Brendon & DeNae

Mazatlan!!!

2010-04-01T20:34:00.001-07:00

Here are some pics to make you all jelous! Enjoy the snow! HA HA HA

Where Have We Been?

2010-01-18T07:50:00.000-08:00

I know that Brendon and I have been really bad about updating our blog. I am posting just a few highlights of the past couple of months. There are certainly a lot of holes, but hopefully we can fill in the gaps. Unfortunately our camera was stolen a couple weeks ago after a break in. We hope to be replacing it soon. Over the past several months we have been able to see many of friends and family along with some beautiful places. We are very blessed and hope all of our blog followers haven't given up on us. I will be adding some captions when I have a little more time, and I promise it won't take 8 months.

Camping 101

2009-05-28T08:07:00.000-07:00

We went camping a few weekends ago. Here are a few videos:

How to start a REAL fire:

DeNae with her successfull bow drill fire

How to chop wood and pick a great camping spot:

How to Hunt:

How to relax:

Over all it was good to get out and camp. Hopefully there will be pleanty more posts like this!

Okay..Okay..Okay Already........

2009-05-06T07:49:00.000-07:00

I have heard "Hey Brendon when are you going to update your blog?" about 100 times from the following people:
Megan, Dustin, Mom, Brady N,Erika N, Chris S, and most important DeNae. Although DeNae said it a little more reluctantly. This blog is one thing that she would rather be in charge of. She always says: "You post the worst pictures and I can't do anything about them..". I say what bad pictures?

So, for DeNae I will try to keep the pictures I am posting kosher.
Anyway, I have some free computer time because our union is wanting to strike so, I am hiring 1000+ people and their training is mostly computer based. This frees me up to blog since the office is out of projects for me. Lucky you!

I think that here is the part where I should be apologizing to all our faithful blog followers (all 2 of them) for waiting 6 months to update this......Tough! Start sending checks for the quality entertainment you are getting and I will be more consistent!... I do plan on being better, especially if this strike stuff continues...

DeNae has been busy with: Achievement Day girls, cleaning up after me, cooking for me, biking, snowboarding, hiking, gyming---that didn't sound as good...and to add to her list Stake Camp Certification person. The last is the funniest. If you want a really good laugh call DeNae and ask her how her camp meetings have gone so far. DeNae is not a girls camp girl. DeNae is not a boy scout girl. DeNae has her own class of intensity, especially camping and outdoors. So when she brings up thigs like: digging your own cat hole to go to the bathroom in & decorating camp is definitely not a part of real camping.... the reactions are pretty funny!

I have been busy with: making a mess, eating DeNae's food, and work...work...work. I really like my job but do not like the time that I spend away from DeNae. I have had to drive to Denver almost every day working on special projects for this Labor dispute. I have been leaving the house around 5:30 am and not getting home until 8 or so. I don't know if DeNae and I are unusual for this but we do everything together. There isn't and activity that I do that she doesn't want to come along..visa versa. We have the same friends so we are always together and I've grown accustomed to this. So this has been hard for me being away from her. For many days they have just put me in hotels in Denver and I've slept awful! If it sounds like I'm dependant on DeNae, I probably am. I'm okay with that. I love her.

Mt. Biking @ Bobcat Ridge

2008-11-23T16:30:00.000-08:00

for the 1st time that I can remember, I slept in on a Sat... Well at least until 7. DeNae and I enjoyed a whole weekend together. I was in Denver training Mon-Fri so.. even the weekend before thanksgiving I had a weekend off. We went to Bobcat ridge. It's an incredible, super technical trail about 20 miles away. The area burned down about 10 yrs ago and is just in the process of regrowth.. That makes for some amazing, unpredictable trails! While we were there we met some friends! We live in the outdoor celestial mecca! I love this place!

The End.

Catch Up!.. This is a long one.. Hold On!!!!!

2008-11-06T14:09:00.000-08:00

Okay.. So I'm a little behind in the blogging bus... But why would you sit down at your computer all day blogging when you could be playing. Here is what we have been up to:

Giant Hail Storm

Well it Hailed a hell of a lot of Hail.. HA HA. It was fun except....

