Happy Birthday B-Bop.

On December 31st 1980 a major disaster was avoided. Rosemary Raspberry Robbins had tackle and as such became Brian Christopher Robbins. I can't believe that you would have named a girl that mom. Aren't girls sensitive by nature?

Brian turns 27 this year and is doing great. He is a part owner of Summit Tile and Stone. They do an amazing job and are very competitive in price. If you ever need tile done, call these guys.

Happy Birthday Brian. I will most likely see you at a Training Table on the 31st.

Planet Earth with Coop.

For Christmas Gary and Jean gave Sarah and I the complete series of Planet Earth. If you have not seen this I highly recommend it. It was filmed over 5 years and takes a look at every nook and cranny our great world has to offer. I watch it and truly appreciate the creation and all the beauty of the earth.

Tonight Sarah took Riley and Camden to go visit her cousin who is in town from Arizona. I stayed back with Coop who had a fever and a "scratchy tongue" as he put it. I wanted to watch the Jazz and he wanted to watch "channel 33" (Disney) so we compromised and put in Planet Earth. It was fun to watch how captivated he became. He kept looking over at me and saying "WOW!!!" Tonight had no prospect of fun or excitement but watching my son become so passionate about what we were watching was, to say the least, a good time. This is the part of being a dad that I truly enjoy.

Here is Coop watching a pride of Lions attack and eat an Elephant.

The Robbins Bunny Blast of 07.

(Left to right: Michael, Greg, Garrett, Brian, Gavin, Camden, Grandpa Richard, John John, Gary)

As you may well know any time you check out my blog you never know what you will get. Today you get a little bit of hunting. Brian organized the Robbins Family rabbit hunt. This was a blast both literally and figuratively. We drove all the way to the southwest side of Utah Lake to one of Brian's secret bunny spots. Once to our spot we lined up and set for the sage. I was toting my 12 gauge and Camden followed step by step with his new bow that Santa brought.

All in all we blasted about 10 bunnies with Cam and I taking care of 4 or 5. Brian was shooting his bow and finished off one that I slowed down. It was so much fun to be out in the foothills with my family. A little crazy too. Thanks to Brian for putting together such a fun day. And special thanks to the Keen shoe/boot company for making the best boots a guy could have in winter conditions. My feet were toasty all day. Check these boots out at,

http://www.keenfootwear.com/product_detail.aspx?sku=1221


(Here is me and Cam with our first bunny of the day.)

The Fat Man came again.

Christmas 2007 has come and gone. Holy Crap! That went by fast. I can't believe how fast time is flying by. My mom quoted in her Christmas letter that life is like a roll of toilet paper, the closer to the end, the faster it goes.

We had a great couple of days. On Christmas eve we had a feast fit for a king. Thanks to Sarah. Then kept our traditions of reading "T'was the Night Before Christmas" and Luke 2 from the Bible. Riley read Luke 2 for us this year, it was a neat thing for a dad to watch.

Here is some of our feast.

The kids spent most of Christmas eve on the NORAD site tracking Santa. It was fun to watch them stress over bed time while Santa was still in Trinidad and Tobago.

As you can see by the forensic evidence above, Santa showed up and everyone was happy. This year may have been our peak year in the Santa Claus facet of Christmas. All three kids were so excited and really enjoyed the prospects of what Santa might bring.

My Beautiful Bride!

I LOVE MY WIFE!!!

Gordon's and La La's Big Day.

The above picture is of Gordon Canada and his soon to be bride Lauren. They will be married today 12/22/2007 in the Salt Lake Temple. We had a lovely dinner with them and about 50 other people at Treo' (Sarah and I both had the Salmon) in Old Mill last night.

It was a great evening. I was able to sit with all of my best friends including my wife. We had a great conversation and it was truly like the good old days. I look forward to making many more good old days with my friends and their wives. Gordon spoke and did a wonderful job. He said that we get so caught up in life that we often times forget to look and see how truly blessed we are. He spoke of the blessings of friendship and talked about us as his friends. It was an amazing feeling to sit around that table and look at my best friends and realize how blessed I have been.

