for 26 years and knows what he is doing. Also he doesn't pick and choose his favorites and puts them in the show. He goes off of talent and need. I was super worried though because this show requires a lot of tap dancing. Of which I have no clue how to do. Never done it before in my life. I tried out anyways though. Ended up making the show and my terror of learning how to tap dance started away. I told the director of Hairspray what the dealio was and he was ok with it all, he still wanted to keep me in the show though. Super lame. Long story short I think their show is gonna fail bad. I ended up dropping out of it. Still keep in contact with a few cast members from it, but have nothing to do with the show itself.

The reason I mentioned The Princess Bride though is they are performing it up in Park City at the end of this month for like 8 shows I believe. I was contacted last weekend and offered the part of Prince Humperdink! So stoked to be playing the villain in this show. Always wanted to do it.

Roommates

I have lived on my own now since I was 22 almost 23. I have learned quite a few things in this time. I have lived in 2 different places with many different people. I am now in the process of looking for a different location and this is where this post comes from. Here is a little back story of my experiences whilst I have been abroad so to speak.

I was out with one of my best friends Taylor and his lady friend at the time grabbing a movie and some food to take back to his place that he had been living at we were talking about me wanting to get out of my parents house and how I was looking for a place to live and how much is SUCKED looking for somewhere. He was the like "hey my cousin is moving out soon, could take his room"! I was like serious? That would be tight. So he sent me the info of rent and utilities and such. I was going to be paying around 400 bucks a month o so for everything. Not too bad. I had just started doing really well at my job and figured I could do that much a month and still cover all my bills. So the day I was able to move in was that weekend. Before I was to move in I got a chance to hang out with Taylor and the other guy living there Sam at a pool party with some of the girls at their complex. It was a blast we played basketball in the pool, which in all reality was rugby with a basketball. I left with scratches all over my back and some on my face from vicious attacks on my life to get the ball away. It was pretty much awesome. Getting to know Sam was pretty sweet. He seemed like a great guy, so needless to say I was pretty stoked to be moving in. On move in day, I pretty much after work put all my stuff in suitcases and then in my car that I wanted to take with me. I think it took me like 3 trips. Not too shabby. Sam was there chilling with some friends and helped me move up. I got settled in and all ready to live there. Went out to Walmart that night with Sam and basically spent 150 bucks on things I may o may not have needed to live there. The next day was Saturday and I was awakened by Sam coming into my room slapping me on the face and saying welcome to the apartment bitch...way funny. So the next morning I ran from the front door to his room and jumped from the door way and landed on him while he was a sleep, said thanks for the welcome and ran away.

Living at Lakeridge Condos was actually a really interesting experience for many reasons. I was suddenly thrown into the single kid college student life right away. On just our little complex there was tons of students all who came to welcome me right away. Within a week of living there maybe two, I had already fallen for one of the girls in our complex. Ok actually right across the hall from us. It all started one day when they her and a friend came over to invite us to the weekly fhe that they have there. Every week it was at a different person in the wards apartment. The two girls that came over were Josie and Jessica I think. Josie smiled handed us the card and was like you guys should come. Now Taylor was usually at work out of town all week at the job site and Sam wasn't a member so I was pretty much the only one that would go. I decided since Josie was pretty dang cute that I would go. I showed up we played cards talked and I flirted with her the whole night. She was dating someone at the time I found out, but she apparently didn't want to be cause when I was told she was, she overheard and said yeah unfortunately I am dating someone. Which basically was my go ahead to take a step back watch that relationship unfold before I made a move. I did and after being pelted repeatedly with water balloons after work we started dating. She was pretty awesome and we had a great time, till she had to move back home for financial issues and probably wouldn't be coming back. Sad day. Now she is engaged and doing well. So that was the first couple months of living there. Sam was only there temporary while he finished school at the college of Massage. Can I just tell you how awesome it is to have a roommate that does that? Even if it's a guy all the free massages that you get are basically the best thing ever. So he was going to be moving out at the end of the summer. Taylor decided to move back home to save up some money and we had gotten another roommate whose name we will keep as Jafar, because he was basically horrible. Never paid rent, had sex with his girlfriend all the time...weird......Sam moved out a couple weeks after Taylor did and we had a sad moment....missed living with him. We had WAY too much fun as roomies. Within the next 6 months we went through 4 different roommates..all but one were total morons....John was a great guy had a ton of fun with him in the place...not so much his son that would come over every now and then, but John himself was a great guy. The other roommates pretty much never paid rent, got some of my stuff confiscated o had huge legal issues that we had no idea about. Taylor then decided to give the lease back to the owner of the condo and he was a retard as well so John and I decided it was time to find a new place.