After the storm we had no leaves on our trees... No garden left and.. we had the hide our car under the Tree.. It still amazes me what mother nature can throw at you!

FISHING AND CAMPING

We have been camping and hiking and fishing a lot.. Mostly with our friends the Archibalds, Nordfelts With their fun kid Crew, and Lance and John. Here are a few random Pics:

Tour De Fat

Fort Collins is a really cool, progressive town. A lot of that comes from CSU and the rest comes from the 8 Breweries within 5 miles. One of those major breweries New Belgium; puts on a "Tour De Fat" ride which basically consists of people meeting in really cool costumes, drinking a lot of beer!, and the riding their home made bikes throughout the town. Here are some fun pictures of it:

Ralphies Wedding

RRalph and Shambrey got married on September 22nd. They are incredible together. They look like one of those marrige couples. You know the ones that are on the frames when you buy them. They are an incredible couple! I don't know Shambrey that well but I know that she is a lucky girl! Ralphie is one of the best men I know.
The wedding was in SanDiego. It was right on the beach. We were a little late.. due to... technical difficulties.. but we caught most of it. What an amazing day.
In the pictures you will see the bride and groom, Rabbi, Jensen, Wandsguard and his little lady friend

Trip To Utah

We swore after the last trip that we weren't going to Utah anymore but DeNae's cusin Meliah got married and I was going to be out of town in OR with some training so DeNae drove to UT on Wed to play with her family and then I flew into SLC on Sat. We stayed with Hannah and Mike and had a fun time @ their house. They are saints for letting us.. because you know... It's us... Anyway we had a fun time seeing DeNae's Family and then on Sun Mom, Dad, Dustin and Monica came for dinner. Then the highlight of the night we got to see Mom and Dad play Dance, Dance, revolution.. HA HA HA HA HA!!! Then on Mon David, Hannah, Mike and Dennison and Momma Baxter went for a hike with us before we left on the exciting drive across 1-80 back to CO. All in all it was a fun trip.. Crazy!, But fun. Here are some pics:

Halloween

We didn't have time to find costumes but I knew that I really wanted to be Nacho Libre and have DeNae be the Nun. So Tuesday before Halloween we had a party. I went shopping after work and found some winners and then came home and DeNae sewed up a storm and here is what we looked like:

For some reason people were offended?? In fact Mom even wanted to disown me after seeing it.
I think we did a pretty good job puting them together in 2 hrs. For those of you that havent seen Nacho Libre (Mom) Heres a picture: you can compare and see how we did.:

Pretty Good Eh?
Happy Late Halloween! Here are some pics from our party:

SteamBoat Springs

Thanks to Megan and Aaron we were able to score a cheap trip to SteamBoat springs. Steamboat is a resort town about 3 hrs West of Ft. Collins We went with our really good friends.. well... at least They like DeNae.. I consider them friends but, don't know if it's mutual.. he he. Anywho, We stayed in a really nice place and had a lot of fun. We went hiking, and walking and toured the town. The highlight was trying to break the ice with giant rocks.. We are really lucky to have such great friends. What a fun weekend! Here are some random Pics and video:

Fun Fun Fun,
The End!

Fun @ Dinner

2008-08-20T14:48:00.000-07:00

Who knew that you could have fun at the dinner table. Just add good food with 1980's style glasses and you get this:

The 80s wish we were there!! HA HA.
The End

Boys Playing With their Guns.. And Girls Humoring

2008-08-20T14:18:00.000-07:00

Gary, My boss and family friend "misplaced" his old gun... So we went together to get another. He decided on a Smith & Wesson 38 Spec revolver. This was a very nice gun but he hadn't shot it in 3 weeks and wanted to. Gary also understandably wanted to teach Cindy (his wife) to shoot. When I purchased my first gun I immediately wanted DeNae to do the same thing. Because... who knows. Cindy... was not excited, and nervous, and hesitant... This also is understandable. So the 4 of us with a friend Randy drove the long road to Pawnee Grasslands. And we shot guns:
Brendon with a .22 Randy with a 9 mm
Gary trying to not get shot by Cindy Cindy Pretending Osama is Gary

Our target Osama
Gary Taking out the target with his new 38

When it started to get dark we got out the Shotguns and shot skeet until we couldn't see. Then we still shot. Here is a video of the fire power coming out of a hand gun.

