Thayne and Melissa Cullimore

Honestly, we're out of gas.

2009-11-04T11:16:00.005-07:00

Halloween. One of two holidays that can be celebrated for an entire month. It is also one of my favorite holidays, though I seldom do anything of worth on that night. I don't trick or treat, I haven't been to a party or notability in years, and am often left disappointed after the evening itself. Yet I still look forward to this day and celebrate the macabre as best I can.

We decorated this year and though our village pales in comparison to that of my parents, it suffices for our needs and wants. Here you can see what we have done for our Halloween village.

And a close up of the village.

So we had our decorations up for most the month of October. We gathered lots of candy and put them into our Halloween candy dishes and I put together a playlist of Halloween music that could be played when we turned on our village lights. Some of the songs really only had a nebulous connection to Halloween, such as a mention of the color black, or reference to a wolf, or spider. But if you want a couple hours of music, you need to open your mind a bit. It can't all be Dead Man's Party and Thriller. So I mix in some No Doubt's Spiderwebs, some more Oingo Boingo, some Warren Zevon, and Duran Duran.

The night before Halloween, our ward held the traditional Trunk or Treat. If any of you don't understand the premise of a trunk or treat, it is like trick or treat, but instead of kids coming to your house, you all park in a parking lot and decorate your trunk. Kids wander around the parking lot and get candy from each trunk.
We decided to dress up for this trunk or treat. Melissa didn't want to wear the Tinkerbell costume, so I was off the hook to wear a matching costume. She dressed as a pirate and I decided to do a Michael Jackson theme. I thought maybe dressing up like Michael from his Smooth Criminal video, but it would have just been a suit and a hat. Not good enough. So I thought about his Thriller video. I didn't have the red jacket, so I went with the wolf. Here we are in our costumes.

And here is Melissa with another sister in our ward standing in front of our trunk. We threw together some decorations for that night. The best thing is that wolfman figure. Thanks Matt.

Then on Halloween night, we went over to Tiffani and Cameron's for a bit. They dressed up as Little Mermaid characters, and went trick or treating. Melissa, Cameron and I stayed at home and passed out candy while watching Oregon dismantle the Trojans of USC. Go Ducks!!!

Then Melissa and I decided to go and see Michael Jackson's This is it. Great movie. Here is a picture of Tiffani and her kids.

Again the title is a quote. This one should be easy.

Highway 50, West

2009-11-04T10:51:00.003-07:00

So a few weeks back, we had tickets to U2. They held it at University of Phoenix Stadium. No that is not where the college University of Phoenix plays. From their commercials, I think their mascot is a phoenix. The University of Phoenix Phoenix's. Makes sense. The stadium is actually where the Arizona Cardinals play. Very nice looking stadium. The theory for the concert was that it was to be a 360 stage, but it wasn't. It was more like 220 degrees. We would have had great seats had it been truly 360, but as it was, we had decent seats.

So we parked our car and started walking into the stadium. Then we see this big police escort and a black suburban pulling in. The window was down and there was Bono sitting in the car, looking out the window. We look up and he smiles and waves at us. Pretty cool.

Here are some shots of the concert.

Pretty goo seats right? Actually I cropped the image, so it looks closer than it is.

This guy was dressed as Bono and was waving to the crowd. People actually thought it was him.

Here we are.

And here are some more pictures of the concert.

So the title of this post is from one of Melissa's favorite movies. The character is an irishman. Take a guess.

Yeah, we'll be prepared. Prepared for what?

2009-10-09T10:55:00.009-06:00

Many of you may think that the only time Melissa and I go on vacation is when we go to Disneyland. Well, you are wrong. This last weekend, we went to Disneyworld. Rather than take a family cruise over Christmas, my family decided to take a trip out to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. We were missing one member of my family in my sister Kelsi, but her excuse is that she is in the Halloween show at Universal Studios in California. But she was missed.

We did have however, plenty of people to bring along with us. Both Tyson and Kira brought along their friends of the opposite sex. So with spouses, close friends, kids and all we have a group of 24. For many of you that may seem like a lot, but for me, it is just a normal family vacation. A group like that would take up many hotel rooms, or just one house. We rented a house not far from the resorts.

So in the rich tradition of family blogging, I present to you a photographic represenation of our trip. You may notice there are very few pictures of me. That is because I was mostly holding the camera. If I had the pictures that my Dad took, there would likely be more of me, but since I don't, just imagine me behind the camera lense. So without futher adu, I present The Cullimores', a journey through Disneyworld.

Here is Melissa with our neice Danika. Notice her pacifier (binkie?) is upside down. That is a favorite game of my family. We turn their binkie upside down multipe times, then force them to turn it back. Then after a few times, we turn it all the way around, and try to trick them into turning it upside down themselve. Then we laugh and laugh. Gullible toddlers.

One of the reasons we chose this time of year to go to Disneyworld is because they were holding their annual Halloween party. Adults are typically not allowed to dress up when entering Disney parks. However, during their Halloween party, it is acceptable and expected to dress up. We attended the Disneyland Halloween party last year and my parents wanted to do the Disneyworld part. So we all got dressed up and ventured out to the Magic Kingdom on Friday Night.

Here is the Alladin faction of our group, which includes my brother Tyson, his girlfriend Jessica, my brother-in-law Tommy, my sister Teisha and their child Tennyson. Tennyson is dressed as Abu.