I started looking around for somewhere knew but as stated above it SUCKS looking for a new place. Takes way too much time to find anything. Then you have to go through all the application process and fees and all that crap before you can get anywhere with the place. I also had animals that I'm never too keen on getting rid of, so I had to find a place that would allow them as well. It actually only took me a few days to find a place to live this time around. I looked on KSL and everything basically cost too much for what I wanted to pay at the moment. Not that I couldn't afford it, I just didn't want to have to afford it. Also not a lot of places allow animals around here. Not even ones that are as well taken care of as the ones that I have. Oh well. So I had basically given up on looking when I came into work one day and saw on facebook that a guy I had met once was offering up a room in his 2 story house for only 300 bucks a month. Yeah I jumped on that one right away. Wrote him an email, talked for a bit on chat and set up a time to come over and give the place a look. He was wanting to get the place back to church standards and was planning on evicting the two girls that lived there with them. Ok sounded good to me. Showed me my room and I looked around the house. It was a pretty cool place and I decided that it was gonna work for me. Plus it was only gonna cost me 600 bucks to get into the whole thing. Yeah pretty much in love. Little did I know how much of a horror show the place was going to be.....

Over the course of the next 2 days and with some help of a couple friends I got all my stuff moved into the place. Most of it was all pretty easy...the hardest parts were Actually the fish tank and the geckos. Not a big surprise there. I didn't actually take the fish out. Just lowered the water down just enough that the big ones could swim around but low enough that it was easyish to actually carry around. It still really wasn't but oh well. I got all my stuff taken care of within about a week o so, met the rest of my roommates and started my journey through the house of stupidity for the next 6 and a half months. It all started out great, they were great the house was great and it was good fun. Then one night the ceiling started leaking on my head. I mentioned to the lease guy that the roof leaks and he was like "oh yeah the girl that lived in there said the same thing. I will look into it". Well what was meant by that was this. I will continue to take baths at 2 in the morning when you are trying to sleep and I don't really care what happens to your head o bed. So I bought some stuff to put over the hole that I saw and that worked for about a week. Then new holes showed up. Mentioned it to him again and got the same response. So one night about a week ago when my bed once again at this time 3 in the morning was leaking everywhere I got kind of mad. I ran upstairs with the other roommate and we banged on the bathroom door. Guess what? He was asleep in the bath tub. OH GREAT. Went downstairs and decided to just try and go to sleep. Yeah that worked for about 5 seconds. Ran back upstairs and pounded on the door till he woke up. Told him to that it was way too late for him to be a jerk and disregard what I had been saying for months about the bath tub leaking on my head and asked him to stop. He got out it leaked for a bit longer then stopped. Hasn't happened again since. YAY. It gets better from there though. Last week was the 4th of July weekend. Was looking forward to kinda sleeping in that Saturday because it had been a crazy week at work. Was woken up around 8 because some people were yelling outside my door. Went out and was told that we had a week to find somewhere new to live. Totally confused at this point...Went out to the front door and the lease man was just walking around freaking out. Here's the story. He had been making a movie in our front yard and living room for about the past 2 months. Totally sucked mainly because there was almost nowhere to sit in our house because of all the supplies and props he had all over the place. The movie was a zombie apocalypse so he had to trash our front yard to make it look like a apocalypse. This man never cleans anything up after he is done with it all. So our front yard looked awful for a couple weeks even after he finished the movie. So basically our yard looked like a waste dump for a couple weeks. Just so happens that the say before he was planning on cleaning it all up(he gets in modes like this once every few months.) our landlord showed up. Saw the place, freaked out and basically told us we had 3 days to a week to find a new place to live. REALLY? because of one persons mistakes it kills us all. So we were all in panic mode for a few hours. Our good old buddy Mr. Lease freaked out and wanted to clean the whole place up. I had nothing to do that morning and couldn't think of anywhere to go so once again we all helped him do something he should of done weeks ago. He always managed to get us to clean up his messes every time. Weird...