Thanks to DeNae and Cindy for putting up with boys and their guns. The End

Okay Okay.. Wind Rivers Trip

2008-08-15T18:14:00.000-07:00

Alright! I'm Lazy! I haven't been in the blogging spirit! so Ba Freakety Hum Bug.. Heres a slide show:Click on the Pic

I'll Add more when I'm motivated. Love you all! You better plan next year in Sep coming with us!,
Brendon

Visiting Our couzins Jen and Tyson

2008-07-10T16:51:00.000-07:00

Jen and Tyson our only family in CO invited us to come to a BBQ It was great! we got to meet all of Tyson's family. I didn't take too many pics but, They are great.

Tyson and Silly Lilly
DeNae getting beat in checkers by their neice. It was some good food and thay are the best! Sorry I don't have any more pics. I wasn't in the Papparazzi mood.
THE END

July 4th FUN!

2008-07-10T15:56:00.000-07:00

Well, sorry it's been a while since my last blog. To be honest I'm really not that sorry!.. Anyway> We had a great (AND BUSY) 4th of July. I was originally suppose to work all the way through the 4th but with smooth talking I was able to ge the actual 4th off. I had to work all the way up to it and then go in at 2 AM the day after but..I got the 4th off. The Nordfelt's , good family friends of ours invited us to come along with them to Vadauwoo WY. It's just right over the border:It's a little over an hour drive and the rock climbing is incredible! Brady and Erika are like professionals.. anyone is a professional compared to us! Anyway we climbed a section called the chimney or something and then we got to repel about 150 ft down it was amazing! check out a slide show:

All and all it was an amazing trip. It's great to have some really good friends that aren't wimps!

THE END

Scout Camp Troop 582

2008-06-30T20:13:00.000-07:00

Well I went to scout camp. It was a lot of fun and I have some really good kids! It was at Ben Delatour in Colorado. Among the piles of merit badges that the kids earned they worked on a copes coarse which is like 20 ft up playing with ropes, canoing, Hiking, ad of coarse playing a lot of egyption rat screw. Anyway here are a few pics:
Great Scouts Left to Right: David Briscoe, Chandlar Kall, Dylan Edder, Walter Brink... Sorry if I didn't spell those right. I am lucky to just spell my own name right!
Brendon, Jack Pixlar and James Halgren taking a hike... Handsome fellas eh?
Dylan and Brendon on the Copes corse. It took most scouts around an hour or so to finish the corse. Dylan finished it in less than 10! that kid is amazing!
Pretty High Up! Dylan says " I don't think that my Mom would like me doing this.. This high!
Dylan and some other kid from another troop working together to climb this 'Giants Latter"
Working hard as a scout master
This was a Birthday present from DeNae. It's a parachute Hammock it weighs less than a pound.
Dylan was belaying Jack =155 lbs. Dylan=80 =Dylan straight up in the air! Ha HA

All & all it was a fun trip and I'm excited to have some fun with our new scouts Dylan, Walter, Chandler and David. Goods kids that are fun to tie into a pretzel! HA HA
The End

DeNae Pretty Girl & T.A.K

2008-06-30T20:03:00.001-07:00

When i was younger my sister Megan used to do funny things and have funny sayings. Most of these my Mother didn't approve of. A few examples are: Pinching, honking, or "good-gaming" our butts. She also had plenty of funny sayings like T.A.K. These sayings in disguise could be said in front of out parental units and still have the same effect without the spankings. T.A.K= Tough A@@ Kid. Whenever I think of T.A.K I think of DeNae. Sure she can work 14.5 hour days climbing and pruning trees, Kayak, Mt. Bike, Climb, Camp and look like this:

But, after a quick shower I also get the beauty queen like this:

Even with a new haircut.. I am also noticing that we had Nacho Libre on in the back HA HA! I am the luckiest guy alive. I love my T.A.K DeNae,
The End!

