Chris's Billboard Project

Since most of you weren't able to see Chris's prints displayed on campus for his fine art class, I thought I would post the photographs from his most recent project.  A project that took a lot of time and a lot of driving around Utah and Nevada.  Chris's prints turned out great and it was neat for me to see them on display in the HFAC building.  His teacher was also very excited with his photographs and wants Chris to enter them into a contest.

Most people probably think that fine art is just landscape shots, but the art movement we are in today is called post-modernism.  One major aspect of post-modernism is agenda driven photographs/projects.  Below is Chris's artist statement....

During a recent drive home to visit my parents I saw a series of billboards that first made me laugh and then caused me to think about just where we are today as a society.  In many ways the world isn’t too much different today than it was hundreds of years ago:  As the saying goes prostitution is the oldest profession.  The difference is what we considered wrong, sinful, and immoral in the past is now held as commonplace, accepted, and in some circumstances even right by our society.

The purpose of my project is not to debate whether or not each specific topic is right or wrong.  My purpose is show the whole, to see society as it is now.  Is the world in which we now live better?  Is this progress?  What will the future be like?

In reality the actions and habits of mankind haven’t changed all that much and probably won’t in the future.  The trend is though, that as a society, what we deem immoral and wrong today could easily be defined as normal and good tomorrow.

Chris Bunker

Thanksgiving and a Birthday

I know that I am way behind on the blogging, so I thought I would do a couple make-up posts, starting with Thanksgiving....

We spent the week of Thanksgiving in Vegas, where it was nice and warm...even getting up into the 70's.  The girls were in heaven and played outside LOTS.  Chandra came down with Nicole and Josh (we actually drove down the Saturday before Turkey day for an extra long week) and she spent most of the week with us.  Chris was super busy working on a couple of school projects, but he did find some time to play with us.  The whole Bunker clan visited the Springs Preserve, a natural museum of sorts one day and later Dad B. took us big kids to Fremont Street....the original Vegas strip.

Thanksgiving day was fun.  We played some basketball in the morning, baked pies, ate yummy food and went to see a movie.  Chris photographed a wedding the day after Thanksgiving and since there were plenty of babysitters, I got to tag-a-long and help.  My favorite day during the break was when we all went outside to play a little croquet and bocce ball.  Chris won croquet, but Josh and I creamed everyone in bocce ball!

And finally, on Sunday, Chris turned 30!  Unfortunately, we had to make the long drive back to Provo on his birthday, but I think the day still turned out well, especially since it included some presents and pumpkin sheet cake.

 As I said before, the girls loved, loved, loved being outside.  Running, jumping on the tramp, going for walks, collecting pinecones, whatever.  Oh, and playing with Cazador of course.  Ellie even enjoyed the occasional snuggle with him.  

                                 Chelsa                                                 Casey       

Chris

Josh just relaxing.  Can you guess who he cheers for?

                         Ellie wants to play!                                      Benson

Dad measuring......not that we were competitive at all :)

Kylie was super excited that she got to pick out a balloon for Daddy!

For Chris's main gift I put together a basket full (more like overflowing) with 30 of Chris's favorites!

He got some clothes as well!

A close-up of his "basket of favorite things"  Hopefully those snacks will last him a while!

Happy 30th Chris/Daddy.  We sure do love you!

Indoor Fun

Since it has turned cold, the girls have struggled with having to stay inside most of the time.  Yes, we did play in the snow after our big storm here, but now it is just wet and chilly outside.  Ellie doesn't understand this and often is seen (and heard) banging on the door, wanting to go out.  Well, here is one of the girls' newest indoor activities.....

A Tangled Halloween

Kylie was counting down to Halloween this year (well starting with "5 more sleeps").  I haven't seen her this excited in a while.  One day we even played "trick-or-treating" because she wanted to go so badly.....the girls would knock on their play room door and I would answer and give them some play food once they said the magic Halloween words.  It was fun (at least for the first half an hour).  Even though Ellie didn't really understand all the fuss about the upcoming holiday, she was excited too.  She loved it when she would spot pumpkins on someone's porches while were out on a walk or would see the Halloween decor in the grocery store.  She would raise one fist up in the air and yell, "Weeeeeeen!"  Grandma Bunker took both the girls to the pumpkin patch earlier in October and they loved that they got to pick out pumpkins.  We haven't had time to carve them (yet....Kylie still wants to do it), but Kylie had fun decorating one of hers with crayon drawings and stickers.