Here is the Alice in Wonderland faction. This is my brother Kirk's family. Kayla is Alice, Kynda is the Cheshire Cat and Kapri is the White Rabbit. I would assume you can guess the others.
My dad dressed as Sully from Monster's Inc. Little Danika is Boo and Daxton is Mike. This was our Monster's Inc faction.
Here is one of the only pictures I have of me. Me and Melissa dressed as . . . you guessed it, Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. Melissa wouldn't let me dress up as Tinkerbell, so I went with Peter.

At the Halloween party, the park is open as normal, but there are special Halloween parades, and additionally, there are trick-or-treat stands. We all got lots of candy.
We also stopped by ancient Japan on the trip. Here is Melissa in front of a statue of a Samuri warrior. Oddly enough, Japan is located entirely inside Epcot Center.

I thought this was cute. Danika loved having a baby around. She would hold Tennyson all day if we let her. She was always trying to hold him or touch him or hug him.
Here is Melissa at Animal Kingdom. In the background are Vampire Bats, also known as the flying fox.
More pictures at the Animal Kingdom. This is perhaps my favorite park in the Disneyworld resort. It's like a zoo, but mixed in with rides and Disney magic. There are some water buffalo in the back and some gazelles, or something.

Here is part of our group on the Asia River Rapids ride at Animal Kingdom.

Melissa is sitting next to Kynda and my brother Kirk. We are riding a shuttle to one of the parks.
My brother Tyson and Tanner, Kira's friend, got to participate in the backlot tour at Disney's Hollywood Studios. They were crew men on a ship during Pearl Habor.
This is Melissa favorite Star Wars character. She likes his horns on his forehead.
Melissa seems to be holding Danika a lot. It wasn't necessarily the case. Everyone took turns helping out with Danika, Kapri and Tennyson, but for some reason, I only have pictures of Melissa holding Danika.

And here we are in front of Sleeping Beauty's Castle. It was a four day trip, and there are lots of pictures, between the 24 of us. But this should suffice for now. I've been reprimanded by some of you for taking too much time off between my posts, so I am trying to rectify that. This only took me 5 days to get up. We will also try to do some interesting things that are worth blogging about.

The quote above is from a Disney movie, so feel free to take a guess.

Some of the Romans have far worse manners than I

2009-09-28T15:41:00.002-06:00

So we took a trip to Disneyland a few weeks back. Much of my family was going. We hadn't planned on going, but when we found we wouldn't have to miss any work, and it was just a weekend trip, we decided we could go. We spent Saturday and Sunday in Disneyland.

Here is Melissa with our nephew Daxton. We were all riding the Jungle Cruises. That is one of my favorite rides.

Here is Melissa with our other Nephew Tennyson. This was his first trip to Disneyland, of course, he's not quite 6 months old.

The theme is Celebrate Today at Disneyland. They had a parade, and it was one of the weaker parades I've seen at Disneyland. But the kids gat to get up and do a sort of conga line.

I didn't want to spend the money on buying the picture of just us on the Tower of Terror. So I just took a picture of it. We are in the bottom left corner.

Then a few weeks later, we decided to go again to Disneyland to see the Halloween decorations and the Halloween firework show. They had just put it up. It was pretty crowded for a day in the fall, but I'm assuming that because this was the first Halloween week, lots of people had the same idea as us.

So here we are in front of the Golden Gate Bridge at California Adventureland.

Because we had just been there, we got burned out pretty quick. We did everything we had planned, but we wanted to see the fireworks. We had about 2 1/2 hours to wait for the fireworks. Going back to the hotel would have been pointless, so we decided to hang out at the Tomorrowland Terrace. There we found a Ska band playing. They played 3 sets that we saw. I was stoked. I love Ska bands. I wasn't sure what year it was, maybe we hit a time vortex and travelled to the early 90's. But regardless, it was pretty sweet.

This is the band we watched. Suburban Legends. Notice the horn sections, that's how you know it's Ska.

I'm a loser. I broke up with the hottest girl in school, my friends all sold me out... and somebody in there just called me a fag!

2009-08-14T12:25:00.006-06:00

So Melissa noted that most of my last post featured me. I decided to make up for it by having a nothing but Melissa post. It cover's the same timeline, but it is just Melissa.

Here is Melissa at Lake Pleasant. As I stated, she did get in the water, but not behind the boat. We actually spent a lot of time just swimming in the lake.

Here is Melissa and Tristen playing the bean bag game. I forget what it's called, but it involves throwing bean bags at a plank of wood with a hole in it. You score points by landing the bean bag on the plank or getting it in the hole. We regretfully did not win the tournement. I forget who did, but I think it was Timmy and his brother Sean.

We stopped by the Grand Canyon on the way home. It is big. Sometime, we will actually go into the canyon and spend some time there. This time, we just got out and took some pictures.

We went back up to Salt Lake for the weekend of the 24th. I was going to audition for So you think you can Dance, but I didn't wake up in time. Plus there was that parade and all sorts of other problems. So for those of you who were looking forward to seeing me win the fall season of So you think you can dance, will have to wait.
But we also had the whole family in town. My younger sister was blessing her baby, and we all came in town. It just worked out that way.
On the night of the 24th, we visited with Melissa's family and then went back to see some fireworks at my parents house. There were no pictures of Melissa at her parents house, thus I present you with no pictures.

Here is Melissa and our neice, Danika, watching fireworks on my parents front lawn.

Later on we all decided to have random contests and such on the lawn. Hand stand contests, walking on our hands, and other stuff. Here is Melissa and some of my family making a human pyramid.