The Kayaking Transport

2008-06-20T12:52:00.000-07:00

DeNae, Blu, and I went Kayaking Yesterday at the Poudre river. It's kind of tough when you only take one car because you have to drive to the top of the run, then kayak down, then 1 person (usually me) has to hitchhike back up to the car and then drive back down and load up. WOW that was a run-on sentence.. Sorry Mom. We can't afford to take 2 cars anymore with the price of gas so here was our solution:

That's right. We loaded up the Waltons new scooter that gets like 100-120 MPG in the Element. Fit like a glove! While DeNae was rolling her eyes at first.. she changed her tone after she saw this:

Okay, Okay DeNae you hated it even more after this but, it was fun and we got a lot of honks and laughs. Blu said " I love Brendon.. he tries lots of crazy stuff.." A.K.A= Brendon's an idiot.. but I like to be one with him. Anyway it was a succesfull run and it was fun!

Love you all,
THE END

DeNae's Delicious Burritos

2008-06-18T21:29:00.000-07:00

DeNae's Delicious Burritos.............. try saying that 10 Xs fast!
At work I eat a breakfast burrito every day that cost me $3.99. With gas costing 100 bucks a gallon we are trying to see where we can cut back. We bought a ton of breakfast burrito stuff and got cookin and wrapping:

DeNae cooking up a storm

By the time all was said and done we made 25 Breakfast Burritos with all the fixins (Eggs, potatoes, sausage, salsa, cheese, peppers, and onions MMMMM) it cost us aprox. $17.00
If I were to buy 25 Burritos @ 3.99 =$99.75 so we saved: $82.75 Pretty impressive Eh? Hooray for being cheap and Hooray for DeNae!!!
Finished Product TAA DAA
The End

Vacation to Kentucky

2008-06-18T19:51:00.000-07:00

Thats right we took our 1 paid vacation to Kentucky... Why you may ask... Because we wanted to... Okay you still didn't buy that. DeNae's parents Tim and Ruth Ann and her sisters Abby, Emma & Eve live there in Nicholasville KY. IN the picture Left to Right: Jason, Audrey (Who live in TN) Ruth Ann, Eve, Abby, DeNae, Emma and in the back Brendon and Tim.
It was a really fun trip! During the majority of the trip I spent the time making fun and beating up Abby, Emma and Eve. DeNae loved it because it "gave her a break".
Brendon Bugging Abby
We started out by just relaxing.. Novel idea huh! Grandpa Baxter was there for a day while we were. It was nice to see him.
Then we went to Red River Gorge which was only a few hours away and disproved all my thoughts that there was nothing to do in KY unless you drink burban or smoke tobacki.. here are a few pics and video from that:

Emma and Eve excited as always to be teenagers on a family trip.. HA HA

DeNae At a lunch spot at Red River Gorge

DeNae and I on top of a giant arch.. See there are beautiful things in KY.. Okay, Okay Megan Kentucky.

DeNae and Brendon contemplating jumping into the water into a shallow pool.

Click Here For Video
Brendon doing it.
We also went caving It was a blast!:
Click Here to watch us caving

We did a ton of fun things and did a lot of cool stuff:
DeNae playing Dress up.
Shootin stuff with Eve's pellet gun and chasin fireflys:: Ha HA:
Follow these links to see some other funny videos on UTube:
DeNae's Backflip Swing style Click Here!

Chasin Fire Flys. Click Here!

CHOO CHOO Click Here!

Abby Rude crawdad Awakening

I love the Baxter's so much. I was so lucky that I married into that family.. HA HA they didn't even have a choice or I can guarantee they would have nothing to do with me.