So with the prospect of being kicked out of my house on the 4th of July I started looking for a new place to live. Remember how I said that part SUCKS? Yeah this time around wasn't very much better. It's hard to find a new place to live during the middle of the summer. So needless to say I was kind of freaking out. Looking at not having a place to live in the next few days Isn't the best feeling in the world. It's kinda scary actually. Sure I could of moved home till I found somewhere, but I wasn't really looking to that as an option. I don't have a room anymore at home and what was once my room has all of my youngest sisters stuff in it because they redid her room. So it would of been a huge pain to get it all in there just for a few weeks o however long it took me to find somewhere. I have a friend that I had been talking to about moving out for a while and she offered me a room in her place and I was about ready to take that offer. I had found a few places but upon looking at them realized that they were either, not worth what they people were asking o didn't allow animals. Now I realize a lot of people would gladly give up a fish tank and return a couple lizards. This is something I really would never do. I have invested a lot of time and money into these and I'm not willing to get rid of them just to find a decent place to live. Sorry. I found 2 places that were ok with animals and ran to go check them out. One wanted 800 bucks a month and the other wanted 675. Both of these places had utilities included in the rent price, both were roughly the same size and both were basement apartments. The first one is on center street in Orem. Really nice location, right next to the freeway. When I drove up to it the house looked kinda small and I was curious as to they fit a 1050sft place in the basement. Maybe it went farther out then the house did. Knocked on the front door and met the girl that was leasing out the place. Her name is Clarissa and she lives upstairs with her husband. She took me downstairs to the place. It has an outside entrance, so I wont be bugging them trying to get into the place which I really wanted and liked. Once we got down there the place was pretty big and really nice. A lot of places to store stuff, 2 rooms and they were both good size as well. The bathroom was good size and really nice. The kitchen had all fairly new appliances and was built pretty good. All in all it was a really nice place for someone to stay like myself. Even more I was planning on staying there by myself...Which contrary to a lot of people I can't wait for! I fell in love with the place and was looking forward to filling out the paper work to apply for it. Got that all figured out and went home hoping I would be getting a call back soon telling me I can move right in! A few days had gone by and I saw the listing for the place that was 675. So I decided hey why not it's 125 bucks cheaper for the same kinda thing. Utilities included a basement place and allowed animals. It was a little smaller at 990sqft but it seemed from the pictures to be well set up. So I called the owners and set up a time to go check it out. I got there a little early, so I decided to just chill on the street in my car playing Oregon Trail till my turn came. Between the 5 minutes I had to wait 2 more couples came and went. This place must be popular I thought. My turn came to check out the place and from the moment I met the owner I wasn't super feeling good about it all. She took me downstairs and while yeah it was an ok place, it didn't come close to matching up with the place I had looked at the day before. So I took the rest of the tour and there was a few things I didn't like about it. Mainly the fact that there was no door separating their part of the house from the basement apartment. It was just stairs down to the basement. The place wasn't nearly as nice either. Rooms were a lot smaller and it was way too dark. Yes it is a basement, but even with the lights they had it wasn't very light. So I didn't look too long. Asked some questions and filled out a form just in case the one I really wanted didn't end up working out. I didn't want to live there, but it was one of 3 places I had found that allowed animals. The other one wanted a 300 deposit just for the critters and an extra 150 a month, there was no way I was gonna live there. So I filled out the application and just hoped that the nice place I liked was gonna call as I left.

The days went buy and things at the house I'm living at kinda took a totally different turn. I was told last I think Wednesday that a letter was written to the owners and they had now given us 3 months to find a new place, and most likely we could just stay there as long as we wanted to now and weren't being rushed out. The other 2 roomies had found a place to go already and had signed for that one and were planning on slowly moving stuff out by the end of July so at that time I would pretty much have the house to myself for a little while at least. So now I felt better about having to find a place so soon. I had some more time if none of these places worked out. I still was looking though, cause to be honest I don't wanna be in this house much longer. Friday hit and I was kinda getting worried. Most places call back within a couple days and I hadn't heard anything for a few days. So I was kinda preparing for the worst. That afternoon though I got a call from Clarissa saying that they wanted to offer me the apartment! I was so stoked! I told them yes and we met on Saturday to take a tour of the place again and sign all the contract and leasing info. I feel kinda bad though, cause that night I was also offered the other place and had to turn them down. It was a nice place for another person o family, but not me. So I'm really glad I was offered the nice one before the other family called me. I move out of my place on Tuesday and I now have my own apartment. No roommates, no random messes that get in my way. No annoying people over when I want to just hang out by myself. I can do what I want, when I want and it is going to be amazing! Can't wait till tomorrow to get everything going with this place. Time to move all the animals again....oh Joy.

SPAIN

So guess who is going to Spain for 2 weeks? This guy! I can't wait! I'm so stoked for September to roll around! It has been 6 years since I have been back and it's gonna be interesting to be there without being a missionary!

Ocean Critters

I'm sorry to all of you that love those land critters, I love them too, but the ocean life to me is far cooler then any land animal. Unless I could find a way to get a dino. That would be pretty cool.

