Stu's Blog

Stu's Blog is Retired...for now

2009-07-09T20:55:00.000-07:00

Well folks. I am sad to announce that I will no longer be keeping this blog updated. I have changed my main site www.stewee.com to be a Wordpress blog, so that my main site stays updated. This eliminates one more site for me to try to update. I have put my friends blog list on Stewee.com. If you want your site on there let me know, if it's already there and you don't want it there, let me know.

If you have a link to this blog, please change it to www.stewee.com.

Thanks, and enjoy!!

Metro Games

2009-06-13T11:24:00.000-07:00

Well, the Metro games were fun. We played the tournament at Kearns High School. My team won our first game 15-1. The next two games we lost, but were both close games. I stayed around and shot hoops and watched the other companies play up to the Championship. The company I work for, ADP, took bronze overall in the event.

Metro Games - Basketball

2009-06-12T14:57:00.001-07:00

Tonight is the Basketball portion of Metro Games. I hope our team does well. I will try to remember to post our results later tonight.

Anniversary & Sushi!

2009-06-06T18:33:00.001-07:00

Well yesterday was our 5th year anniversary. I am so lucky to be married to the greatest woman in the world. We decided to go out for sushi. I took a few pics.

The Shed...a work in progress.

2009-06-01T21:57:00.000-07:00

Well the shed is coming along nicely. I was really hoping today would be the last day of construction. We shingled up one side of the top, and put up the vent, and it started to pour and pour and pour, so we couldn't finish the shingles today. Hopefully we can get it all done on Saturday when we work on it next.

Adventures building a shed

2009-05-23T19:55:00.001-07:00

So, I inherited a nice shed from my father in law, and we have spent a few saturdays working on it. It started out as a cement pad I had poured in my yard, followed by the walls and some trusses. Today we had to fix one of the walls, put in the door, made a bazillion trips to Home Depot, bought all the roof stuff, and put up the board for the roof. We also put up the trim. Now all that is left is to put up the shingles. Woo hoo. Below are some pics of the progress.

2009-05-19T20:07:00.001-07:00

apparently I can blog from my phone. Neato.

The Biggest Loser

2009-05-19T19:50:00.000-07:00

So, my work is doing a Biggest Loser contest. It's teams of 4, and a few of us who could afford to lose a bit of weight have united as the "Anti-Twinkie Coalition". The competition begins June 1st, and ends in the end of August. I look forward to using this competition as some motivation to lose some weight and get healthy again. I will keep my weight loss and competition updates in my weight loss blog. Wish me luck!!!

Vacation in Southern Utah - Day 1

2009-05-01T18:46:00.000-07:00

So Amy and I decided on Tuesday that we were gonna come down to Zions for our 4 day weekend. We had taken some time off, but hadn't made any plans. On a whim, we decided to come down here for a warm weekend, and some hiking. We drove down today (Friday) and walked around Springdale, where we are staying, and had a bite to eat at the Burger Shack. Then we did some shopping, and are now just chillin' at the hotel. We did go down to the entrance of the park, and I snapped some pics. More to come after a full day in the park tomorrow.

Rearranging Furniture Day!

2009-04-12T00:12:00.000-07:00

Well yesterday after work, Amy and I decided to make a trip to Ikea to look at some bookshelves. We found a set that, put together, works as a corner set. We moved all of Amy's craft stuff into the back bedroom in our basement (which was full of junk), and made her, her own craft room. Then we moved all our books and such, to an actual bookshelf. Made the room look a bit better.

Priesthood Conference and Sushi

2009-04-04T22:37:00.001-07:00

Tonight I spent the evening with my Dad. We went to the Priesthood Session of General Conference at the Sandy 1st Ward. Usually we take up a whole bench with all us boys, but tonight it was just me and Dad. The talks were good as usual, and as usual, I ate a whole pocket full of mints. ha!

President Monson gave a good talk, and highlighted 3 points. They were: Scriptures Daily, Prayer Fervently and Live Righteously. I think they are good points, and I hope I can apply them in my life.

After Priesthood Session, Dad and I went out to dinner....SUSHI! We decided to go to Suehiro, which is where Sam works. We had some yummy food. I had a T&A Roll and Dad had the Malibu Roll. We ate lots of good food and were very stuffed when we were done.

Jordan River Parkway

2009-03-21T22:58:00.001-07:00

Today we decided to get out of the house and do something, so we grabbed Rio, and went for a walk at the Jordan River Parkway. We walked from 7000 South over to Gardener Historic Village and back. All in all a nice 2 mile walk. I brought my camera along, and we snapped a few pics.

My favorite one has become my wallpaper on my computer. Click the image below to download your own copy!

New PC - Custom Built by Me

2009-02-19T00:40:00.000-08:00

Tonight I had alot of fun building a custom PC. It was a good learning experience, and it's an awesome machine. I still have to push it to see it's full capabilities, which should be lots of fun too.