So now I have two posts in such a short time. People might start to expect it. I'll do my best.

Also, the title is a quote from the same movie as the previous post. Annie, can you figure it out? Or can any of you?

Somebody? More like Nobody!

2009-08-05T12:47:00.005-06:00

Finally after months of planning and waiting, we finally moved. I was working in Phoenix and we were in talks to rent a house. We had submitted a couple applications but we did not expect to hear anything anytime soon. Thursday morning I found out that the owner of one house had decided to rent to us. I finalized everything on Thursday and picked up the keys on Friday morning. I flew back up to Salt Lake on Friday and we worked to finish packing on Friday. We called up some people and loaded up a truck on Saturday. On Sunday evening, we were at our new home in Phoenix.

Two of my brothers and my friend Timmy.

Melissa and her mother packing up our old place.

So we made it to Phoenix in mid-June. We are still in the process of unpacking, but for the most part we are settled in to our new place.

Then on the fourth of July, we celebrated our nation's birth by boating with my sister's family on Lake Pleasant. Here is a picture of me out on Lake Pleasant. Melissa got in the water, but chose not to get dragged behind the boat.

Then the next weekend, we had planned a camping trip with some of my friends. It was up in Utah, in the Manti-Lesalle National Forest. It was quite a drive for us, but we had previously decided to go, so we went. We left on a Friday Morning and got there in the afternoon. We had a fun time, fishing, felling trees, playing games, etc. Of course we did the traditional camp out things, such as smores, and being scared of bears.

This was a rainbow that came out after a few hours of rain we suffered through.

This is one of the fish that I caught. Just about everyone that fished caught something. All in all, we had a good time. We missed a few that should have been there, though they mostly had good excuses. Ed and Mikaela were in Boston, Jay and Arrion were expected another child to be born anyday, and Stoker, I'm sure had something.

We hope that they will all be able to join us the next time around.

Also for Annie, the title is a movie quote. Tell me what it is from.

Never give up, Never Surrender!

2009-05-26T17:29:00.006-06:00

So it looks like our last post to our blog was on January 8th of this year. We were blogging about Christmas. That is about right. We have done nothing of note since then. Most of the pictures I've taken have been of houses, as we are attempting to purchase one. I spent a few weeks away from Melissa in order to prepare for the Arizona bar exam (I spent that time in Arizona). And then when I got back, we didn't really go out and do anything. I guess I could have taken pictures at the movies we went to see, but normally the theaters frown on that. But we finally did something on Memorial Day.

We went to the Zoo with Melissa's brother and his family. The Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake is a Utah staple, but after having visited other zoos around the country, I find that the Hogle Zoo is a little small. It still has quite a few animals, and this year it is advertising Madagascar. It was a greenhouse with some bugs, a tortoise and some sort of Mongoose creature. If you are going just for the Madagascar exhibit, prepare to be disappointed. Here are some pictures.

Melissa and her brother and kids, walking along at the zoo.

This is Melissa just outside the Elephant exhibit. They have actually redesigned quite a bit of things since my last visit. I barely recognized it.

This giraffe was able to use his behind as a pillow. Sometimes I think we all have that dream.

Melissa loves the bird show. It is her favorite part of the zoo. We were able to get decent seats for it. The birds would fly about a foot over your head. Here is an owl that is coming right at me.

This is me and Matt's family looking at some sort of pig creature. You can't see the pig creature in the picture, but he is just on the other side of the fence. It is kind of like the pig monster on Galaxy Quest.

So after a day at the zoo, spending all that time in the sun, you would think we'd be done for the day. But no, we have evening plans as well. A few weeks ago, I was made aware of a buy one get one sale on tickets to a concert. No Doubt was playing at the E Center. No Doubt happens to be one of my favorite bands, and since they haven't been together in a while, I wanted to see them play. I was actually trying to win tickets from the radio stations, but wasn't able to. Next best thing is paying for them, I guess.
We had floor seats, so for those of you who don't know, that means, general admission and you stand the whole time and try to crowd the stage. We actually had a really good view of the concert. We were close enough to see the spittle coming off Gwen's lips while she sang, close enough to smell the band's sweat. (I guess it could have been anyone's sweat, I did smell a lot of it in the pit, but it smelled kind of hot, so it must have been Gwen's.)

Here is Melissa inbetween the Paramors and No Doubt. It was actually a good opening band.

I had the camera and went a little crazy taking pictures of the band. But look how close we were.

Gwen was staring right at me. She was basically posing for this picture.

Here we are at the concert. We are both wearing glasses, we are such dorks.

And a couple other pictures of the band. Like I said, we were pretty close to the stage. This was a great show.

So what holds next for Thayne and Melissa? We will be moving to Arizona soon. When? I don't know, but I am preparing to have my office open by next week. Doesn't that mean we are moving by next week? I wish. We still need to get into a house. With the housing market where it is, you think that people with jobs would be able to get right in, but you'd be wrong.
Hopefully the next post will be soon and will be about our moving. Time will tell.

Has it really been that long

2009-01-08T22:17:00.010-07:00

So I guess it's been a while since I've posted anything on this blog. As you can imagine a lot has happened. Basically a half a year. We had August, September, October, November and December, but normally people don't really do anything in those months, right?

I guess they were pretty active months. That's why we didn't blog, we didn't have time. I swear. I mean blogging takes soo much time, that we just are too busy. That's the story I'm sticking with.