One of the main things I miss about living in Cali, was going to the beaches and chasing after fish diving with them and playing around in the tide pools catching crabs and checking out whatever was in them. I got scuba certified when I was 17 and it has been a blast. I haven't had the chance to do much diving, but whenever I get the chance to I'm underneath the water. Last year I was in Mexico, and we went to the beach while we were there and it amazed me at how close all the fish were to the beach. As long as I stayed by the rocks there were hundreds of colorful fish everywhere! It was like a big salt water tank in your house. It was so cool. I tried to get a bunch of pictures of them, but the underwater camera I have is pretty crappy. I might have to invest in a new one soon, because seriously the fish are amazing! I did venture a little farther south more out to the ocean when I was in Mexico because I wanted to see if the fish got any bigger and boy did they! I scared a huge school of tuna that had to have some fish in there that weighed close to over 40 pounds. They were big suckers. The water got really dark and kinda scary though cause every now and then you would see some huge thing swim in really close to me then take off, and I couldn't tell what it was. So I decided to stay close to the shore cause I didn't have any scuba gear just snorkel and no knife on me. Plus it was a lot lighter closer to shore. I realized once I got back in I was diving down about 20ft and with a snorkel you just can't enjoy as much that way. I was getting tired of going down for about a minute and a half then swimming back up and going back down not being able to find the fish I was following. So I stayed close to the shore and close to the rocks, which didn't really matter because there were still hundreds of fish in the rocks everywhere! The only downside was that my body was cut all over where I was slammed against the rocks when the waves came up and went out. I had my wetsuit shirt on so that wasn't as bad but it still hurt. It was amazing.

There was the time I got to swim with the Beluga Whales at Sea World. That was um basically pretty much the coolest thing ever! Those animals are so majestic and so powerful. Also the water was butt cold. I didn't care though. It was just cool being able to be with them in the water swimming around and it's something I'm gonna do every time I go down now. One of my main goals in life is to swim with 2 species of shark. A Whale Shark, and a Great White Shark. I wanna ride a Whale Shark so bad! It would be pretty awesome. I'm also totally fine with being in the water with a Great White without the cage. Yes that sounds crazy to a lot of you, but who cares what you think this is my dream! Lol..

I don't know, there is just something about me being in the ocean that calms me down. Whether it's being around the hundreds of fish, gliding over the waves on a surfboard, o the fact that when I am under the water, the only thing I can hear is the waves going back and forth and me breathing. There is nothing else there. It's silent. Nothing but you and the countless fish and things that create an enormous beauty. I've always wondered what it would of been like for the first people to go in the water diving to see what they saw. To be the first deep see divers that went down and saw some of the deep sea creatures that look like something out of the twilight zone. I hope I'm around when the first Giant Squid is captured alive. I've always wanted to see one. I'm just fascinated by the crazy gigantic amounts of animal life that is there. Also the fact that less then half of the ocean has been explored. Meaning who knows what else could be down there. It all makes me so excited and happy to think about! I really wanna be a part of it all somehow. I need to figure that one out.

Conference Weekend

Conference weekend is always a fun weekend. You get together with family o friends and just enjoy Saturday and Sunday and listen and learn to the apostles and prophets speak from the heart about matters they feel important enough to share 2 times a year with the whole world. This year was a little different for me. Last year I was watching with Katie, and after we watched the last session we cuddled up to a movie and decided we wanted to start planning our lives together. It was a pretty awesome feeling. Well if you have read the last few posts, you all know how that went.

So this year I have to be honest. I wasn't really looking forward to conference at all. I never have watched o listened to Saturday sessions, it was just something my family never did together. I only started going to priesthood session about 8 years ago, and I loved going. This year I didn't even wanna go to that. So the time came to go, I got a text from my best friend asking me if I was coming so they could save me a seat and I decided because he wanted to know, I was gonna go. So I got dressed and headed on over to where my old stake center so I could go watch. Well on the way there I got pulled over on the freeway and got a ticket, so I was kinda mad about that. Priesthood is one of my favorites because it is primarily addressed just to the guys, on a few occasions they do talk to the women of the church but it's very rare. So its always nice to have something just for us guys. Well the main focus of this session seemed to be about getting married. Oh goody. Well after the session was over was when the texts started to flow in, "Were you paying attention" "Was this session for you" "Looks like it's time to get married" I just kinda laughed at these and was like yea I guess so. Totally thought that would be the last of the "marriage" talks during conference. Dang was I wrong. Both sessions on Sunday had I think I was 2 talks each about marriage and the importance of getting married now and all of that jazz. Once again the texts came flowing in. I went over to a friends house that night, but I wasn't really there I guess. I had way too much on my mind and I was trying to distract myself, but it just wasn't working very well. Can't say I was too happy to go to work the following Monday either.

Monday came along and I was doing pretty good, no one seemed to be bugging me about anything like that. You see I'm the only single guy in the whole office. Well besides one of my friends but he is dating someone at the moment. So the day was going pretty well up until lunch time. We all got to lunch sat down and started eating. We had our normal conversations that we do at lunch, recent events, sports and so on. All was interrupted when the chief as we call him looked over at me and was like Mont, did you see conference this weekend? Yes I replied, and he replied with well, what are you gonna do about it? and it started. The rest of lunch was all about helping me find and marry my wife, thoughts about why I'm not married yet and whats wrong with me in general. The same usual things I get at lunch. I'm pretty sure they all except for my best bud think I'm over Katie and have totally moved on. I remember going home that night and just crashing on my bed. I still have the first picture that Katie and I took together and I hadn't been able to find it to get rid of it, but for some reason there it was in plain sight. I picked it up and just looked at it for a while, we took it up on a mountain over looking the valley after about a week of not seeing each other. It was a really happy moment, one I thought should be kept, so I framed it. Whether she still has hers o not I don't know, but for some reason I still have mine. I could feel the tears starting to run down my check so I had to toss it away. I don't know where it went, in my room somewhere, and I kinda just turned out the lights and cuddled into a ball. I couldn't sleep that night and for some reason I just stared at my phone o the ceiling, hoping to get something from her, but of course nothing came.