I often have to explain myself when people ask in shocked tones that I still hang out with my best friends from elementary and high school. I am lucky to see weekly Dustin Tate( BFF since 2ND grade), John Peterson (BFF since 5Th grade) and Gordon Canada (BFF since sophomore year, however I feel like I have known him forever). The explanation that I am inclined to give is that I have not found anyone better. These are the kind of guys that you go into battle with. I know that that sounds cliche' but that is the strongest way to drive my point home. These guys have that greater love that they would lay down their lives for their friends.

I did turn into my Dad last night. When I was asked to give a toast, I stood up and just started to cry. It was awful. I have a lot of love for my friends and the only way to get it out was through my tears.

My Daddy!!!

If any of you know me you know that I cannot sing. But My dad sure can! I could never say that my dad could beat up your dad, because my dad had on makeup and sang opera. I do think that He probably could beat up your dad though.

Every year for Christmas my dad sings "O' Holy Night". He does a wonderful job. Here is a brief clip of him singing at the 1st Annual Birch Family sing along......ENJOY.

P.S. My dad is 72 years old and his voice, in my opinion, still sounds very strong.

My Favorite Picture.

One major event that happened to us this year was that Riley was baptized on September 15Th. She was glowing that day and like her father she loves to be the center of attention ,although she does it much more quietly.

It was an honor for me to be able to baptize and confirm her. She is a lovely young lady that always seems to get whatever she wants from me.

This picture was taken in our backyard after her big event. She wanted to hold my hand all day. I do not like to hold hands but I found it hard to not hold hers. She is my best friend and I love her like I never knew one could love.

And we're back...

It has been too long since my last post. I am aware that many of you still believe that I am on top of Grandeur peak. It has been an up and down year but a lot of fun.

So here I write to bring you back into our lives and hopefully keep better touch with all of you. I will start back up only referencing the past year when necessary. It would take to much effort to catch you up on the last few months. I enjoy writing and keeping an interactive journal so I will simply ask for forgiveness and start anew.

Riley, Cam and Coop are getting very excited for Santa to come in one short week. They are busy with ginger bread houses, school presents, songs and all else that goes along with the Christmas season. When I got home from work today I saw that Riley and Cooper had made snowmen. They stood a towering 8-12 inches high. They were very funny and so I snapped a pic and pass it along to you for your viewing pleasure.

Grandeur Peak.

My oldest brother is an avid hiker. He goes on two or three hikes every week. He told me earlier this year that he is going to summit the "6 Peaks of the Wasatch". Those peaks would be in order of North to South; Grandeur, Olympus, Twin, Lone, Box Elder and Timpanogos. This sounded like a great idea to me. I drive the Wasatch front day in and day out and look at these peaks. It would be awesome to say that I have stood atop of the lot of them.

On Saturday June 2nd I was having a day that I am sure we are all familiar with. The "what do you want to do? 'I don't know what do you want to do?" type of day. I figured that if I went alone and huffed it I could summit Grandeur reasonably quick. I headed out and in a 2 1/2 hour round trip I was up and down. I have been getting in better shape and was able to keep a good pace the entire time.

I did have a quick run in with nature. As I rounded one of the many corners I ran nose to snout with a nice sized rattler positioned on the trail. We caught each other of guard and he let me know it. He hissed rattled and posed in a striking position. A couple of rock throws and he moved out of the way. All in all it was some great scenery, good tunes (thanks to iPod) and a decent sense of accomplishment stepping towards accomplishing a goal of mine.

Camden is on the board.

Our family would like to introduce you to the toothless version of Camden. He is by far the most excited kid ever. I have caught him giggling all day at the prospect of a pending trip from "Twinkle" the tooth fairy.

2007 Team Meag-A-Tuff Race for the Cure.

The 2007 Team was full of friends and family. We had a great turn out! Roughly 65people that ran, walked and rolled the 5K race. It was a lot of fun and we will do it again next year. The fastest of our team was Justin who finished in 20:20. My goal was to finish in 29:59 and I was able to finish in 28:38, exactly one minute behind my wife.
Sarah, Marlene and Riley. Three generations. Marlene is a breast cancer survivor and a great mother-in-law!!!
My beautiful family.

Fishin' with Bob.

Friday the 27th of April brought some of the best weather of the year. A perfect day to grab the poles and head for the holes. My step dad Bob and Brian and I ran up Provo Canyon to Deer Creek Reservoir. Bob lives in Alaska and is an amazing fisherman.

