A New Writer

Due to high demand for "the blog", I will start writting another day...not today. So stay tuned....it should be exciting!

A Utah Christmas

Melanie's family all came out for christmas this year. It was nice to have them all out at the same time. They drove all the way from Arkansas, dodging and diving winter storm after storm and even drove through Wyoming to complete the 19 hour drive without stopping! They arrived on Christmas eve and we all went to Christmas Eve service at our church which was pretty funny

with all the little kids signing and the middle school kids attempting the Carol of the Bells with hand bells. We spent Christmas Eve opening our presents and then playing rock band on Brian's Wii. I think we spent half the week playing rock band - I think I'm going to try out for the church band since they're looking for a guitarist now...my rock band skills should help me out with that! On Christmas day we relaxed around the house and then went to a movie in Ogden later that evening. On our way back from the movie it started snowing very hard and within about 5 minutes you couldn't tell where the road was or wasn't. I think we got about 9 or 10 inches of snow that

made it nice and cold and icy. Friday, we all went to Park City.
We ate lunch on main street and walked around to a few shops...it was too cold to stay long, so we went to the Olympic Park and went throught museum. There were a few ski jumpers from Norway who were practicing on the freestyle ramps, but other than that there wasn't a whole lot happening up there. On Saturday, we tool Laura to the airport to fly home for her GRE test and to see Spencer. The rest of the weekend was pretty eventless and pretty nice to just relax before going back to work. Mel's Parents and Brian started the drive back to Arkansas on Tuesday morning, making a pit-stop in Moab to check out the sites of Arches and Canyonlands and then headed back over the Rockies of Colorado. It was great to have the Smith's out for Christmas and are looking forward to everyone else visiting over the winter. We hope you all had as great a Christmas and New Year as we had!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Here's some pictures I took today after the big storm came through this morning. There was about a foot or more snow that feel in just about 6 hours. Roxie and I were the first two to be

on the trail - I had to keep knocking snow off the tree branches that were drapped over the trail to be able to make it through. Roxie was happy to be in the snow again. She just runs back and forth, up and down the trail in front of me until she can't breath. Hopefully the snow will continue and we'll have another good Winter season for snowshoeing and skiing. I got a pretty good picture looking across a valley at snowbasin while I was out there. We haven't been skiing yet this year since we decided not to get season passes, but hopefully we'll be up there soon.

Winter's Arrived

Winter has officially arrived...in the mountains anyway. 4 days ago there was absolutely no snow on the mountains, we got about 5 feet or more in some places on Wednesday. This is just West of Snowbird/Alta were they just opened up the ski runs yesterday. It was nice to get out this soon since it's still relatively warm. Zach and I went up towards Red Pine Lake which ended up being a little over 6 miles total. This picture is at around 9,500 feet elevation - I'm not sure where we started at but it was uphill the entire way! I'm hoping I'll be able to get out as much as last year with this new job I have.

Allen Update

Well, I've been back home for about 2 and a half weeks now and after the last week of sitting around the house by myself I'm ready to get back to work. I'll be starting a new job though, instead of working in the Munitions Squadron, I'm going to be heading over to the flightline and working Aircraft Maintenance in the 421st Aircraft Maintenance Unit within the 388th Fighter Wing. It will be a good experience for me and it's also good for career progression. I think the hours and work schedule will be a little more hectic, but I'm pretty excited about this new opportunity. We've probably got about 2 more years here in Utah before we PCS to (my guess) Eglin AFB in Destin, Florida, or Hanscom AFB in Boston, Massachussets.

Melanie is still working at the Ogden Family Support Center. We are also helping with our church since we just started a new campus this month and are trying to get everything up and running smoothly as much as possible. She's heading home in November to be in a friends wedding and will probably stay home for Thanksgiving since I will also be at a wedding that's in Charleston at the same time.

The winter snow will be here to stay before too long and we're ready for anyone who wants to make a trip up to go skiing or just visit. Hopefully we'll get to see everyone around the Thanksgiving timeframe; we're planning on having a white Christmas in Utah this year so we probably won't see anyone then.

Viva Las Vegas

I guess it isn't too hard to see who keeps up with the blog around here since the last time it was updated was before my deployment. I got back last Wednesday, October 1st, and we are all glad that I'm back home now. This week Mel and I went down to Las Vegas since neither of us had been there before. We had a lot of fun and saw some pretty interesting stuff too. It wasn't a bad
drive down (about 6 hours) but I think we'll be flying next time since we can get plane tickets for about $100 or so from SLC to Vegas.

We stayed at the Mirage which was right on the strip across from the Venetian and the Wynn and next to Treasure Island and Ceasars Palace. It was a very nice resort; we got upgraded since they didn't have our room that we wanted to get so that all worked out pretty well for us. We spent a lot of time walking the strip and I think we walked about 20 miles in 2 days, but it was pretty fun to see all the sights. The Bellagio is where they do a water show like the one in this picture a few times each night. It was pretty neat and free, so we really liked it. I have always heard about the cheap buffet's in Vegas, but I don't know where they are because everything we had and saw was very expensive. Buffet's were about $20 per person and restaurants were even more ridiculous; $18 for a salad and $25-$30 for you main course which wasn't anything spectacular. The food was good, but I think we need to learn where to go to get the deals!