Baxters House

The End

DeNaes Garden

2008-06-10T23:29:00.000-07:00

Well... All that diggin up grass and planting paid off..... I think. DeNae says that we have a healthy garden and we will be seeing great Peas, cucumbers, zucchini, and tomatoes... I say they cost .25 at the store but.. Like John Denver says nothing beats the taste of home grown tomatoes. It's a happy little garden because it has a happy little gardener.. I meant DeNae.. I'll be happy when I'm eating my BLT! I sure hope the bacon seeds start to grow!
The End

Chocolate Mile Run Down the Puder Canyon

2008-06-10T23:10:00.000-07:00

Normally the Poudre canyon water is cold and beautiful and clear like this:
Funny Picture Huh! Well we started to drive up to run an area called filter plant in our kayaks. On the way I noticed something disturbing.. The white water rapids.. weren't white. Kaleb Walton Our friend that came with us said " I think that there was an oil spill".. Thats how bad it looked.. Thats also how dumb Kaleb is!.. Just kidding Kaleb your not dumb... just slow.
We decided to still run it.. We were already there.. How bad could it be??:

Because we only had one car we took all of the gear up at the top and then I drove down and then hitch hiked back up. The guy That I hitched back up with was like " I don't know how smart it is to run this water". As he talked a little to me and realized that I couldn't even finish full sentences.. he agreed that running it would be the best thing. So we did. We just kept saying: "don't roll, don't roll!" well.. we all rolled and we were all filthy after:

I guess the water level was so high they opened the flood gates on a damn that they normally don't. It released all of the silt that had been storing up for years.The pictures don't do the dirt justice. Anyway it was still fun and after we sprayed ourselves and our gear off with the hose all was well!
The End

Trent & Lori Come to visit= Broken Bike

2008-06-10T22:44:00.000-07:00

We always talk to people in UT who say "when are you coming her.. When .. When??" We always try to remind them that the road works both ways. Trent and Lori come to colorful CO at least 1 if not twice a year! We love it when they visit. The only thing we don't love is when we put the choo choo train on a new Mt Bike and the bike is unfix able after. .. Heres the story: Trent, Denai and Brendon went biking to Lori state park. We went up a Really big hill. trenton actually madi it up just fine. He is in pretty good shape:

Then Came the sketchy part.. We started to get into the more technical part of it and I heard a snap... not just your regular everyday snap.. It was a biggie. Trent had tried to push so hard up a hill that his bruit strength snapped the cassette Heres a Pic of what one is:

While doing this the Chain bent and pulled and broke the derailer then since he could'nt petal on the way down.. trying to hang on he broke the shifter knob and brake lever.. All in all the bike ended up looking like this:

Okay just kidding... I told trenton I knew it was a sacrifice for the bike going into it. Big trenton V.S Mid priced Mt. Bike = picture above. I actually won the bike for free at work for selling more Tea than any other store in CO. I wasn't too bummed plus he Lori and Train took us to Dinner and spoiled us for the rest of the trip. We sure love those two! We have such a good family... Where the Hell did I come from?
The End

Bustling Sunday

2008-05-25T19:34:00.001-07:00

Funny Story..... So I was suppose to help a new family move into the ward move yesterday and I ended up working late and had an hour to get ready for a bunch of work friends to come and BBQ with us so I forgot and didn't help. ( I can feel the blessings coming down from that...) So, I called them this morning and invited them over for a BBQ tonight. I told them I'd see them at church and give them directions. So we lookd around at sacrament and saw a new couple. We sat behind them and I said:"Hi I'm Brendon" and he said: "Hi I'm Ben" Now the guy I talked to on the phone and invited to a BBQ, his name was Ben. So we drew them directions to our house and told them wed be eating at 5:30. They seemed distant but agreed.. after we arrived home there was a message on my phone from .. Ben and he said "Hey missed you at church give me a call for directions to your house..........." I thought DeNae was going to kick the crap out of me because the Walton's were coming too and this meant that we would have 14 people over!!!! Anyway the couple that we creped out didn't show so... It was okay... But funny. Anyway here are a few pics:
Waltons and the Davis'
DeNae on the Walton's silly Scooter. They bought it off of Craigs List for $30 and gets 60 to the Gal.
DeNae and Blu Walton in the Square Back

It's really good to have such good friends and to have this big place to be able to invite new ones. Love you all,
Brendon

Tornado In Colorado??