Here are the specs:

EVGA 790i SLi Ultra Motherboard
Interl Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83Ghz CPU
4 GB Ram
EVGA GeForce 8600 GTS Video Card (to be updated eventually)
200 GB Hard Drive
1 TB Hard Drive
Smilodon Extreme Black Gaming Case

I had a hard time getting the pictures to post for some reason.

Here's a link to some pics:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=14518&id=1081611918&l=1c026

Taken

2009-01-31T21:32:00.000-08:00

Tonight we went and saw the movie "Taken" starring Liam Neeson. It's a pretty good movie, with lots of action. It's about a retired agent of sorts, whose daughter is kidnapped while on vacation, and sold into human trafficking. He promises her kidnappers that he has specials skills in which he will find them and kill them. I don't want to ruin too much of the movie, but to say it was a good action flick.

Weight Loss Update

2009-01-29T15:54:00.000-08:00

Incase you don't read my Stu's Gettin' Skinny Blog, last night I posted my weigh in video. Last one for January, and I met my goal. Woo hoo! The goal is 10lbs a month until I feel i've reached a good point. I don't usually blog about the weight on this blog, but felt like it anyway.

A trip up the canyon

2009-01-24T13:33:00.000-08:00

It's Saturday, and for once we didn't have to be anywhere. I decided I wanted to go up to Temple Quarry at the mouth of Little Cottonwood, and take some pics. Just one problem. There is like 3 feet of snow there and no way to get in, so we drove up to Snowbird and then came back down and parked at the bus stop and took a few pics from the parking lot. It wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, but it was still fun. Here's some pics from the mini adventure.

Playing with different lighting

2009-01-22T17:25:00.000-08:00

I've been playing with lighting, and took a few self portraits. One is with lighting from above, the other is a diffused light from the side.

Random Pic of the Day

2009-01-20T21:07:00.000-08:00

Here's the pic of the day. Something I took a few days ago.

New Photo Studio

2009-01-20T20:30:00.000-08:00

o, I'm working on perfecting my photography techniques, and tonight I cleaned up the basement and built a "homemade" portrait studio. The pic below is what it looks like at the moment. It's currently a king size white sheet (which hasn't been ironed), and 3 clamp lights, which I'm still working on positions. The next pic was a quick one I snapped while playing with the lighting.

Random Pic of the Day

2009-01-16T21:14:00.000-08:00

I took this one cuz I was bored. The frog is actually not mine, but a friend's from work. I borrowed it a while back to make a desktop wallpaper for him. I decided to do a random pic, my headphones just happened to be in the background. Yeah, it doesn't make much sense. But that's why photography is fun.

New Camera Stuff

2009-01-15T20:08:00.001-08:00

So I got my new lense for my Canon camera this past week. I have a new goal to start taking more pictures just for fun and posting them here. My first one is my blog header, which is a self portrait! Look for new pics coming soon!

Christmas Photos!

2008-12-27T21:27:00.000-08:00

I've finally uploaded Christmas pics. Click the links below to view them, or go to www.stewee.com, and click on photos.

Christmas Day Pics

Christmas Party at Grandma's

New Years Resolution...and another new blog.

2008-12-27T00:38:00.000-08:00

I've created http://stusgettinskinny.blogspot.com/ to document all my success and failures at my goal, (yet again), to get skinny.

This time it will consist of no specific goals, just me trying my best to follow a schedule that will put me in a situation to lose more weight than failed plans.

Christmas Dinner and Goodbye to Scott

2008-12-16T22:07:00.000-08:00

Scott is now a missionary. Tomorrow he will be entering the Missionary Training Center.

After work, I headed over to Mom and Dad's, and then over to their church to be there when he got set apart as a missionary. After that, we went back to their house, and had our traditional English Christmas dinner. Turkey, Potatoes, Sweet potatoes, corn, brussel sprouts, etc. Good eating! After dinner, we spent the time helping Sam on the computer, and helping Scott pack. It was a fun evening, but also sad to say goodbye to my little brother. He is going to be an awesome missionary, and I know he will do an amazing job.

Book of Mormon....Finished it tonight!

2008-12-10T22:57:00.001-08:00

Tonight I finished the Book of Mormon. It's a great feeling, and I must say, I love that book, and know it is TRUE!!

I've been reading for a while now, all thanks to my Stake President! Back in August, he challenged our Stake to commit to never miss another day of reading for the rest of our lives. It's a pretty serious commitment. I did ok at the beginning, but missed a few days here and there. At the beginning of October, I had the opportunity to present the challenge to our Elder's Quorum in a fireside, which helped me recommit myself to the goal. Since that day, I have not missed one day of reading. It's become such a great habit. I can't go to sleep at night unless I've read for a bit. I challenge everyone to thing of doing the same. You'll never regret it! It's amazing how reading effects everything you do, and how often you can feel the spirit. Amazing experience!