I think he was disappointed in our power bait techniques. He played along with us and we all had a really good time. After no action on DCR we headed up the Wallsburg creek that inlets to DCR. It was fast action after that. We ended up catching 6-8 fish with Brian doing most of the damage.

All in all it was great weather, good fishing and great company!



Brian with the first catch of the day.

The Utah Red/White game.

On Saturday April 21st we went to watch the Utes in their spring football game. It was a lot of fun and a good quencher for my football thirst. After the game they let everyone go down onto the field and get autographs and pictures with their favorite players.

All of the players were very nice including Brent "The Man of" Casteel and Steve Tate. The picture above is with Riley and Casteel and below is Cooper with Tate's helmet on. The boys played football against each other and had a really fun time.

Spring Hike.

On Saturday the 14th of April, Camden and I went on a nice spring hike. We went up Butlers Fork up Big Cottonwood and then branched off towards Dog Lake. It was muddy and snowy most of the way but the temps were perfect.

Camden did pretty good but wore out just short off our destination (dog lake). We came back down and had some great post hike sandwiches and some water.

I am convinced that we live in some of the prettiest country on the face of the earth. It was a lot of fun to be up there with my boy doing something I love so much.

Cooper is funnier than me.

I love this kid. He is always cracking me up.

He saw me relieve myself an thought it a good idea. Keep in mind the little guy just hiked two miles "all by his self."

Rookie YMCA'rs.

Click on the little box to view some pretty funny video of Cam, Coop and John's boy Logan trying to do the YMCA dance.

Salt Lake Bees Home Opener

From left to right: John, Lincoln, Logan, Cooper, Camden and the Bee guy.


Tonight we went to the Salt Lake Bees home opener. They played the Las Vegas 51's. Mark, Sarah, Cam, Coop and Grandma and Grandpa Nielsen met John Peterson and his two boys Lincoln and Logan at the park for a night of good old fashion baseball.(Riley went to Rennie's)

This night was a blast! The weather was perfect for spring baseball. We sat in the outfield area. This is the best to do with little kids. They run around and roll up and down the hill as you sit and watch the game.

There is something in the make up of a man that makes him want to take his kids to see real baseball played. There is something to be said of the crack of the bat, peanuts, cracker jacks, the seventh inning stretch and everything else that goes along with sitting in the ball park.

On a side note tonight confirmed to me what a great business man Larry H. Miller is. He bought the franchise and changed a few things. One of which was the name and uniforms of the team. This does not seem that significant. However the "Buzz" old colors were teal and yellow and navy blue and the team name was just not all that cool. He changed the name to the "Bees", which is more to the point and more relative to Utahn's, gives them better colors in black and yellow. A lot of people at the park tonight were wearing "Bees" apparel. I have gone to a lot of games over the years but tonight I saw more people at the stadium and more people wearing the team colors. All of this means $$$$$ to LHM.

The Bee's ended up winning 4-3 with a bottom of the ninth walk off double. The good game on the field was just the icing on the cake.

First Fishing Trip 07.

For FHE this week, we decided to go fishing up Big Cottonwood canyon. We met Brian at the park and ride and away we went. The canyon is always pretty and the kids enjoy seeing deer and everything else I point out.

We found our desired hole and started to fish. Sarah gave me some polarized sunglasses for Christmas this year. They are awesome. I was able to watch, on my first cast of the year, a fish come and take my line. Unfortunately this was the only fish I caught all evening.

The sky was blue but it was very chilly so we called it a night early. Brian added one more fish for a total of two between all of us.


Here is a cool picture I took of Brian.

Race for the cure.

On May 12th the Susan G. Komen race for the cure will be held at the Gateway in downtown Salt Lake. This race is a 5K with the proceeds going to research for breast cancer. Our family will be running it for the second year as part of Team Meag-A-Tuff. If you wish to join in on the fun email me at markjosephrobbins@yahoo.com. We will be having a sign up party on April 14th. All are invited. To register before our party go to www.komenslc.org/race/ and join exsisting Team Meag-A-Tuff.

Brian's great wrestling adventure.

Brian got a little bit of a wild hair this weekend and decided to go wrestle in the local freestyle tournament. He had to cut three pound to make 145 lbs. He made weight and saw that he had two others in his weight.