2008-05-23T16:38:00.000-07:00

Heres a video Over View:Click this link

It was crazy! Hot Day and I was excited to get off by 3 and go Mt. Biking, Then came the Cold, Rain and then Hail. There were lots of talks about a tornado.. There is always a lot of talk about a tornado.. I guess this wasn't just talk. DeNae was immediatly called into the city of Windsor. Windsor was by far the hardest hit city.
DeNae was pretty taken back at what she 1st saw as one of the 1st people to enter into the city after the tornado.:

She called and was almost speechless. It came within 2.5 Miles of our front door step.:
I Really didn't want to believe that it came that close to our house so the next day I went to go see for myself.. Right as I did another Tornado Hit FRI about 4 PM and DeNae called and said that she went into the City Halls basemant.. They were okay but it gave me a pretty good scare.
Here are a few Pics that I shot Too close to out house:

This was a feed Bin That had been thrown over
5 Acres.

This was the House that the feed bin came from The owner was trying to put a tarp on his roof as the next one hit.
I caught a bit of Video of the lesser tornado (Friday's) just north of our house:

Well DeNae called me after she'd worked for a little while she said:"It really makes me remember what is really important. All these people working so hard just to build big houses that get destroyed in seconds. I'm glad that we have each other."

For A pretty killer slideshow of all the damage check out: Click Link

The End.

Denae's First Ride

2008-05-23T16:09:00.000-07:00

OKay Okay DeNae it's not your 1st ride of the season just your 1st one since surgery. DeNae is incredible. Of corse she dosn't want to take an easy trail after being off a bike.. No she wants to take one of the most difficult, Sketchy rides in CO!
Heres what Trails.com said about it:
"Lory State Park/Horsetooth Mountain Park is prime real estate for some of the area’s best mountain biking. The Mill Creek Trail is arguably one of the most technically and physically challenging rides in all of Colorado!"
Of corse thats the one she'd pick. Anyway the trail Distance: 4.0 miles, elevation change: 1720 feet! 1720 Ft in 4 Miles!! Heres a Pic of Denae after getting to the top:

And Heres a pic of me after getting to the top:
Notice DeNae looks a lot better than me. What a tough cookie.
DeNae also found it funny that I had a flat tire and decided to take a picture of my pumping up my tire with a tiny pump.

(Notice all the stacked logs at the top? DeNae thinks its for Fire Mitigation.... that means it will slow down fire up there Dustin..)

The way down was the funnest.. If that's not already a word I'm making it one! Funnest. Really steep, sketchy, loose.. and fun! On the way over in the car we saw a sign that said it was turkey hunting season and realized that we'd never seen any...
They stopped us in the trail, I'd never seen a turkey with out a pop up timer! It was fun!
Heres also a vid of me trying not to kill myself downhill:

All in All it was a fun day. I was proud of my tough wife.
I Love Mt. Biking!
The End.

1st blog. Redneck Rampage

2008-05-18T20:01:00.000-07:00

Well, Well, Well. Due to a threat by my sister we have hopped on the Blog Bus. I'm just going to try to test page. DeNae and I went shooting yesterday..Well I went shooting and DeNae humored me. We originally went to just shoot shotguns:

But we invited Lance:
And he invited all his redneck friends and eventually it turned into an all out arsenal. DeNae and Sonja her old roommate came and we shot: AR 50's, 22s, 357s, and what made the whole trip and what made DeNae want to throw up after shooting it was the BIG GUN :

It shot a hole in a barrel 350 Yds. away the size of a softball. DeNae did not like any of this and was forced into all of it including shooting the BIG GUN. She made it pretty clear that she would rather be climbing trees but humored us anyway. Anyway Love you all, Brendon and Denae