It's not like I haven't tried to get married. To find that one person that will go to the ends of eternity with me and then some. I know more o less what I want and I go for it. I've been done with just "dating for fun" for a long time now. To be honest she was the closet person to that eternal perspective that I ever have had. I remember the first time we talked about it together, we both got scared she left and I didn't hear from her for 3 weeks, she popped up one day at my house and we decided to hold that off for now but keep it in mind. The first time I knew that without a doubt in my mind I was in love with her was on my birthday last year. She planned the entire thing and I had almost no idea what we were gonna be doing that day. We spent from 9 in the morning till about 11 that night together. I went over to her house and picked her up and we headed up to Salt lake to go to the Planetarium and the Zoo. Which both were pretty amazing. Then we headed back grabbed some dinner at Tucanos, were supper tired went back to my place and took a nap, then we thought about going to see a movie, but she was way too tired to stay awake anymore, so I took her home, gave her a hug thanked her for an incredible birthday and kissed her goodnight. It was at that moment that a shock wave went through my body, and I knew then that I loved her with all my heart. Little did I know that she felt the same way I did. I had always thought that I was in love with a couple other of the girls I dated, but it wasn't till that moment that I felt what true love is. Maybe that's why this time around it's been so heartbreaking and heard to deal with. Why almost 5 months after she left little things still remind me of her, almost every girl I meet is named Katie and it's kinda driving me crazy.

Back to conference, they had some wonderful messages that were given that really did strike a chord on me this year. Mainly Pres. Monsons talk at the end of the Priesthood session. He talked directly at the guys my age about it being the time to find her take her to the temple and be sealed for all time. I want so bad to meet that man, fall apart in his arms and ask him how do I do that, because I apparently have no clue what I'm doing. I've tried so many things, and all I end up with is you are a great guy and she's out there. Not to be rude, but I'm getting really tired of hearing all that crap. I've spent the last week o so since conference thinking about things and mainly thinking about what I'm doing wrong. I know that I have things to work on, and I'm doing my best to do that. I just wish I didn't have to do it alone. This last week has been pretty good for me thinking wise though. It has made me see how hard Satan is working on me in some areas.....mainly this one...and to be honest I have let him win a few rounds. I have let myself slip away in the dating world a do a few things I know I never should have. Those things have been fixed now and are over with but it feels like he is trying again. I wish I could know why dating for me has to be so hard, what I'm doing wrong, what I could do better o what roads I need to be on to meet that person that is doomed to spending the rest of eternity with me....lol I wish I knew why this time in my life this break up is kicking my butt as hard as it is. It's been close to 5 months since she walked out of my life and it feels everyday like it was just yesterday that I was holding her in my arms telling her I love her. Last night was one of those nights that I wish I could just crawl into a cave and scream away. I don't know what got to me but man it was bad. I went home after FHE and pulled out a chair and sat in front of my fish tank. Something about that tank calms me down all the time. That and my geckos, I love holding them and seeing them in their own little world in my room. I felt a little better that night, but woke up this morning with that feeling of emptiness, wanting so much more. I apologize to my friends who are worried for me, and have tried talking to me, I'm just not really in the mood right now. I don't know why I just prefer to be alone at the moment. I just feel so lost and alone right now and I don't quite know how to fix it. I wish she would show up soon though. I have so much to give.

Nutty Putty Caves

This is something that has been on my mind for a long time, and it kinda goes with other things out there as well right now, with parents and their kids. I hope I don't really offend anyone with this post, but to be honest if I do, oh well I could really care less.