As luck would have it one of the two was female. As a male wrestler it is never fun to wrestle a girl. There is always the what if factor. This girl was good (for a girl). She wrestled for a small college.


Thank goodness that Brian wrestled really good that day. In his first match, he fought back to tie up the match that he was losing and then eventually pin his guy. In his second match, against the girl, Brian won by tech fall. All in all it was pretty fun and entertaining. Here is Brian "gutting" a chick.

Brian in the first of his two wins in route to the gold medal.

Proud Brother and Sister

Tonight we went to another one of Cam's wrestling matches. These are becoming a popular event in our household. Cam won his first match by pin, as seen above, and lost his second. He does a very good job of not getting pinned.

I learned something very neat about Cam tonight. He is driven when he sees opportunity in front of him. During the match he is very lethargic and is kind of roley poley. When the time comes that he sees his opponents back exposed, he changes gears and turns into attack mode. Everytime that happens, he quickly finishes the match.

It has been fun to have him grow into sporting age. On Saturday we went and hit a bucket of golf balls. He had a very fun time and is a delight to be with.

Below are the proud Brother and Sister of the first time medalist.

My dancing zebra.

This was about 30 minutes after Cam's tough loss.

My first angry parent moment.

Camden had his second night of wrestling matches on Thursday. He has had a fun time with the family attention on him. He has won a match or two and is picking up the moves and ideas pretty good. Thursday night was a definite set back.

First of all the people that do the pairings of the lil' grapplers set Cam up with a kid that was older and bigger. If you look closely at the picture above you can actually see his muscle structure. Second of all the kid had a couple more years of experience than Cam has. Needless to say, it was not Cam's shining moment.

Two things came from this little match. Anger and love. First, anger that my boy was getting tossed like a rag doll all the while the other parent is yelling right in my ear.Please note that it is against the rules to coach while they are wrestling.

Second love. Camden with all his might and will fought off of his back for three minutes. If you have ever wrestled or now someone who has, this is no easy feat. I stood on the corner of the mat as little Cam with gritted teeth and concentrated eyes would not allow himself to be pinned.
After the match he walked over to me and gave me that big old Camden smile. He had fun. I was proud of him! He didn't give up and he had fun.

From there we had to quickly run to Oakridge and watch him perform in the kindergarten opera. He played the part of the dancing zebra very well.

The Process of Aging.

At the pictures first glance your immedeate thoughts must be, "looks like the Jazz lost." For purposes of comfort and relief I want you to first and foremost know that I have stopped beating my family over such simple things as the Jazz losing.

At second glance you will soon realize that my oldest daughter Riley lost her first tooth. This was a fun experience for her. Unfortunately Sarah and I were out of town when she lost it.

I know that many of you (probably my mother is the only one reading this) will laugh that little things like a daughter losing a tooth make me feel old. I know that I am still very young and have my best years ahead of me. As I watch my children grow, I can't help but feel even older. They are doing things that I remember vividly doing when I was young.

I guess that the trick is to just enjoy what you are doing while you are doing it. If you spend a lot of time looking forward to what's next and reminiscing about things past you will find little time to enjoy the present.

The tooth fairy was good to Riley and tooth number two is wiggling worse than a fish on the line.

Slam Man

Many of you have seen this already and I am posting this more fro experimentive purposes. If you have not seen it enjoy. Simply click on one of the two boxes to see the video.

The great and mighty vacation.

Sarah and I after almost nine years of marital bliss decided to take our first extended vacation without any kids. Now we have done some one and two nighters but this was the first real vacation that we had been on.

We took a Carnival cruise to Baja Mexico. Specifically Catalina Island and Ensenada, Mexico. It was a great and much needed break. We went kayaking in Catalina and spent our day in Ensenada bartering with the natives, getting great deals on absolute junk.

This picture above was taken in Long Beach while Sarah and I played on the beach passing time before our flight home.

Intro.

I have a good friend that referred me to this site to set up a blog. Not that I am that interesting or anything, I thought that it might be a fun way to accomplish a couple of things that I have goals of doing. Purpose one: Stay in touch better with loved ones. Purpose two: Keep a better personal history. I hope that this will aid in those two criteria.

I am sure that as time progresses and I familiarize myself with "blogging" it may become more interesting and entertaining.

I hope all who view this enjoy.