allan standing next to overlook of the highway. long long long way down!

this dog couldn't get up "widow maker" " either!

rusty made it up widow maker! dog didnt! lol

rusty climbing up

overlook

rob

derrick playing on ledges

dllan and derrick watchin the idiots climb

widowmaker

nasty

overlook

beautiful

there is a road there...honest

view from the cockpit

rusty showing off

another hill to climb

widowmaker

derrick. he made it up

he made it.

the "road"

derrick

derrick flexing

rusty

up he goes!

almost up

rusty fixing broken axle

the Road ...really!

desert

drunks trying to get up

drunk trying to time

road, no , drunks being dumb

tippy, and gnarly

we b jeepin

lots of traffic...in the middle of nowhere

air down before we hit the trail

loaded up and ready to roll!

stuck on highway 6 for construction. 35 min!

Spring. It only has one meaning for me. Not the thawing of the winter snow, or the flowers starting to bloom. No, not even the warm wonderful days above freezing. Spring to me means Jeepin in Moab! We rolled into Moab yesterday and did so with the windows of the jeep rolled down with the warm air flowing in. It  was s0 good to leave the cold and rainy weather of the cold north! The red rocks glistening and the sun shining brightly. The trees here are all leafed out and the lilacs are in full bloom. It is heavenly! Today we woke to beautiful sunshine and i was even able to wear shorts! We packed up the jeep with our daily supplies and headed out. We were going to do a fun trail called rusty nail,  but the safari entrants were running it today. we had to pick an alternate playground. In Moab there are lots of places to play, so we decided to run metal masher instead. We started wheelin and enjoying the beautiful weather and were having a great time. Of course the youngsters with us had to Play on some of the harder spots, and before long the sound of snapping steal rang through the air. One of our buddies broke an axle. Luckily, or something like that, he carries a spare one. Tools in hand and plenty of help and a bit of down time on the trail, we were back in business. We continued on and then it hit! The most awful wind came blowing in like a hurricane and we were soon blasted with red sand. It got in our mouths, hair, eyes, clothes, well just about everywhere! It hurt if you were standing out in it! It felt like a million tiny needles poking us at once. The up side though,...when i showered i also exfoliated. It was time to get back to the condo and out of the sandbox! Even the wind and a slight sunburn couldnt dampen our spirits! All and all it was a wonderfull day! Tomorrow is looking to be a sunny, warm, non windy day! I hope to get a bit redder! See ya tomorrow! bye now from moab!

Spring. A wonderful time of year. After a long cold winter the flowers are starting to poke out of the ground. The trees are beginning to wake from their winter nap. The starlings are trying to build a nest in Allan's bar-b-q grill, which is very funny i might add. Allan and the starlings have the same little fight every year...Allan wins of course...the starlings eventually give up and find another place to nest. But here at our house the most obvious sign of spring...The jeep parts start coming, the jeeps get torn apart and rebuilt and the boys are stressed about the time they have to get the jeeps ready for moab. Easter in Moab is an Olsen family tradition going back twenty years. This year is going to be bitter sweet. Nate and Elise arent coming...Nicole isnt coming.. hence the bitter part. The sweet though...Derrick will be with us and Courtney, Matt and JJ. are coming down to spend easter with us! I am very excited to introduce Matt to jeep safari, and show off my grandson of course! I hope that next year we can have the whole family with us! Maybe easter 2012 will be the year my dream comes true. I would love to have all of the family with us in a condo and spend easter with us, and even though Nate and Derrick think our big saturday trails are too "lame" for them, (in other words the trails we do are too easy for them) my dream is to have my whole family with us just for one day! We have a family that come on our trail every year and last year they had five generations of the family with them...I totally envy them! This year will be wonderful any way, with just part of the family. I will enjoy it even though part of the gang will be missing. I will take what i can get! So stay tuned next month for awesome pictures of the beautiful Moab desert and tales of wheeling and sight seeing, with pictures to match! Happy Spring time every one! I would love to hear what every one else will be doing this easter, and your easter family traditions. Please share them!

"Oh no! They are going to lock me up! I forgot to turn in my library books! Oh never mind, i live in Wauwatosa Wisconsin!" The penalty in Wauwatosa for over due library books...not fines, not jail time, not even public humiliation. "If a person shall fail to return books he/she has checked out from the library, that person should return, (Not even MUST return, just should return) their library card until the books are returned!" Seriously? Here in Provo, Utah, if you don't return your library books you get hefty fines and if you don't pay the fines or return the books you may end up in small claims court! or possibly even jail! I guess the libraries in Wisconsin are much more forgiving!