I was first introduced to the caves back like 14 years ago when I was first in the scouts. My buddy Cam and I were getting ready to go on one of many new awesome camp outs and this was one of the first as deacons. We all got to the area set up camp and got settled in. We all had tin foil dinners for dinner and this was the start of my moms amazing tin foil dinners that she made for me and that I would eat for almost every camp out I ever went on. So good! We were wondering if the first night was just gonna be a chill night, but around 11pm we grabbed our gear and started climbing the hill. Now I had heard of the cave before but never really ever been there. So I was pretty excited. I had heard that it was super tiny and I wasn't sure if I was afraid of tight spaces so this would be a good way to find out haha. When they said we were here I was trying to see an entrance to a cave in the hillside, but didn't see anything till they motioned me to this huge hole in the ground with like a ten foot climb down to the bottom, then there was a plank of wood for some reason. We climbed down and then I got to look at the real entrance to the cave. It was about a 2ft high by maybe 3ft wide hole in the ground that you had to crawl through to get into the cave. This part was pretty easy for me due to the fact that I was super tiny and skinny. Not like much has changed. So I was the first one in and Cam followed suit. They had us designate the buddy system so we wouldn't get lost while we were there. Once you got inside the cave you could stand up and had to walk over to an area that had about a 50ft descend into the belly of this thing. There was a rope ladder and I thought that was pretty awesome. We got the group down there and had a really good time, and pretty much lost track of time. We came out of the cave at around 6 in the morning, went to bed for a bit and then got dressed and went right back in. One of my favorite parts about the cave was the fact that it was about 80 degrees inside the thing. You were always warm once inside no matter how cold it was outside. We went many times during the winter just cause you could and still be perfectly warm. You would get super dirty cause most of the time you are crawling around everywhere, and with the heat and moisture, you went in clean and came out a dirt clod. Basically it was an amazing amount of fun that you would totally forget what was going on outside of the cave or what time it was. It was great, I've spent hours inside this thing just climbing around and experiencing new stuff. One of my favorite parts of the cave is a place called the birth canal. The main reason for the name is the fact that the entrance of the thing is almost too small for me. You have to start out by putting your arms either in front of you, o to the sides of your body and leave them there because you won't be able to move them at all once you get started. It's not a very long crawl, but it opens up to a good sized room once you get in there. Needless to say this place was amazing.

I guess the main reason for this post is to talk about the stupid people that went down there, with the end result of them blowing up the entrance to the cave, thus making me sad and kinda mad and wanting the cave back. You see people get stuck in this thing all the time, because they don't know what they are doing, o they don't have all o the right equipment that they would need for it. We were sat down as 12 year old's and told what to bring, a knife, 2 flashlights, and an extra pear of batteries in case your lights go out. So we would always go prepared because we know what could happen down there if one of these things went wrong. I remember a time a kid was with his group down there, didn't listen and strayed off from his group. He got turned around in a section of the cave and then his light went out. He was lost down there for almost 2 days. Luckily for him another group decided to go the same way he went and found him, the kid said he could hear voices around him but didn't know where they were coming from. Turns out he was barely 8ft away from the entrance to the room, but couldn't see it because it was so dark. Our leaders took us to the room and had us turn out our lights so we could see what it was like. I remember not being able to see my hand, even when I touched it to my nose. It was super dark down there even with lights at times and I promised myself I would never go unprepared down there. We had a couple kids in our group once that thought they were too cool to stay with our group and decided to not listen to our leaders and stray off. One of them got stuck and was stuck were he was for about 9 hours. It wasn't until a scout troop with a rope came through that we were able to get him out. It was a pretty scary time though. Now on to the reason the cave was closed. There are a couple. Some friends and I went down the night before they put a gate over it, we didn't know they were doing it though. The gate made it so you had to have a key and permission from the city to go down in the cave. After they did that there wasn't any problems for the first few months. Then the person that got it closed for good went down. With what I'm saying I mean no disrespect to the family of the man o the man himself, but all in all he was a moron. The number one rule of caving.......No matter how good of a cave you may think you are you should never go by yourself, always have a buddy. Um duh common sense. Especially in a cave like this one that has 26 miles of cave awesomeness. This is the number one rule and he broke it and payed for it with his life. Super sad. Problem number two for Mr. I'm hugely experienced caver man. There is a portion of the cave that you just don't go in, the 50 billion people that know about this cave know this. Why? because people get stuck in it all the time. Why? because at the top of this ceiling hole in the wall it curves in a way that leaves the bottom half of you dangling in a way that makes it quite hard to get back out o any farther in. Let me set the scene for you. He goes by himself, goes through the birth canal and decides to try this no go hole. Gets stuck, obviously thinks that if you go farther you can get out. WRONG! He slipped and basically wedged himself to a point where there was no where to go. They didn't realize he was gone for a long time and they tried all they could to get him out but to no avail. He passed away in the cave a few days later. Very Very Sad.

