David Archuleta Serenaded Me

Yeah it's true. David Archuleta serenaded me.

My friend Amy called me up today and asked if I would drive to Sacramento with her to do some publicity photos for Rising Star. She said we would be photographing David Archuleta. I said sure.

After we got on the road and caught up a bit with each other, I had to ask Amy who this David Archuleta guy was. I figured he was somewhat famous but I hadn't been keeping up with Us Weekly or People and clearly hadn't been watching much TV, so I was a bit out of the loop as far as the phenomenon known as American Idol.

After arriving at a nice hotel, David's manager escorted us to his room and introduced us. It was kinda surreal because he is just a kid. He was super nice and even offered me the complimentary chocolate covered strawberries that were in the room. I quickly set up for our little publicity photoshoot while he typed away on his MacBook Pro likely blogging/Facebooking/Twittering.

As Amy and I tried to figure out how to hang the Rising Star poster for the background I discovered we could hang it from the fire sprinklers. She commented, "Robert, your such a cool guy for doing all this." At which point David busted out with a spontaneous song of, "Robert, he's such a cool guy!"

Climbing With Danielle

I finally had the chance to go climbing with my cousin Danielle. We found some nice crags at the end of a road in Ogden.

I tried my hand at lead climbing a sport route, but only made it half way up.


Danielle finished it off and made it look easy.

Willard Bay

Bryan, Steven and I took a morning flight out of SF to join most of the family in Utah (Andy flew out later that same day and Tauna stayed home as she is due in one month with twins). While walking through the airport we looked like sponsored athletes decked out in The North Face gear and each of us sporting The North Face duffel bags. When we arrived at Christofer and Devan's place the boat and everybody were all ready to head out to Willard Bay for a day of fun.

Radley has fun playing with rocks on the shore.


Demsey has fun just chillin.


Radley also has fun being a human football.


Chris had fun launching out of the water


Jefferson gets his catch-the-frisbee-in-the-water big-air goin on.


Christofer decides to sneak up on me while someone has my camera...


...and makes the takedown!


Fun with synchronized jumping.

(l to r) myself, Jefferson, John, Bryan, Christofer, Steven

Dad enjoys some R&R with Demsey.

My Latest Work Of Art:

Caisa and Adrian show their support for Joy during the 2009 World Longboard Championships held in France

4th of July

This year's fourth had the requisite barbecue at noon complete "with liberty and watermelon for all" hosted by Jessica, Cary and Brittany at Ramos Park. Then Rayne and I headed down to Aptos for a beach party thrown by Krista, Kianna and Jem where we found ourselves surrounded by some of the craziest (possibly illegal) fireworks I have ever witnessed. And by witnessed I mean practically having to duck and cover while roasting s'mores around our mini beach bonfire! And even though it felt what I imagine a war zone to feel like, Krista said this year was pretty tame.


"ooh! aah!"


"Fire in the hole!"


Our small but sufficient beach bonfire.