Goldfish. How many of us have gotten them for our children thinking that they are easy to care for, and cheap to replace as they tend to die pretty regularly. I myself have had to flush quite a few! I did not however do something as stupid as this...put shampoo in the fishbowl. Now, I think that any idiot would realize that this would not be in the best interest of the fish. But evidently a dog owner somewhere did think that adding dog shampoo to the fishbowl was a good idea. On the bottle of a nameless bottle of dog shampoo is this warning. "Caution!The contents of this bottle should not be fed to fish." Duh! It's dog shampoo! Not fish food! If you are too stupid to know the difference, maybe you should keep only stuffed toy animals for pets!  

2010's highlight! My grandson!

Hello everyone! I can't believe it is 2011. If you believe all the doomsday fanatics we have just one year left until Armageddon! I myself do not believe this is our final year on earth...but if I am wrong...oh well! . What I do believe though is that 2011 is going to be a wonderful year! (Positive thinking...hopefully it will work!) 2010 had some real low points for me...but some very great high points! The highs so fantastic that I didn't mind the lows! I'm sure you all know what the highlight of my year was...OF COURSE I'M TALKING ABOUT THE BIRTH OF MY FIRST GRANDCHILD! Now I have a question for all of you dear friends. If  I continue writing about the silly and stupid laws and signs etc., will any of you actually read it? I probably wont post a new one daily, but if you do enjoy reading it, I will post at least 2 a week. I guess what I'm asking is...will I be wasting my time? Please be honest, I wont be offended in the slightest. I hope all of you have a wonderful, happy, safe, healthy, prosperous 2011! Love you all!

Thanksgiving, Christmas, NewYears. The holiday's are celebrated in as many different ways as there are people in the world. What makes them special and unique to each of us are our traditions. Most of our traditions are passed down from generation to generation, sometimes changing a bit when a couple marries and meshes their family traditions, or even starting their very own new traditions. In some cases traditions are even..."stolen"...from other families. It doesn't matter where yours come from, it just matters that you make them your own. In our own family we have kept some from both Allan's family and mine...and when our kids came along we started some of our own. I've always loved to hear what other families do that make the holiday season special and unique just for them. I will share a few of our traditions and would love it if you would all share one of yours! Some of our traditions are very simple, for example...we always buy a live tree from the same tree vendor, and we always spend no more than 30$ on it. If you have ever bought a live tree you know that trees in that price range are usually pretty sparse. A long standing joke is our Christmas tree is the "Charlie brown" tree.  Charlie's tree was very sad with hardly any branches and even the single little ornament on it was too much for the poor little tree to bear. Our trees aren't that sad, but I usually throw it out on December 26th or 27th anyway! Probably my favorite tradition takes place on Christmas Eve. I'm not sure how old the kids were when we started it, but even though they are adults now we still do it! After the kids are in their new Christmas jammies, the kids drink hot chocolate while dad reads to them the story book,"Polar Express." and then it's off to bed! One year Courtney even asked for a bell from Santa's sleigh like the one from the story. I think she was testing out the whole, "is there or isn't there," a Santa thing. She got her special bell, but it was difficult trying to find a special enough looking bell to fill the request! This year we have been blessed with our very first grandchild! Courtney and Matt have a beautiful baby boy! This year grandma and grandpa are giving Courtney and Matt their own copy of the "polar express",  and little jj is getting a bell. From this Christmas on all of the grandkids will receive a new bell every year from grandpa and grandma to go with the story, and as they get older the bells will become more fragile and delicate all having the date on them. I hope it will be something they will look forward to! When grandchildren come into new households they too will get their own book and a bell a year from grandpa and grandma. The challenge will be finding different bells for each child every year, but I'm looking forward to the adventure!  However you spend your holiday season just remember that its the little usually inexpensive things that make the biggest brightest memories!

Happy?!? Holidays!

Common sense. Most people have it , but there are other people out there in this big wide world of ours  that have never even heard of it! For this special group of ...well "Special" people, warning labels were created. Case in point, the motorcycle helmet mounted with a rear view mirror. "Remember objects in mirror are behind you." WoW! I would never have guessed that images in my REAR VIEW mirror were BEHIND me!So."" rear view" mirrors are for seeing things behind you! What a concept! Now we know that it is possible to see things BEHIND us, we should  take a good look and see what the poor souls following us are seeing. There are some "Rear views" that just should never be seen!