All the resorts have a different theme so we spent a lot of time just walking through them and seeing what was in each of them. The Mirage had a Tropical them like being on an island in the South Pacific, the Venetian is all Italy. You can
get gellato's and go on gondola rides or go to the Lladro store. They had one Lladro there for $40,000, we were gonna get it but figured we'd wait until the next trip. Ceaser's Palace is a huge resort that takes up a few blocks and looks like all the building's and amphitheater's from the Romans time. At the Mirage we got to go look at Siegfried and Roy's Tigers and Dolphin Habitat. It was pretty fun, they had a 1 month old dolphin and a couple 2 or 3 month old white tigers we got to see. I don't think they do the Shows with the Tiger's like they used to, at least not that we know of, but they still have them at the hotel for you to go and watch.

We also went to a Cirque Du Soleil show at Treasure Island. They have a bunch of different shows but we went and saw Mystere which was interesting. It was pretty good for the most part but there were a few times it was a little weird to say the least. It was a fun trip but would
probably be more fun with some people who know the area a little better and know where to go for the deals. We played a couple slot machines and spent about $15 dollars (we weren't allowed into the high limit rooms). One my first machine, I put in 25 cents and won $10, so I cashed out immediately. When I came back to the machine after getting my $$ the lady who had been sitting next to me took it over since she thought it was on a roll, but I don't think she got anything. I won about $20 dollars total and Mel lost about $20 so I think we ended up even. Vegas is a fun place to visit for a day or two, but definitely would never want to live there. We were driving in the dessert for hours with absolutely nothing around and then we came over a little hill and there's the city just sitting out there in the middle of nowhere. I didn't win my millions like I had planned so I may have to brush up on my Texas Hold 'Em skills and go win a big tournament in the next couple years while we still out here.

Jackson Hole

Mel and I made a quick trip up to Jackson, Wyoming, on Monday; it's only about a 4 hour drive from SLC. The weather was perfect. It was about 70 degrees each day and there were no clouds in the sky to it was good for taking pictures of the Grand Teton's (behind us in this picture). The tallest peak is 13,770 ft high. In April of '05 Dustin and I came here for spring break but never got to see the Teton's w/out any cloud cover, so this was nice to finally see.

On the way back from the Teton's Nat'l Park, Mel said she was sad that she still had never seen a Moose...we literally looked up immediately after she said this and saw this young Moose on the side of the road. They aren't scared of people at all. Later that day we went to a local steak and game house for dinner and Melanie had another first for her and probable the entire Smith family...she tried some of my elk chops that were cooked medium-rare; I know here family would be shocked to have seen that - but, she said it was better than her steak.

Joe's Baptism and Roxie's new Friend, Polly!

Today was an exciting day in the Allen household! This morning Joe was baptized. He is a new man! He has never been baptized and he wanted to before he left for Iraq. Since our church is new we don't have a place to baptize yet. So the church got an inflatable pool to baptize in. Joe said it was FREEZING. There were about 20 people who got baptized today. It was really amazing! Yeah for Joe!!

Also, today we were blessed with a new family member. Her name is Polly! She is a two pounder that is full of energy. Our neighbor's weren't able to take care of her anymore and offered her to us. And of course I took her in a heartbeat, it was Joe I had to convince. After he thought about it and told me everything I had to do with her while he was gone; he said, "yes and Happy Anniversary!" I am glad now Joe has his big dog and I have my little bitty dog. Her and Roxie chase each other around the house. Roxie tries to pounce on her, so I am a little afraid for her life. A 2 pound Polly against 60 pound Roxie. For now they seem to really like each other, we will see what happens down the road.

Our Weekend in Arkansas

This past weekend Melanie and I went back to Arkansas to visit our family. We had a great time and can't wait to see everyone again soon. Jen and Drew were also able to fly out and see us. Mel was able to see a few of her high school friends...I just kept telling her that I didn't have any friends to see because I only had 3 friends in high school, including her, and the other 2 don't live in Arkansas anymore - it makes these trips that much easier for me I guess! But it was nice to see my Parent's and Jen and Drew who couldn't make it out to Utah for the ski trip this year; Liz, Justin and Jonah (who's gotten a lot bigger since the last time we saw him). I know Melanie was also pretty happy to see all of her family as well. Not too much happened for most of the weekend though. We flew in Thursday afternoon after flying through a snow storm in Denver and pretty much just relaxed the majority of the weekend...at least I did; I don't think Mel relaxed as much as I did.
My Dad and I got to get out and hit some golf balls at the driving range...I think the strong winds may have played a factor in our hitting...at least that's what we're blaming it on. Then on Saturday, we were all able to come over to the Smith's house for a b-b-q. As much fun as we had, I think we were both happy to get back home and back into our routine...plus the weather has been sunny and in the 70's, so o'course we're glad to be back. Hopefully, next time we can stay longer and see everyone we missed this trip.

Moab Adventures

We went to Moab this weekend with our friend Zach. It was nice to get away from the cold and snowy weather that we've had up here for the past 4 months or so. The first day we we're there,

we went hiking up Negro Bill Canyon. It's about a 2 mile trail that goes back up a canyon to the 6th longest natural bridge in the United States. It was a pretty nice hike alongside a creek, so Roxie got to play in the water for the majority of the day; she was surprised by how deep some of the water holes were - you can see she looks pretty surprised in the bottom picture. The second day I went Mtn Biking on the Slickrock trail and had a blast...and I will have a few scars to show that too. It was definitely a lot hotter than we expected it to be - we all came home on sunday with sunburns. Our next trip is to Arkansas this thursday, we're excited to see everyone for the quick trip out this week.