Spudman Triathlon

Monday, 28 July 2008

Provo man dies during Idaho triathlon

The Associated Press

BURLEY, Idaho -- A 60-year-old Utah man died while competing in the Burley Lions Club Spudman Triathlon, officials said. Donald Morehouse of Provo, Utah, was taking part in the first event on Saturday -- swimming 1.5 kilometers in the Snake River -- when witnesses said he threw his hands into the air and called for help before disappearing under the water. Though rescue crews were nearby, Morehouse's body wasn't recovered until about 30 minutes later, according to the Cassia County Sheriff's office. "[Rescue crews] were in the water within probably 10 seconds from when he went under, because they saw it immediately and they were right there," race director Scott Bloxham told the Times-News. "Evidently, he went right to the bottom and they couldn't find him. When they finally got the divers in there, they found him fairly close to where he went down. There was just so much silt that had been stirred up by the swimmers it was hard for them to see." Morehouse was pulled out of the river by a dive crew with the sheriff's office, and he was transported to Cassia Hospital where he was pronounced dead. An autopsy has been scheduled to determine the cause of death. Morehouse's friends said he was physically fit and had participated in several other races. "The absolute picture of fitness," said Scott Slaymaker, who partnered with Morehouse for 15 years in owning The Slaymaker Group, an international restaurant franchisee based in Salt Lake City. "I remember him saying, 'I feel better than I ever have and I hope I can feel even better when I turn 70."' Morehouse, who had four children and was married to Fairy Morehouse, spent many mornings jogging before work and had set a goal of entering a different physical competition each year, Slaymaker said. He had run the St. George's marathon in Utah several times, and ran the New York marathon in 2007. Nearly 2,000 people participated in the Spudman. Besides the swimming event, the competitors bike 40 kilometers and run 10 kilometers. Race officials were unsure if Morehouse had previously participated in triathlons. But participants must sign a medical waiver before they can race, Bloxham said, "so we're assuming that he was in good shape." Bloxham said this is the first fatality "that has occurred in the Spudman's 22-year history. We've had some people that have needed to be pulled out of the water or hang on to the side of a boat," he said, "but we've never had anything like this before."

Jakes 10 Year Reunion

Jake had his big 10-year reunion in American Falls.

• There was a BBQ at the Park.
  
• I met Emily Gomez, whom Jake kissed his senior year in the play, Guys and Dolls.
• Mostly I just hung out with Jenny and Gwen (the wives of Jakes best HS friends, Mark and Greg--the people we went to Cancun with) while Jake caught up with all his old chums.
• Then we hung out at Greg and Gwen's country house. They run a dairy. We got some dirt on the boys from a fellow classmate, Emily, who said Jake was a hot item back then.
• We even said a quick hello to one of Jake's favorite teachers, Mrs. Chase. Can you believe he actually took milk and cookies to her house one evening because his grade was on the borderline between an A and a B. He swears though, that it didn't help and he actually earned the A he received. ;)
  
• We convinced Greg to skip the reunion dance and went out to eat at Texas Road House. They have the best rolls ever. And you can eat peanuts and throw the shells on the floor.
• And to top the evening off we played minature golf (Jakes old favorite) w/ Greg & Gwen and Mark & Jen. Jake lost a $3 bet to Greg.
  

Proud Owners of an 1984 Propane Truck

This is Jakes latest money making scheme. How he thinks up all these I will never know. Omniture will pay a $2,000 incentive to their employees if they purchase an alternative fuel vehicle. For days Jake has been looking at all sorts of different alternative fuel vehicles. He said it was driving him crazy not to take advantage of it. Eventually all his effort paid off. He found a 1984 propane truck. He only paid $1,000 for the truck and it came with about $400 worth of propane already in the tank. Bonus! The truck starts up easily and seems to run great, which is a good thing because right after Jake bought the truck he drove it to Arbon.

Good Luck, Joe!

The night Joe was driving to California I was driving to Pocatello to meet up with Jake.  As Joe and I were both driving late at night, Jake told Joe to call me.  We were talking on the phone when we realized we were actually fairly close to each other on the freeway.  We quickly told each other the mile marker we were at.  Then I saw a car flashing it's light's and I started flashing mine.  Joe and I totally saw each other on the freeway going opposite directions!

Cuddles

I love my kitty! She is so fun and I just love her. I forgot how much I used to enjoy animals until I got my kitten.