Anyway, in the last few months, we did a trip to Disneyland, a Cruise, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and another trip to Disneyland. I was sworn into the Utah bar, Melissa is still working, and we are still living in Utah, sort of.

Here are some of the pictures we took in Disneyland, with our new camera. We got a camera for Christmas, the Nikon D90. We are pretty excited about that.

We also set up a nice little Christmas Village in our place. Here is a picture of our village.

More things Done in July

2008-08-09T22:02:00.005-06:00

So after the weekend of the Fourth, we still had a pretty busy July. The next week was the Cullimore Family Reunion. We had double booked ourselves that weekend with the reunion and a camping trip with Jeff, Tristan, Timmy, Harman and a couple others. We did what we could to attend both. We spent Thursday night and Friday in Filmore at the reunion. Then Friday night until Sunday we were camping near Huntington.

The camping trip was fun. On this camping trip, I felled a tree, I caught fish, I killed and gutted a fish, and I started a fire without matches or a lighter. Quite a trip. Here are some more pictures of it.

Also some more things done in July. The following week my office held its summer party. We went up to the Bear River Lodge, up Mirror Lake Highway. We stayed two nights there. Actually Melissa and I showed up later than everyone else, because we had to see the Dark Knight on opening day. But we got there and did some four wheeling. That was pretty cool.
When all you have to protect your eyes are sunglasses and you are on dirt roads all day, your face gets dirty.
Also since we were near the Bear River, we decided to do some fishing there too. Even Melissa got in on the action, and Melissa caught a fish too.

I decided to do some night fishing one night. I went out to the river and first cast in, I got myself a little trout. The second cast in, my lure got stuck in some rocks. I tried to pull it free, but to no avail. I had already lost one lure when it got caught in a fish's fin and he swam away with it, so I didn't want to lose another. But the water was really cold. I debated on what to do for quite some time. I thought I could just cut my lure and call it good, but I really didn't want to. So despite my better judgment, I rolled up my jeans, took off my shoes and socks and ventured into the cold mountain water. It was about up to my thighs. I didn't have any one else there to take a picture, so sorry to everyone that wanted to see my thighs. I walked more than half way across the river and then pulled my lure loose. Happy day, I didn't need to cut my line.

Also I took the Arizona Bar exam at the end of July.

July 4th Weekend

2008-07-08T12:07:00.005-06:00

I know, two posts in the same month. Crazy. I'm actually trying to be better about this. And if anyone is interested, I've also posted on my personal blog, with my preseason rankings. The link in on the side over there.

This last weekend seemed pretty full. We had a lot going on. Of course we were celebrating our independence and the invention of freedom. So how is that creation of Philadelphia celebrated? By sending up Chinese explosive into the air. But it is the tradition.
On July 3, 2008, last Thursday, we joined many of our friends at the Oakley Rodeo. We attempted to dress the part, so we wore our boots and our best looking cowboy shirts and our hats. I wish we would have taken more pictures of our group, but we didn't. Here is a picture of one of the bull riders though.

On Friday, the Fourth, the actual birthday of this country, we accompanied my family to the Stadium of Fire. And who was headlining the Stadium of Fire? None other than Miley Cyrus, Hannah Montana herself. Of course there was also the Blue Man Group and Glenn Beck. Then at the end there was the firework show. There were probably more fireworks set off than at any other place in the country.

This is us at the Stadium of Fire.

A giant flag.

And here were some of the fireworks.

Then on Saturday we planned to go to the zoo. We ended up going to This is the Place Heritage park. We spent a few hours there touring some of the old buildings and trying some of the activities. Melissa petted a goat, and we both participated in a pie eating contest. The pie was actually just whipped cream, and the goal was to find something inside the pie. Melissa took second place, and I too a little longer.

So that was our July fourth weekend. We had a good time and the rest of July should be pretty entertaining. We have a camping trip planned, an office party, and then I get to vacation by myself in Tuscon for a few days.

My Haircut

2008-07-01T08:45:00.004-06:00

Ok, so my hair was cut months ago, but this should give you an idea of what that really meant. I had grown it out for over a year.

Hey, Wha Happen?

2008-06-18T11:29:00.004-06:00

It’s been a while since I updated out blog. I don’t feel that anything too exciting has happened, but if anyone is attempting to keep up with us, and is wondering what we are up to, this is for you.
We have settled into our lives here in Salt Lake City. Our condo is great, and has plenty of space for us. We could probably even grow some inside that condo. I don’t know how long we will stay in the condo, but if we are able to save up some money by living there, that would be great.
Melissa is working for Siemens Power Generations, as a business coordinator. I have been working as an almost attorney for a few months now. I help out in the Homeowner’s Association branch of the law firm. I also help out with a new branch that was just started up helping Sub-Contractors. I took the Utah Bar in February and found out that I did pass it. So, I won’t be an almost attorney too much longer. I just need to be sworn in. I am also taking the Arizona bar in July.
We got two new chinchillas. Melissa missed our last one, and this time she wanted to have two so that they would have a friend. We named them Gizmo and Zeus. I was pushing for Deron and Carlos, but I do like the name Zeus.
My younger brother Tyson just got home from his mission in Hong Kong. He spent two years in China, and told me he doesn’t know Kung Fu. I don’t know what he was doing there.
Because he came home, we had the whole family around, except Kira who is busy performing on the Disney Wonder. But Kirk and Heather and kids came in from Oklahoma, and Tiffani and Cameron and kids came in from Phoenix. It was a full house over at my parents, and it was nice that we didn’t live there. But it was fun to play with all the little ones, Kirk and Tiffani’s kids. By the way, does it seem to anyone else that Phoenix should be spelled Pheonix.
We made a trip out to Philadelphia and Delaware for my Graduation. We spent just 2 days there, and most of the one was at Graduation, and the other day we spent mostly in Philadelphia. We went to art museum. Special thanks to Jay and Sheena Ahlmer for letting us stay at their place.
Also, many of you probably notice already, but I cut my hair. I had grown it for 1 year, and then I cut it just after the bar exam.