In a way though I don't really feel sorry for him. I feel sorry that he did something so stupid that he thought he could beat. I feel sorry that his family has to be without their son because he made a stupid choice. I'm also kinda mad at the family as well, because of their actions in demanding that the cave be blown up to prevent and further incident, they took away something from millions of people that was one of the coolest things to be able to do in this state, and really for no reason at all. No one before their son has ever died in the caves. Sure people have gotten stuck, but they were with other people and could get out. Even the owner of the cave wanted to just seal that area off and it would of been totally fine. No the parents wanted it sealed for ever. So they dumped concrete down the entrance then blew it up. Which kinda makes me wonder what kinda people we are turning into these days. Anything dangerous comes along and we just get rid of it, instead of embracing it for the awesome power and thing it has. Instead of learning about it and taking the necessary steps to prevent accident. Back when I was a kid we did so many things that parents now a days would look at as super dangerous and why would our parents ever let us do them. I still do a lot of those things. It's hilarious to look at parents now a days and tell them what I've done o wanna do in my life. My ex's mother had a hard time believing and ended up not liking me because of the fact that I wanna work at Sea World as a trainer with the killer whales, because a trainer was killed last year. SO WHAT? It's one of the most amazing jobs in the world. Yes my parents let me do a lot of really amazing things that hell yes could of gotten me killed, o seriously hurt. But I learned about these things and took every precaution to make sure I didn't hurt myself o those around me. That seems to be the problem now a days with some people. They don't wanna take the time to learn and do the necessary things to make sure the trip is safe. Lots of people are getting hurt o passing away because they just don't care anymore. Makes me sad.

Rugby

I figured I would step away from the post about me and a certain person right now and get back to some other things in my life... I watched a rugby game the other night when I was just chillen with a buddy after FHE and it brought back a lot of memories. It was my senior year at Lone Peak the Football season was over and I went from being busy every day practicing till Fridays when we had our Games to doing nothing. The season was over and we had a great one, even if it was cut short in the semi finals. I had no idea what I was gonna do lol. I had been in a routine for the last almost 9 months and it had suddenly gone away and I wasn't quite sure what I was gonna fill it with. A buddy of mine brought up playing Lacrosse and we were pretty stoked about trying out when we saw a poster stating that Lone Peak would be putting together a rugby team. We really didn't have much of an idea of what rugby was but it sounded fun so we figured lets go for that instead. Little did we know what we were really getting into. We went to the first meeting at the school and were told that we would have a coaches parents meeting that following Monday and unless we had our parents there we would not be allowed to play. Something about the importance of realizing what we were getting into lol. So I went home told my parents that I wanted to play and that I needed one of them for the next Monday to come with me. They both kinda chuckled when I told them that I wanted to play the sport, but they remembered how much I had learned and how well football was for me. So my dad decided to go to the meeting. We got there about 20 minutes early because that is how my dad works and got our seats right up front, oh yea because we were the only ones there. More people started to flow in, and I was getting a look at what the team would be like if some of these guys played. We had tall guys, short guys, some pretty buff guys and some just out of shape fatt people. A kid about twice my size and his mom took their seats next to me and a man we soon leanred would be one of our coaches came into the room and began to introduce himself and the rest of the coaching staff. He then started out by telling us how dangerous the game is and that we would be spending a good amount of time preparing. The rest of the coached introduced themselves then they talked to the parents and let them know the dangers as well. They showed us a video next of my now favorite team The All Blacks. They showed us how the game is played then showed us a video of some injuries in the game. Which were awesome! What was even mor funny was the mother next to me of the giant telling her son that she will not let him play this game, and my dad telling me how much I'm going to love this game. Super funny. We were then told that those of us that wanted to play, the practices were to begin that following week and we needed to bring our hundred dollars for fees and uniforms and so on. I was stoked! The game looked so fun! Also pretty crazy. My dad went home told my mom I was gonna die, and she just laughed. Yes my parents love me so much haha. That following week came and Cam and I were pretty stoked to see how many people showed up. It was pretty surprising to see around 80 guys there. Little did we know that, that number would greatly drop in the next couple months as the practices move along. Basically practices consisted of, running, tackling drills, more running, more drills and then a scrimmage. We practiced this way the whole entire season. I remember after the first one going home and not being able to move the next day. The game was just like playing football without pads when I was a kid but so much more. The following months went along and we had weeded out more kids. We got close to game time and the coaches were pretty sure of who was gonna be there and who wasn't. So they had a positioning practice. You see the months prior were basically just to weed out people and pansies as said by the coaches and we mainly just played wherever they wanted us to during the scrimmage games. So it was pretty exciting to hear that we would finally be put in a place. I knew that mine would be not a forward position cause those guys needed to be fat and big lol. So I was gonna be one of 8 other spots. I was eventually put as a fullback because I was quick and a good kicker(I spent almost 3 years practicing that as a kicker) so it made sense. The day came finally for our first game and wow we were pretty stoked. My family couldn't come, they were on a trip so I went with Cams mom and him. We showed up it was in a blizzard and we were playing Highland High, Well here is why we crapped our pants. Highland High was and still is ranked number one in the nation and number three in the world for high school teams. They are basically huge and crazy and were breed to play the game. Their team is made up of all Tongans and One White guy. lol. So needless to say we were pretty freaked out. The game went well we lost, but only by a few tries. We also put points on the board with a field goal, and we were told at the end of the game that no first year team ever scored against them and we and the coaches should be proud that they and their team played so well. I was in so much pain the next day lol. I was cleated crushed and pounded into the ground by people that out weighed me by at least 100lbs the whole game.....and I loved every minute of it! My grandma came to one game and it was probably one of the funniest things I have ever seen. She was freaking out the whole game. I finished out the season with a new group of friends and a new found respect for a game that can teach you so much, while at the same time beat the crap out of you. We had many players get hurt and because of their injuries they were not allowed to play anymore...that just gave us more fire to play harder. We ended the season really well and actually won a lot of our games. I learned so much about respect and trust playing this game and could go on forever about it, but I wont to spare you all non rugby people....all in all it was a great game, that I love and always will love.