Kylie chose to be Rapunzel this year.  Though her hair wasn't long and magical, it did have flowers in it.  Ellie was Pascal and could do a pretty good chameleon tongue to accompany her costume (which I made!  I was actually quite proud of how decent it turned out.  I just used one of her sweatshirts and pants as a pattern.  It was my first time ever sewing sleeves, which was a little difficult.).  The first time Ellie realized she had a tail, she gave it a big hug.  Chris was Flynn Ryder.  I wanted him to be the King (since I was the Queen), but Kylie insisted that he had to be Flynn, I mean Eugene.  So Chandra was the King and Casey was Mother Gothel (it's the hair!).  

 

 

 

 

Always....two fingers in the mouth and the other hand playing with her bellybutton.  Had to make sure she had a two piece costume!

Trick-or-treating was of course fun, especially since we didn't stay out too long.  The girls were plenty pleased with the candy they got.  We just picked a few houses in our neighborhood, mostly those belonging to our ward friends.  In retrospect, maybe we should have gone to more houses so that I would still have some candy to snitch!  

Cabin Time (August)

We made our annual trip to Grandma Rowe's cabin in Island Park, ID back in August and good times were had by all.  We definitely had a full cabin with all of us Bunkers there and it was fun to be all together.  Kylie and Ellie both loved being outside, taking walks along the river and going on a canoe ride.  Saturday we all went into to West Yellowstone to walk around/shop, eat the best pizza ever and get some yummy ice cream.  Sunday, Chris took our little family on a drive to the headwaters of the buffalo river.  We saw a couple of moose on our drive and quite a few more around the cabin that weekend.  Monday we went into Yellowstone and this year Firehole was open for swimming.  This was my first time sliding down the natural water-slides there, which, even though it was a bit cold, was so fun!  Even Kylie did it.  I wish we had taken some pictures.  We also did the usual jump off the tressel, in which Kylie wanted to do too.....see pictures below!

 

Their canoe sprung a leak!  

Grandma and Kylie were sitting in water at this point and had to join our canoe.

 

Before everyone else was brave enough to get into the chilly water, Kylie had jumped in several times!

  

Cold?  Yes, but she continued to jump.

Ellie wanted to jump too of course!

When we told Kylie we were going to the cabin, she immediately asked if she could jump off the bridge this time.  I was surprised that she remembered that from last summer!  But I wasn't surprised that she wanted to jump.  She was so excited.  I went up on the tressel with her and dropped her to Chris. 

 

Since there are rocks straight down from the tressel, I had to swing Kylie out a bit.  Unfortunately this caused Kylie to twist a little and to land on her thigh (as seen in the above picture).  The slap was painful and produced an immediate welt.  Even though our little girl cried, she was very proud...and still wanted to continue jumping into the water from the dock.  As I wrote this post, I asked Kylie if she will jump again.  She said, "when I am a little older, like this tall, but not as big as you."  I think she will do it again.

 

Kylie really didn't want to leave the river, so Chris filled a tub up for her to take an old-fashioned bath.  And the water was much warmer than the river! 

 

We all enjoyed sitting around the fire pit at night.  We let Kylie stay up late one evening so that she could do sparklers (we never did them on July 4th!) and so she could experience her first s'more!  Mmmmm!

 

As always, we loved being up at the cabin and thoroughly enjoyed the beauty of the area.

Summer Revisited

As I was going through some pictures, Ellie got really excited when she spotted these ones.  Both Kylie and Ellie sure love swimming!  It could be a long winter.....

 

I love this picture and that we caught Ellie's face.....pure joy!

 Kylie loved going down the slide all by herself

 Ellie loved the slide too and would lean forward when she was ready to go down

Our Fifth Anniversary

I know that I am very far behind on my posts.  It has been a busy couple of months!  Sorry family!

