Twin Lakes 2009 - Family Vacation

This is a few of the pictures from our family vacation. We spent the first day in Fallon celebrating my parents 67th wedding anniversary. We had a great breakfast at the farm. The melons were fantastic as usual. We then went up to Twin Lakes. I will post more later. Mike has a ton of pictures and hopefully we can get his video of playing in the water. Mike did not get pictures of the bear that visited us in the middle of the night, but at least we got all the kids in the cabin.

Antelope Slot

Rich and I went down to Page and went through this baby slot. No Gutzman adventure but beautiful just the same.

Happy Mothers Day to My Mom

I am sure there are many things that I could get for my mother, but I just didn't know what to get her, so I am publicly telling her how much I love her. Happy Mother's Day. The list of things I love about my mother would be a little too long for this blog post, so here a few of my favorite things.
I love the way she taught me to love nature. She still gets sad when the asparagus is gone in the spring. We used to walk along the ditch banks and pick asparagus. I miss that.

She taught me to love beautiful flowers and appreciate their aroma.

She allowed me freedom to question and learn.

She taught me to love animals and the happiness they can bring to life.


She taught me to enjoy the small things in life -- like bubbles blowing in the wind.



She taught me to never loose my sense of humor, even when things seem really bad.

For all this and many more wonderful memories. Thanks mom. I love you.

Happy Mothers Day to Me

I received beautiful flowers and a wonderful windmill for my yard, but in addition to the "normal" mother's day gifts I received some new valve boxes for my sprinkler system. While that may not seem very exciting.... for me it was the best. As you can see Louis is holding my old mess. It is 15 valves that were stacked right on top of each other. I could never fix them very effectively and this year I had three that I needed to replace therefore:
I received some new and improved boxes: Instead of one box I now have four. I can get to them and can fix them if necessary. Yahoo!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks Rich for wonderful Mother's Day gifts.

Ice Breaker Triathlon

I don't have pictures(this is a good thing for everyone viewing this blog). Today Rich and I and 11 Valcom employees participated in the Icebreaker Triathlon in American Fork. 300 yard pool swim, 11.3 mile bike and 2.95 mile run. Suffice it to say not many people our age compete in these sorts of activities. Therefore we did VERY well in our age categories. Josh actually did very well and there were lots of folks in his age division (7th). I often wonder what possessed me to take up this type of competiton. Probably because I can beat Rich in the swim and I like the varied training that a Tri affords. I had the biggest cheering section since all the employees had finished by the time I came in.

Happy Birthday DAD!!!!

Today March 15, 2009 (ides of March) is my father’s (Bill Lattin) 89^th birthday. I have never known what to give my father for his birthday so today I will give him a tribute. I have posted a small slideshow of the things that represent his varied life.

My dad is a genius. I grew up with an inventor father. We had a can crusher years before they became popular and actually made money for the inventor. He not only raced cars, but he was the mechanic that made them so fast. He was an educated farmer whose passion for work and the land was passed on to his progenitors. He grew up during the depression and knows how to use and reuse anything. He served under General Patton in WWII. He was an educator and then became the Associate Warden of the Nevada State Prison. He had the ability to see problems and solve them. He was a master negotiator. The words I remember most from him are “You have to learn to follow the rules until you are in a position to change the rules.” He was not excited about my baptism into the LDS church, but supported all my activities once I made that commitment. Thanks Dad for many years of insight and support.

I would hope that my contribution to society will honor the Lattin name.

I LOVE YOU, Happy Birthday!!!!

Mexico 2009

Mexico January 2009

Rich and I spent 6 days in Mexico on the Mayan Riviera in a all inclusive hotel called the Barcelo. This first picture is where we practiced swimming our 300 yards in preparation for the Ice Breaker Tri.

Yes it is true. I went parasailing with Rich. It did not help that he said things like: "That's not a double locking carabeener, or that rope isn't big enough, where is one of Dave Gutzman's good ropes?" But we made it safely and we even had smiles on our faces when we were done.

We spent most of our time snorkeling. Thanks to my swim lessons that I am currently taking I am now not afraid to put my face in the water and actually enjoyed the beauties that lie beneath the ocean. I found a whole new garden world. There were equisite plants just lying at the bottom of the ocean, waving with the pulse of the water. There were rock formations that made you think you were a deep sea explorer. There were several sting rays in the area in front of our motel and we had great fun watching them try to hide from us. I didn't realize that was what killed Steve Irwin until after I had spent quite a bit of time following these guys. It was fun to watch several people come up to see what we were looking at, realize it was a sting ray and immediately turn around and go somewhere else.

The splash you see in the ocean is a pelican going in for some fish. We had to laugh because they would just dive bomb right next to you. They were big, clumsy and akward, but it was fun watching them. I did an ocean swim and it was great fun.

We went to Xel-Ha and snorkeled, but we also went for a bike ride. I'm not sure a one speed would count for the tri training, but it was beautiful. Someone tried to tell us that it would be better to ride the shuttle to the other end of the bike ride and ride back because there was a big hill. Rich and I kept looking for a big hill, but we never found one. Those people must have been from the flatlands, because there wasn't even a gentle slope on the bike ride.

Southern Utah October 2008

Page, Arizona

I still don't know how to make a picture album of all the pictures, so here are a few from our trip to Page, Arizona on Halloween. We were checking on our little condo that we own in Page and happened to find out there was a huge Balloon Festival. As you know, I am extremely fascinated by balloons and we got up and watched as they were set up, inflated and then flew into the crisp morning air.

Here is the pumpkin to remind us that it was indeed Halloween.

I'm not sure what this guy was, but fun to watch.


There were hundreds of balloons and only some of them were launched from our location.


No trip to Southern Utah would be complete without a hike. So we hiked ( walked) to a spot called horseshoe point or close to that name. I am beginning to appreciate the beauty of the Red Rock. Rich has long been in love with this land and I haven't shown the proper appreciation for it, but it is slowly growing on me. I was able to take some pictures that remind me of how amazing the land really is.

I had to post a picture of Rich and I to prove that I indeed did go to this spot and Rich didn't drag me kicking and screaming.