Festival of Colors!

This weekend was pretty fun, Friday I can't remember what we did, but I'm sure it was a lot of fun. Oh wait I remember we watched 300 and ate lots of food. Saturday I didn't get to sleep in because I had an audition that morning down in Spanish Fork, and I had to be there around 9. So I woke up the latest possible that I could which was like 830 lol and headed down there. To be honest I had no idea what to expect when I got there, I haven't been called back for a show for a while and it kinda sucked, so I was hoping that things would start to change. The show is Hairspray and while I really have no interest in the show a few really good friends auditioned the week before and wanted me to join in with them if we all made it. So I figured I might as well, since I haven't done a show since last August anyways. I walked in got stuff ready noticed that most of the people there were like still in Junior High and High School, so it was interesting. My friends showed up and the nerves were calmed down and we just started joking around. There was quite a few people that hadn't auditioned yet and we were all given a number and were told to wait. I was number 144 which basically meant that I had to wait forever. So we just goofed around and talked with people. My number was called and I walked into the room and set my ipod up so I could have the music for the song I was singing. The director and his aid looked up at me and was like how do we know you? They looked at my resume and I guess they have seen me in a few of my shows. Not sure if that is a good thing or not, We will see lol. So I sang my song, which I thought went really well and we waited to see if I got called back o not. They called everyone that they had previously called back for Corny Collins and called my name! I was stoked but also kinda freaked because that role required some pretty high singing which I can't do very well yet. We went through the call back parts of the day. I could tell Corny wasn't going to be in my future. Not cause I didn't do a good job at the callbacks, but because he just sang way too high for me. So I was just gonna be happy with whatever I got. Midway through the callbacks though I had to leave to met up with the group at my place to head on over to the Festival of Colors. None of them had ever been before and I was looking forward to taking them all. We drove down got a parking spot about a billion miles away and started walking. The walk to the Palace is almost as fun as the actually festival itself. They do chalk throws every couple of hours and there are people walking back all covered in chalk and there are those of us who haven't gone yet that are all nice and white..Well it's the goal of the people that are all colored up to attack those of us who are not with color. So you are readily hugged and handled and all sorts of things by members of your opposite sex. I quite enjoy it. Tay vowed to not get touched till he got through the gate and did very well until right up at the gate where he got nailed by a group of girls that chased him and I. We got into the palace area and tis a pretty awesome sight, thousands of people everywhere that are covered o not covered in an array of different colors. People are crowd surfing each other(usually girls) they are walking around hugging everyone O just throwing color at anyone that walks by. They have a band and a preacher at the front talking and playing music. Pretty funny to watch. There are all sorts of people at these things. One of my favorites of the day was a mom with her little 4 year old girl. She was walking around picking up chalk off the ground and throwing it at peoples legs as her mom drug her by. She stopped at us and I had an extra bag of pink chalk, so I gave it to her. After throwing some in my face she thanked me and walked off. It was awesome. Then every couple hours on the dot they do a countdown. When they get to ten they sky goes from nice and blue(o rainy, however it was for you) to a dark array of many combined colors. Also you can't really breathe at all. I love it! After that you are basically done unless you are staying for the whole day so you start the long walk back with all the new friends that you made along the journey. Also it is now your turn to tackle and hug everyone from the opposite sex of you with your chalked body. I love that part.

We got back to the car and headed home, the whole while passing people that are multi colored like we were. Tay and I decided to start dancing and sticking our heads out the window as yes I drove. Great fun it was. The car next to us pulled up close opened their window and started hanging out with us. We kept up a good game of cat and mouse the whole way up back to Provo. I guess the girl in the front seat liked my actions a lot because right before we pulled off, her car pulled up next to me and she was holding a piece of paper out the window. So I pulled as close as I could grabbed the paper. It was her phone number, super stoked there. Dropped the guys and girls off at my house and took a shower, we planned on meeting up later for a dinner movie night. One of my favorite parts of the festival is watching the water in the shower be constantly purple o black for about 30 minutes while the color just comes off your body. I had color in my hair from dying it for about 4 weeks. What a blast! Can't wait till next year comes around.