Back in August Chris and I celebrated our fifth anniversary!  We were able to spend some time together (almost 30 whole hours!) thanks to Casey and then Nicole and Josh for watching our girls.  Over the past year or so, Chris and I have talked about hiking Mt. Timpanogos.  Chris has never done it and both of us wanted to do it before we potentially leave Utah.  Since we didn't have the time or money for an anniversary "get-a-way", I suggested that we go on a hike.  Chris agreed, but 5 hours into our hike, I am not sure he was very happy he did.  J/K.  We had a great time together and both the hike and the views were amazing.
 

It was a beautiful day to hike....not too hot, not too cool. A little hazy though.

There were some pretty cool waterfalls along the hike. 

At the top!

The snowfield we slid down instead of hiking down...faster (and more fun)

 

We of course were quite tired after hiking Timp, but it felt so good as well (and dinner never tasted so delicious).  My legs were sore for a few days, but the memory of our anniversary hike will last forever!  :)

Our Little Fishies

If you ask Kylie and Ellie what they would like to do today, most likely their answer is, "Go SWIMMING!"  We have been blessed with two little girls who have taken to the water like a fish to, well, uh water!  It is fun to see how much they love being in the water (I do too!)  Both of them have become real brave and adventurous as the summer has progressed.

Ellie loves splashing, going down slides and can even go under the water (when she closes her mouth!).  She will walk right into the deep end of the pool without hesitation (yes, we have to watch her closely!).  And at the kiddie pool, she just walks around looking for adventure.  Even in the "deeper" parts, she will sit down in the water so it comes up over her head for a second and get back up by herself......smiling the whole time.  For a while, if made me so nervous!  Now, it is cute and I just stay real close in case she needs some help getting back up.  When we are at Seven Peaks, Ellie gets excited and points to the big water slides, wanting to go down them.  Oh, not for a few more years El Belle!

Kylie would really stay in the pool all day if we let her.  She loves the freedom her floaty gives her (thank you Gma A) and swims everywhere by herself.  We have worked a little on her "scooping" so that she can learn how to swim, but she just likes to do her own thing most of the time.  She has always loved going down the slides at the pool and this year does them by herself.  Because she is so excited though, she sometimes forgets to close her mouth. :)  And most recently, she has learned to jump off the diving board!  After doing so, we were watching some diving on the Olympics and Kylie got real excited and asked, "When will I learn that?"  Though, she did try to jump off backwards already, I think she needs to learn how to swim without her floaty before we teach her about reverses, flips and twisters!

Well, I put together a little video with some of the footage I have taken of the girls swimming this summer.  We haven't taken the video camera to Seven Peaks yet, where they are the most active in the kiddie pools and slides, but this still shows their undying love for the water.  And, I suppose, there will be lots more swimming this summer.....

Olympic Gymnastics

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love gymnastics.  Yes, I did gymnastics when I was younger and competed all through high school....but nothing compared to what you see the elite gymnasts on TV doing.  Ten plus years later, I still miss being up on the balance beam, springing off the vault and doing back-handsprings on just about any flat surface (including church dances to show up the boys).  I sometimes wish I could do it all again.  We had an amazing, fun, and united team, many of whom I am still friends with.  I think if I had a second chance, I could do even better...but maybe not, since I am much too tall for the sport :)  I can still do a pretty good handstand and can flip around on the trampoline, but I must now live vicariously through those gymnasts on TV.

It has been extremely fun to watch the Olympics this year.  That's what we do most every night (and thanks to DVR, we can watch anything we missed during the day as well).  Without say, the USA women's team has been amazing!  I, of course, was super excited when they won gold and when Gabby won gold in the all-around.  I must admit that I even teared up a couple of times.  I also love the reminiscing the nation is doing about the 1996 Olympic champion team....the Magnificent 7.  Those Olympic Games were very memorable to me, especially as I had watched the gymnasts all year prepare and compete.  I especially remember how fun and crowd-pleasing their floor routines were (no offense to the gymnasts now).  And then there was Kerri Strug's final vault....so courageous, so historic, so memorable. After the Olympics, the gymnasts on both the women's and men's teams did a tour, which was super fun to go see.  Anyway, to complement my trip down memory lane, I have been watching a few of the routines from 1996 on YouTube.  Very enjoyable.

After 16 years, this is the routine that has always stuck in my head...

And there was Shannon Miller's flawless beam routine....  No full-twisting flips in this, but look at her handstand skills!  She won an individual gold with this routine.