After uploading these pictures, I realize they are all of me, and only one with Melissa. So here is some more of Melissa.

Christmas Cruise to Mexico

2008-03-10T10:43:00.004-06:00

I promised a post about our Cruise we took over Christmas, and I would have done it sooner, but I couldn't find the pictures we took. We gave our card to my parents so we could combine all the pictures and make books out of them. Well they disappeared for a while. I was at my parents yesterday and found them on my Mom's computer and burned me a disc of them. So now we have pictures again.

For those of you who don't know, over Christmas, we went on a Cruise with my parents, and about half of my brothers and sisters. The ones that didn't go were occupied for one reason or another. Kirk and his wife, who was pregnant, still had finals for law school, Teisha and her husband, were also unable to come. Tyson was still on his mission, and is still, and Kelsi was working on a cruise ship of her own. To make up for it, we went with my Aunt and Uncle and their children. And of course the Jacobsen family went with us, which is about 10 years that we've been cruising with them.

This Cruise was down the Mexican Riviera. The ports were Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vaillarta. For those who may not be aware, this is on the west side of Mexico, by the Pacific Ocean. We sailed on the Dawn Princess, of Princess Cruise Lines, and I must say that I cannot recommend this ship. I was somewhat dissappointed in the lack of simple luxeries that nearly every other cruise line offers and Princess did not have. They need to catch up with the times. But we did have a good time.

Here are some pictures of us and my family and the others on the ship. Some of these were portraits done by the ship, and they are obviously not the same night.

Our first port was Cabo San Lucas. It was the nicest of the days we had. We had no big plans and decided to go to the beach that day. We went to a place called Lover's beach. It was nice, and then on the other side of the beach, because this was a pennisula that jetted out, was the Pacific Ocean, and there was some big waves. They might have been to big and dangerous for us to go into the water, but that's for people who don't know what they're doing.

The next port was Mazatlan. There wasn't much to see or do in this town. So we took a tour of it. We climbed the highest natural lighthouse in the world, which is on a large hill. It is also right next to a sewage plant, which smelled divine. We also went into the town, saw the market district, the theater, and a large church. The rest of the day was spent at a resort next to the beach. Only 4 brave souls dared go into the ocean that day, because it was so cold. I was one of those brave souls.

Our final port was Puerto Vallarta. We went deep into the Mexican Jungle and sailed through the jungle on zip lines. There might have been a highway nearby too, which we had to go over on these zip lines. But that was fun. I would recommend doing the zip lines to anyone. Here are a lot of pictures for that.

So that was our Christmas. We spent it in Mexicao, but we had fun.

I've been tagged!

2008-03-05T14:43:00.001-07:00

Just so everyone knows, it is normally me, Thayne, that posts and updates this. If any of you complain to Melissa, that just gets passed on to me.

Ok, so I’m not completely familiar with the tagging in the blogosphere. Apparently someone does some sort of generic post, where you are supposed to follow a pattern and reveal things about yourself. Then you tag other people, but not actively. You passively tag people, meaning someone is required to read your blog to find out that they’ve been tagged. Once you’ve been tagged, you are to follow the pattern.

I’ve been tagged by my sister Teisha and my sister Tiffani, for the same pattern. Seven things about me that you may not know. That’s fairly difficult, because anything about me that is interesting is known by most. I’m going to list 7 things that I think people may find interesting, even if they already know.

1 - I’m a self-actualized person, in that I am fully aware of how awesome I am.
2 - My favorite artist of all time is Michael Jackson
3 - I believe the reason the television was invented was for the show "Arrested Development"
4 - I am capable of still doing the dances to Thriller and to Beat it
5 - I can be called Dr. Cullimore, because I just received my JD in the mail.
6 - I’m a Libertarian.
7 - Did I say that I was awesome? I guess I did, then how about, playing the Wii sports package normally makes my shoulders sore the next day.

I don’t know if I did that correct, but that’s what was done. And now, I suppose I should "tag" some people. How about Jay, Sheena, Richard, Catherine, Annie, Jason, Rick and Arielle. That’s 8 people instead of 7, so you all can fight over who didn’t get tagged. Or we could play freeze tag, that’s a fun game.

Back in Salt Lake City

2008-01-08T20:23:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since my last post. I must say a lot has happened, and eventually I’ll post some pictures, but I thought I’d at least try to update what is happening.

