Fun with the Scouts at the Cabin

This weekend we had a scout outing at the cabin. It was lots of fun, dad met us there and helped out with everything, that was really nice of him. We played capture the flag, went sledding had some good food and slept cozy. It was a great little trip and the scouts all had a blast. Thanks again dad for your help!

what do you think?

okay, family and friends, i need some encouragement (but also your honest opinions and suggestions).  this is an idea that's been rolling around in my brain for awhile. i wanted to make some celebration banners but i wanted to be able to change the message without having to make an entire new banner. so i eventually came up with this. each flag has a button on it and each letter is on a smaller felt flag with a button-hole on it. so you can button the letters on and off, changing or personalizing your message. i thought it was the most ingenious idea and felt so clever.  :) i've been working on bits and pieces of it when i've had a chance and today finished my prototype. after i hung it up all i can seem to see is how the flags don't lay perfectly straight and the letter flags don't lay perfectly straight on top of the fabric. i just keep picking it apart. here's where i need some encouragement. 

that's okay, right?! that's what gives it personality and character. it's not going to be perfect. these are things i already know. i think. i just need to hear it from some others besides myself. anywho, do you think people would buy these? that was my hope.  please let me know what you think!

Who, me?

It's true. As of about 2 weeks ago, Daniel James Callister is a certified Utah Hunter Education Instructor. It took a few weeks of classes and a shooting and written test. Nobody bothered to ask if I've ever hunted, so I didn't bother to tell them.

I'm in a class this semester called "Living with Wildlife" and one of the requirements in the course is to take hunters education. There is also a service learning project later in the course. The instructor said that if anyone was interested we could go the extra mile and become certified as hunter ed instructors. If we did this we wouldn't have to worry about the service learning project. I thought, what the heck.

The shooting range pictures from our last post were actually just before my shooting test. I wanted to practice a little before the big day and was able to talk Angie into coming along.

You'll never guess what we did

So a couple weeks ago we were visiting mom and dad in salt lake. Dad had been cleaning out the storage room and had come across his old rifles. He asked me if I wanted to take the old .22 rifle. I thought about it and said.. sure. So now we had this rifle. well to make a long story short, we had our date night today at the public shooting range. I would recommend it to any couple. I got to see a new side to my wife (she can shoot like the blazes). Anywho- true to Callister form, we were politely asked not to use dad's rifle after firing off a few rounds, since it looked dangerous and it was acting funny, ejecting bullets instead of loading them (the duct-tape didn't make it look to professional either). But the guy running the place said he'd let us use another one of theirs for free. Sucker. Angie wasn't sure if she'd like it, but she ended up having a really good time. It was kind of obnoxious not being able to hear each other the whole time, though. Hope you all dig the pics!

Our Anniversary in Bryce Canyon

Angie was so excited when I told her I'd made reservations for us to stay at Bryce Canyon for our anniversary this year. We'd always loved it there and have been meaning to go snowshoeing there some time. So this was the year, hurray! As we were driving down there we were pretty sure there wouldn't be enough snow for snowshoeing. there was only 3 or 4 inches on the ground as we approached the park. But that night the storm hit out of nowhere and dumped 15 inches in the parking lot covering our car and everything else. We were pretty darn excited and couldn't believe how well we'd timed things. We were the first in the park that morning. It was sooooo beautiful. 

We took some 100 pictures or so! The snow was 20 inches deep at the shallowest, there were no snow tracks at all in the whole park, and we had the whole canyon to ourselves. It was incredible! The hike was really long (made all the longer since we were breaking trail). The whole We hiked some 3 or 4 miles.

About halfway we both pulled our groins and it made the second half of the hike much less enjoyable. When we finally reached the end we barely had enough energy to fall over the fence post into the parking lot. The whole adventure took almost 7 hours! It was so pretty, but I think next time we'll take a shorter route :) We hope you all enjoy the amazing pictures!!! (just for the record, Angie said that it was one of the best days of her life).  

'Tis the Music!

We love Christmas time because that means Christmas music! There are all those great albums that you feel like you can only listen to after Thanksgiving. That is a shame, but Angie and I have a few favorites that help us celebrate and fill us with cozy warmths. Hope everyone's December is going cheerfully!!!

What we've been up to

We had some fun this Halloween. We were invited to 2 consecutive Murder Mystery Dinners. One on Halloween night and the next one the day after. They were both pretty fun and we had a good time putting together our costumes. Angie really went all out and sewed her own costumes (refer to pictures and be impressed). Mine were more-or-less thrown together at mom and dad's house from their costume box. We found out at the first dinner party that Garret and Rachel are engaged! congrats to the two of them. 

Since Halloween we've just been hangin' around trying to find time to get out and do things. Last saturday we went fishing at 3rd dam. It has been really nice weather here lately and we have been enjoying the outdoors while we still can. Yesterday we hit up the park and had some intense tennis games. We're pretty evenly matched so it's fun. I've been working on making a new boardgame and Angie is really good about helping me test it out when I need to. We play a lot of games besides. We've been playing this game called Vikings that Angie bought me for christmas last year that is really fun. Angie is unbeatable, at least so far. But I've been narrowing the gap with every game we play. We're excited for Thanksgiving in Salt Lake this year and can't wait to see everyone who'll be there!