• I love to hear her pounding feet down the hallway or down the stairs. She actually makes quite a bit of noise when she is charging about, especially for her size.
• I got her fixed recently. She was so doped up her eyes were all glazed over and she couldn't walk straight. She looked so pathetic, I am glad I was there to cuddle and comfort her.
• She loves to get into small places. Jake accidently shut her in a drawer she was exploring. I heard her mewoing and let her out.
• She is so curious. Since getting my kitten, I have new meaning for the phrase, "Curiosity killed the cat."
  
• She will follow me around the house just watching what I am doing.
• She kept climbing up on the counter, when I was arranging some flowers on the kitchen counter. Climbing on the counter is not allowed and so to teach her we use a water bottle that we will squirt at her. On this particular day, I had to shoot her about 3 times before she would get down. And even then she would spend some time cleaning herself and then she would jump back up on the counter. This happened about 3 times. And then I finally realized she just wanted to see what I was doing with the flowers. I pulled a kitchen stool away from the counter so she couldn't jump on the counter, but she could still see what I was doing and then I placed her on the stool. She contentedly sat on the stool intently watching everything I did.
• She wakes me up every morning at about 7 am. She will jump on the bed and meow until I pet her. Then she will want to get under the covers for a little bit and then she will meow to get out of the covers.
  
• She does not like toddlers. She hissed at Cloie and Jace.
• She does not like riding in the car. I was concerned about leaving her home alone, so Jake and I took her with us to Arbon for the 4th of July weekend. She meowed and looked so scared for the first 45 minutes of the journey. I was thinking that I made a horrible mistake in taking her, but then she calmed down.
  
• During the visit she hardly purred and hid under the bed a lot. I am sad the Andersen's don't know what an adorable kitty she is.
  
• She does not seem to like other people. I think she is just used to a quiet house with only me and Jake for company. When the ward comes over for FHE she will not let anyone else hold her.
• She likes watching visitors from a distance.
  
• She will run ahead of me and then hide and pounce on my feet and legs when I catch up to her. She does this very gently and does not use her claws or bite too hard.
• She tries to hide all the time in obvious places. She will tuck herself as close as she can to the stairs and thinks I can't see her.
• She loves gently grabing my feet when I am on the stairs.
• She is always curious and trying to catch the crack where doors meet the carpet
• I hope she keeps this adorable personality when she grows up to become a CAT.
• She has very short hair and does not shed. I feel like I lucked out in this.
• She has never had an accident. Kittens are easy to litter train because they have a natural instinct to bury their business.
• She has never been outside since we got her. She will only be an indoor pet.
• She hates the nail clippers. She will bat them away with her paws. She struggles and will not hold still when I try to trim her nails.
  
• She will gently grab my face with her two front paws and give me kisses. I love it.
• I love her scratchy tongue. Kitten kisses are not slurpy or wet like dogs.

Happy 4th of July~~ 2008

Once again, I have copied this from John written for the Andersen blog:

It sure was fun to get together over the fourth of July with the family. We took a lot of pictures, and I was going to create a video of our experience. However, something went wrong with the video and I could never get it to work quite right. In the end I gave up and never posted anything about the get-together. Now I am trying to catch up and record the fun event that we had together over the Fourth of July.

Our family got up to Arbon Friday morning. Jen, Dave, and Chloe followed shortly thereafter. Everyone else was already there. However, due to some last-minute swather part runs not everyone was together until later in the day.

Mom and dad had set out one of the new cattle troughs and filled it full of water. Janae and Mom had also prepared nearly 100 water balloons for later in the day. We put them in the new swimming pool to keep them safe. Uncle Dave and the rest of the kids did not waste any time in donning their swimsuits and jumping into the cold Arbon water. They had a great time playing around splashing each other in the trough.

Later in the afternoon, we all got out some towels and used up the water balloons that Mom and Janae set out. Nearly everyone got involved in the water balloon volleyball game. It was a lot of fun for the biggest adult to the smallest child. Chloe didn't quite get the game, however. Her favorite thing was to go over to the silver bowls containing the water balloons and pick up a water balloon and drop it on the ground to watch it splash.

Of course, including dad in the games meant that the volleyball exercise would end up in a terrific water fight. Everyone got fairly soaked. Poor Alayna was traumatized for a while. Any time grandpa would walk toward the swimming pool Alayna would start screaming and running for the House. She would sure that grandpa was going to dump her in the water, or at least threw a bucket of water on her.

We were also celebrating Joseph's graduation from college this weekend. So we watched a movie that Aylee compiled of Joe. It was really good.