We have moved. It wasn’t fun, but we did make it. We left on a Sunday night, and drove through the night, sort of. We did stop somewhere in Ohio and napped in the car for a couple hours. Then we blew through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. I thought, “Dang, we are making good time.” We got into Iowa, and I was expecting to blow through Iowa. It is deceptively large. It was a beast to get through Iowa. It just seemed to go on and on. Around 6:00 that evening, we hit Nebraska, and we had been hearing reports of an upcoming ice storm in the Midwest. We thought that we would be able to miss it and for a while it seemed like we did. Then somewhere past Kearny, the snow began to fall. It got bad. Cars were leaving the roads, and you could barely see the lines. The storm was not supposed to be too far into Nebraska, so we plugged on, cautiously. The storm seemed to clear, and we thought, “Great, back to freeway speeds and we will make Wyoming before Midnight.” Then when we reached the snub-nose of Nebraska, another storm hit us. It was supposed to be in Wyoming, but overstepped its permission. It was just as bad as the first storm. It was a long drive in Nebraska. We got to Cheyenne around 2:00 am. Not a fun time. Melissa had been sleeping for a while, and took over almost immediately from Cheyenne. But only another hour later, she also decided she was too tired. We pulled over, and napped again for a few hours. Then we made a strait shoot to Salt Lake City, and got into town around noontime on Tuesday.

We stayed in town for a couple days at my parents, intending to look for an apartment. We had some leads, but nothing great. We had a good lead, but it wasn’t going to be ready until February. That just didn’t seem acceptable. Then we heard tale that there may be a 1 month house-sitting opportunity. My Grandparents were going on a one month mission, (I didn’t see that box when I was filling out my papers) to West Africa, more specifically, Sierra Leone. We called them up and were able to arrange a house-sitting deal for the month of January. We stopped looking for an apartment, and are currently staying at my Grandparents.

We went on a cruise over Christmas, and that was fun. More on that later, with pictures.

Thanksgiving 2007

2007-11-27T19:20:00.000-07:00

Melissa and I were fortunate enough to have some friends who lived "close by" this Thanksgiving. Ed "Finn" and Mikaela Larson invited us to their place to enjoy the Thanksgiving Holiday. They live in Colonial Fitchburg, Massachusetts. It took us only 7 hours to drive up there. Close by is relative considering that to reach other family, it might take us a 7 hour flight. But we were able to spend the weekend with them, and tour some of the areas.
We arrived on Wednesday night, and didn't really do anything that night. We were tired, and it was late, so we all went to be, separately. But the next day, we went to the local Ward Turkey Cup. That is much like a Turkey Bowl, but instead of playing football, they play European football, or what most Americans call Soccer. I thought it a bit unusual to play soccer in that weather, particularly when Thanksgiving is a football day, but we played nonetheless. I only slightly embarrassed myself, and came very near to scoring three different goals. I was consistently wide right of the goal, but I was consistent.

Following the Turkey Cup, we returned to prepare the meal, and Ed and I were able to sneak out for a bit. We went to the Fitchburg v. Leominster High School football game. This is the oldest and most played high school rivalry in the nation. We caught only the second half, but it turned out to be a good game. Fitchburg lost by one point, because rather than tying the game on an extra point after scoring a late touchdown, the coach opted to go for two, and failed miserably. Final Score: Leominster 14 Fitchburg 13. Also at the game, I was able to really hear some of the Bostonian, and Massachusetts accents. The announcer called out, "It's now Fauth Dawn, and Fitchburg has the Ba."
We ate dinner at the Larson apartment and were joined by some other ladies who were in town, far from their families. We had quite a meal prepared by Mikaela and Melissa. It was very good and very filling. The rest of Thanksgiving we debated on whether or not to do anything, and end up just watching some of the football games.
Friday, we got a late start, but the plan was to go into Boston. When we got out the door, we drove through Concord. We stopped there for a bit and saw some of the historical sights associated with Concord. We saw the bridge where the Patriots of America fired the first ordered shot upon the tyrannical British soldiers, also known as the Shot heard 'round the world.
We cut our visit of Concord and Lexington short, because we didn't want to run out of day light in Boston, and headed into the city. There we went to the Hawba, or as educated people would call it, the Harbor. We saw the USS Constitution, and toured around the USS Cassin Young. The Constitution is a old wooden war ship, and the Cassin Young was a WWII battleship. After the Cassin Young, we drove into the city, and saw some of the sights along the Freedom trail. We saw the monument dedicated the Battle of Bunker Hill, also know as the battle where they said, "don't fire until you see the white's of their eyes."
We also went by Boston Commons, and the Garden. We saw the Old State House and King's Chapel. While inside the Old State House, there was a lady talking about the historical significance of the building. She kept referring to Boston as the Cradle of Liberty. Of course that is false and misguided, as Philadelphia is the true Cradle of Liberty. Freedom was invented in Philadelphia.
We then drove around for a while trying to find the Old North Church, where the lanterns were hung to warn of the British invasion, "One if by land, Two if by sea." The British came by sea, and Paul Revere went on his Midnight Ride.
Then we drove by Harvard and joined up with Spencer, Ed's old roommate and friend and went to a restaurant near Harvard. Our drive home, we stopped by the Boston Temple to take a picture, since it was too late to try to do anything anyway. That was our Friday.
Saturday we got up and did very little for a while. We discussed things to see in the morning, but Ed and I needed to be back by 2:00 pm in order to watch the BYU v. Utah football game. We ended up doing nothing, and once the game started Melissa and Mikaela went shopping. Spencer came over for the game, and it turned out to be quite a good game, at least for me. You can read what I thought about the game at my other blog.
We ended the night at the local Fitchburg movie theater, and watched Disney's Enchanted. It was pretty good, and had some funny parts to it. All in all a good Thanksgiving break. Here are the pictures that were taken.

On our drive home, we decided to stop in New Haven and see Yale. That University has some cool architecture. We joined up with a new student tour and checked out much of Yale.

New York 2007

2007-11-19T13:00:00.000-07:00

We are attempting to take advantage of our remaining time on the East Coast by seeing all that we can. We went to New York City last Summer and spent a couple days up there, and did just about everything we could have done. We wanted to do just a few more things. We also wanted to see another Broadway show. We considered going up on Friday night, and staying over two nights, but in the end decided to drive up Saturday morning. We chose to stay in New Jersey, mostly because we couldn't afford to pay $500-600 a night. But the hotel wasn't far from a train station, and we were able to be in Manhattan by around 10:30 that morning.
Upon arriving, our plan was to get to the Wicked Theatre and try to get tickets via the lottery that they hold. When we arrived on Broadway, I noticed that there were a number of people standing outside of many theatres holding picket boards. The stage hands had decided to strike that morning, because they weren't getting enough gloves or whatever stage hands want.

Melissa being sad about the stage hands strike, and our unable to see a show.

So we pressed on to see what other things we could do. We spent sometime on Broadway, Rockefeller Center, where we saw the Christmas tree, and then onto Central Park, where we picnicked. It was really cold, and so our picnic wasn't that much fun. We then went to the Empire State's Building, and climbed all the way to the top, using only the stairs and also an elevator. After we climbed back down, we spent some time shopping on 5th Avenue.
While shopping on 5th Avenue, I saw a missionary and his family. It turned out that they were actually from my mission, and even in an area I served in.
We then went back into New Jersey and crashed for the rest of the night.
The next morning, we caught the train into New York, hoping that the strike was over. It wasn't. So we went down to Battery Park and caught the ferry to Liberty Island and the Statue of Liberty. That turned out to nearly be an all day event. We had just enough time to walk up Wall Street, see St. Patrick's Cathedral and then caught our reservation at Bar Americain, one of Bobby Flay's restaurants. Then we drove home. It was a fun trip, though we were disappointed that we couldn't see a show, because of the stage hands strike, in case you didn't catch that.

Eastern State Penitentiary

2007-10-26T09:31:00.000-06:00

The other night we went to the Eastern State Penitentiary. During Halloween Eastern State Penitentiary is decorated as a haunted house. During the rest of the year it is considered a haunted prison.
"The question of whether or not Eastern State Penitentiary is actually haunted is hotly debated, but many people believe it to be true. Records show that, in the early 1940s, inmates and officers began reporting supernatural phenomena. Since Eastern State was abandoned in 1971, the number of ghost sightings has increased."Most Haunted Live!". Travel Channel, USA. [[June 1, 2007]]. No. 1, season 1.
The site is frequently visited by paranormal investigation groups, and findings are mixed. Although many groups do report experiencing some sort of ghostly happening, some groups leave with nothing.
The Atlantic Paranormal Society, known for their TV show, Ghost Hunters, released footage of what they claim to be a ghost. However, this has not been truly determined."Ghost Hunters". SciFi Channel. [[November 3, 2004]]. No. 105, season 1." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_Behind_the_Walls)
Here is a clip from the Travel Channel's "Ghost Hunters" featuring the Eastern State Penitentiary.

The Penitentiary was designed to force the prisoners to reflect on their mistakes and to become penitent. The prison had all of their prisoners in a form of solitary confinement. Many of the prisoners claim to have seen many different hauntings while they where in prison, however, many speculate that it was due to the mental breakdown caused by their solitary confinement.
The prison held many infamous criminals, such as Al Capone, and the bank robber, Slick Willie Sutton. Slick Willie also organized an escape from the prison by digging a 97 foot tunnel. Though 12 inmates were involved in the escape they were all recaptured and the tunnel was sealed.
Here are some of the pictures we took, and some others that I've found that show some of the inside of this prison.

Melissa and I with one of the characters in front of the prison.

Melissa was too afraid to pose with this guy, so it was left to me.

This guy wasn't actually a character, just a visitor, but he was wearing camouflage tights and a flannel cape. Awesome!

Melissa and I in front of the prison.

Some vendors dressed as prisoners.

The infamous Cell Block 7.
One of the prison cells. Not very big, are they?

Today at the Pumpkin Patch

2007-10-13T19:24:00.000-06:00

Today, Melissa and I spent some time looking for pumpkins. We found a cool pumpkin patch last year where you go and pick your pumpkins right off the vine. We decided to go back there this year and get some pumpkins for Halloween. We were able to find more good ones this year, I think because we went earlier in October this year than last year. It was a fun time. I don't know if there are pumpkin patches like this in Utah. I would imagine that there are, I just don't know where they are.
After finding some good pumpkins, we went to Lindvilla Orchards and spent some time looking around there. They had a lot of pumpkins there too, but we already had ours. We had a nice little time today, and here are some pictures.

Our Trip to Mount Vernon and DC

2007-10-09T11:02:00.001-06:00

We took a trip a couple weeks back down to Washington DC. We try to get down to DC about once a month to go to the Temple. On this particular occasion, we left on Friday afternoon. We did our session at the Temple and then stayed with Melissa's uncle who lives just outside of DC. He actually wasn't there, so we broke in to his house. Fortunately for us, we knew where everything was, including the air mattress. Actually, Melissa's cousin was there, so we didn't need to break in.
The next day we went down to Mount Vernon, which is George Washington's estate. It was pretty cool, but I must say that if you are going to see one of our founding father's estate's, I would recommend Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. But Mount Vernon was really nice.
After Mount Vernon, we made our way to the National Zoo and spent the rest of our day there. We had been on our feet for quite a while, so we didn't tour the complete zoo, but we saw everything we wanted to.
We spent another night at Melissa's Uncle's place and went into DC the next day. There we visited the Spy Museum. It was cool. But unfortunately they wouldn't allow any pictures to be taken inside, so we have no documentation of our long 3 hours at the Spy Museum.
We were tired after that, so we began our drive home.