Both Joseph and Dave brought out their Xbox games. Joe also brought out his flat-panel TV. They hooked up the games together on a network and used both of the TVs so that they could get a large group of people playing the Xbox together. This was a big hit, especially with my two older kids. Aylee and Johnathan thought it was the neatest thing.

We didn't have enough room in the house for all of us. So, Jen and Dave and Amber and I set up our tents on the lawn. The kids were pretty excited at the prospect of sleeping out under the stars.

We ended the evening by having a weenie roast by the campfire in the fire pit. Jake got out his guitar and played some songs for us. Amber and Jake led us in "Country Roads".

Camping out was pretty good. There was a time that Jace started screaming. About the time that he stopped, however, it had woken Chloe up and so she started to scream. She would just get settled down, when Jace would start up again. They took turns screaming through the night for about five minutes. Amber and I were laughing our heads off in the tent. Finally, we decided that it might be better if Jace were separated from everyone else. I took Jace into the van, and there we slept for the remainder of the night.

On Saturday I took Aylee and Johnathan to go and shoot some BB guns. I had printed out some paper targets and brought along some BBs. We use dad's air pump BB gun rifle. They both did really well. Johnathan hit the bull's-eye right on. However, Aylee was more precise and her shooting as most of her shots were within a silver dollars distance from each other.

Playing with the BB guns got us excited to get busy with the paintball guns that Jake had purchased a few years ago. Jake and Joe spent all morning cleaning up the guns. Shantell, Jake, Joe, and I got everything set up and went to play a game together. However after the first five minutes, we notice that nearly every one of our guns could only shoot the paintballs just a few feet. We finally had to give up and call it a day on the paint ball match.


Joe had brought out a cool ice cream making device. He and the kids got together and makes the ice cream ingredients. The contraption was a blue hard plastic ball. The ice cream ingredients went in a small container and the ball. Outside of the container contained the salt and the ice mixture. Once they got it mixed up, the kids took turns playing some games with the ball outside to mix it up. Amber set up an obstacle course for them to push it for about 30 feet run around the tent and push it back. Once they got tired of that game, we decided that it still needed to be mixed. So, we put the ball in the swimming pool. The kids got on their swimsuits and pushed the ball around and swimming pool.

Just before we left, we had a little birthday party for Johnathan who would be turning eight two days later. He got some great scout paraphernalia from the family. He was very excited about that. He also got some Legos and a very neat erector set. We topped off his rice crispy treats cake with the ice cream that Joe had helped the kids make. Janae that Jace his very first spoonful of ice cream. He wasn't too sure about it at the beginning, however he seemed to get a taste for it later on.

John & Jake Graduate Masters of Business

I copied this blog from John on the Andersen Family Blog.

Well, this was it! Jake and I finished our final class of the Utah State University MBA program. I can't tell you how good it feels to be done. Jake and I drove up in our cars to our house to find it all decorated outside. Amber and the kids had spent time yesterday and today preparing for our long-awaited arrival. The lawn was decked with balloons, a big congratulations sign, and plenty of party toys for the kids.



After our terrific reception Amber and Shantell and the kids had a graduation ceremony for us in the house. This, of course, included a plethora of pictures.



Jake and I made sure that we got pictures with the two people who have supported us the most throughout these past three years. If I am not mistaken, Jake has been in school the entire time that the two of them have been married. Amber and I have calculated it up and I have been in school half of the time during our 11 year marriage. I guess school has been a big part of our family's lives. We are definitely grateful for our supportive, beautiful wives.



The kids have also been waiting for this day. Each Saturday when I have arrived home from school, they gather around the refrigerator hall I tear off a link of the chain the Amber made me to symbolize the number of weekends I've had left. This past week, Aylee and Aliece both created daily chains for me to count down with. We are all pretty dang excited.



Jake and I are both very grateful that we had each other during these last three years. It sure has made getting through the classes a much easier ordeal to go through it together. It has been fun to be learning the same things and to be having many of the same experiences.



I think Amber's sign says it well, we are all excited to be done with this program and now have the degree behind us.



Celebrations of the day included a hot dog and brown sugar frosting cakes lunch just after the graduation ceremony. Jake and Shan took some cake with them, and returned to their house. We are hotdogs on the back lawn and the nice warm sun. After lunch, our family activity was to go swimming. We spent two hours up the pool having fun, splashing in the water. Once we got home, the kids went to the neighbors house, and Amber, Jake, Shantell, and I all met at the red lobster restaurant for a delicious dinner.