2007-07-19T12:52:00.000-06:00

Well, Melissa and I took a trip up to Palmyra, NY a couple weeks ago. We wanted to go and see the Hill Cumorah pageant. And so we packed our bags and went. We were planning to go with another couple, we weren't sure which other couple, but alas, all their plans fell through and we went by ourselves. It may have worked out better that way though, because we were able to spend the time as we saw fit and not attempt to please everyone else.

Melissa took off work early on Friday, and we left around 2:00 pm. Our plan was to get up to Palmyra in time to see the pagean that night. We were sort of flying by the seat of our pants, because I hadn't booked us any place to stay. I had looked into it, but held off waiting to see what days we would actually be going and which weekend. Because we found out at such a late date that it would be just us, it was difficult to book any sort of sleeping arrangements. But we were determined and set off anyways.

Here I am driving in the car for the many long hours. Normally on long trips we listen to a book on CD, but we didn't have one and so we were left to the mercies of the radio. It really wasn't bad and we drove through Pennsylvania and New York. The highlight of the drive up was the traffic jam in Scranton.

We finally made it to the Pageant in Palmyra. We went straight there and went to find seating. We didn't see anything that great, so fortunate for us, we brought our own camping chairs and set up on the side. The were vastly more comfortable. We ended up next to some other people from the Philadelphia area, though not part of our Stake.

The Pageant has an enormous cast. There were a lot of people up on stage and it was pretty good. It was about an hour long, and gave a summary of the highlights of the Book of Mormon.

We also ran into a Sister Andrea Muhlstein. She was a friend of ours from back in Salt Lake. We were informed that she was up there, but we thought we'd have to look. She was the first sister missionary that we saw.

That night we camped out at the County fairgrounds. Not really a camping sight, but it allowed us to use our tent and sleeping bags that we purchased a couple years back and haven't had a chance to use. It was dark when we were setting up, but we managed okay.

We got up pretty early the next morning, not by choice. But since we were up, we decided to get a start on the day. We went to the Smith Family Farm, and the Sacred Grove. We were on the first tour of the day, which was nice.

A statue of the first vision at the Smith Family Farm

This is us in front of the Smith Board house. This is where they were staying when Joseph received the plates.

Melissa sitting on a bench somewhere in the Sacred Grove

The Palmyra Temple, which sits on the original property of the Smith Farm

Then after seeing the Temple and the Sacred Grove, we went back to the Hill Cumorah to see the visitors center and the statue that was erected.

This is us on the Hill Cumorah.

After we saw everything we wanted to see in Palmyra, it was only like 11:00 a.m. We decided that we could get to Niagara Falls ealier than expected. We drove out of Palmyra and toward Buffalo. I wanted to stop for some Buffalo wings in Buffalo, but we didn't exactly know where to go. So instead we just ate at Smokey Bones. It's a BBQ place, comparable to Famous Dave's, but not quite as good. Then up to Niagara. We weren't sure what we were going to do, but we got a room at a small little motel, sort of a dive. We checked in and then we crashed. We were tired, and we slept for a couple hours. But when we awoke, we drove to the Canada side of Niagara falls and WOW!!

This is Melissa in front of the falls.

This is both of us in front of the falls.

This is a picture of just the Horseshoe falls.

This is the Maid of the Mist by the falls. We were going to do that, but we wanted to walk closer to the falls. We went behind the falls, which wasn't as cool as I thought it would be. There are only a couple of windows behind the falls and its difficult to see what's going on. But that was our choice of activity.

We woke up the next morning and drove home. It took about 5 1/2 hours to get home. It was a nice trip and its good we took it now, because I don't know when we will get a chance to do it again.

Our Trip to Ocean City

2007-07-10T17:19:00.000-06:00

Apparently, everyone is using blogs to give those who aren't near them updates on what they are doing. I've looked over a number of my friend's and family's blogs and they post pictures of things they have done. In my other blog, I mostly post different writings of things that I am thinking. So for those who want to know what Melissa and I are up to, I thought I'd put this up.

A couple weeks back, we took a couple days and went to Ocean City, New Jersey. We were fortunate enough to have some friends who were vacationing there, and they were gracious enough to offer us a place to stay. It worked out nicely, cause we don't have a lot of money to burn. Thanks to the Harlos family and to Evan and Lindsey Jones for allowing us to encroach upon their family vacation.

This is us at the beach.

This hat kept me from getting burned, so don't laugh.

Evan and Lindsey Jones, and Melissa and Thayne

Melissa after some great bodyboarding

This is us at the beach, with the Harlos family. We spent a lot of time just sitting there at the beach.

Evan and I spent a lot of time throwing around the football. What else are we going to do?

Melissa and some of our group in the water

Lindsey and Melissa at the beach. They were often asked in college if they were sisters.

So that is our latest trip. Sort of. I've since gone back to Utah for a couple days, for my friend's wedding. This coming weekend, we are planning to go to Palmyra, New York, to see the Hill Cumora Pageant, and also Niagara Falls. So there may be more pictures to come.