I'm a quitter

2008-12-09T22:11:00.001-08:00

The beard thing wasn't doing well. I just can't pull it off. It is now gone. Sniff Sniff. :)

Family Christmas Picture

2008-12-08T16:50:00.000-08:00

Here it is folks: The Stu & Amy Crapo Christmas Pic!

Beard update....again

2008-12-04T22:16:00.000-08:00

It's still growing! :)

The Beard...is still growing

2008-12-01T21:38:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving and Stuff

2008-12-01T21:02:00.000-08:00

I forgot to blog about Thanksgiving. So here it is. It was fun.
Thanksgiving morning I was supposed to show up at my friends ward to play basketball, but I totally slept in, and was bummed, because I was looking forward to playing. Amy went to work in the morning, and I slept and watched TV until about 10:30 or something like that. I can't remember. It sufficeth me to say that it was late, and I was lazy. Amy came home around 11:30 and we got ready, and headed over to my uncle's Ward where are party was gonna be. I came prepared with my laptop, camera, and of course basketball. We were the first ones there besides my uncle, so I spent the time shooting hoops. My dad came and played some HORSE with me. I, being the superbly amazing shooter (sike), kicked his butt. :) Ha! I think I must have played about 10 games of HORSE throughout the course of the day, only losing once to Sam. Once everybody arrived and had their food ready, we ate...about 3pm. The food was excellent, and I was full, quickly. Towards the end of dinner, my uncle put on a DVD of old home movies of when my dad was a kid. It was pretty neat to see. I didn't watch all of it, but what I watched was really cool. After watching that and playing some more HORSE, I retired to the Relief Society room, which was quickly converted into the Geek Lair. We had about 10 computers setup, and had a LAN party. We played Halo for a few hours. It was great fun....and that was Thanksgiving!

This past Sunday was Scott's Mission Farewell. He is going to the St. Louis, Missouri Mission in 2 weeks. He gave a great talk, and did an excellent job. I was really proud of him, and still am, for the great choices he is making. He will make an excellent missionary!

Curse of the light hair

2008-11-25T00:07:00.000-08:00

The beard is still in progress. Problem is my facial hair is so stinkin' light. Curses! Ha. Anyways, the quest for a beard is still my number one goal in life right now. Ha! Just kidding, but it's something to blog about. Anyways, I'm done now. Tchau.

I'm gonna grow a beard....Dangit!

2008-11-18T21:48:00.001-08:00

It's not fair. I'm fair skinned, which means my ability to grow facial hair sucks. Anyways. The beard is coming. Beware! Last time I grew it out, I shaved it too soon. This time, I'm growing it out for good. And yes, I know it's pathetic that I'm blogging about my attempts to have a furry face, but it's about the only interesting thing going on right now! :)

steweeblog.com is gone forever

2008-11-11T16:56:00.000-08:00

So, my blog address used to be www.steweeblog.com. Unfortunately, I did not renew my domain, and it has already been bought up. So, for all you immense numbers of followers to my blog, my new address is just the standard stewee.blogspot.com.

Bears...Beets...Battlestar Galactica

2008-11-08T15:24:00.000-08:00

I was Dwight Schrute for Halloween this year. It was a lot of fun. Only problem was that apparently alot of people I work with don't watch The Office. And then I got bored, so for a Halloween Party I gave myself a mohawk with Amy's help. :) It only lasted one day. I couldn't stand it.

Weigh In

2008-10-20T21:29:00.000-07:00

Well Monday evening is weigh in time. In the last week, I have lost 3 lbs! Woo hoo. Not too fast, just about right. Now if I can keep up that pace, I'll be good to lose some weight over the next few months.

Bound and Determined

2008-10-14T21:41:00.000-07:00

Day 2 of my new adventure into weight loss. So far so good. I did good on my diet today. Had a good breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and then spent an hour and a half at the gym. I downed like 100oz of water today too, no soda, woo hoo! Did some weight training, and then 17 minutes on the eliptical. By the time I hit 10 minutes, I felt like I could go forever. I had my iPod blazin loud with music, and was in the groove. Right now I am trying to stop myself from standing on the scale. It's tempting, but I want to try and stick to weighing myself only on Monday nights. Hopefully I'll see more results. In previous attempts to lose weight, I was weighing myself every stinking day. That's probably why I always gave up. Alright, well there's my report for the day.

Vacation Ends

2008-10-13T22:01:00.001-07:00

Today we came home from our trip to St. George. Bummer. I hate coming home from vacation. Then we get a call reminding us of dental appointments tomorrow. YUCK! Oh well.

I started on my quest to lose weight today. I spent almost 2 hours at the gym. Just over an hour of it was spent shooting hoops. Although it wasn't a hard workout, it was excersize none the less. I then spent some time on the eliptical, and then some weird arm machine.

After my gym time, I ran to Walgreens and picked up some Hydroxycut. Not sure if it will work. I've heard a few success stories, so who knows, I'll see if it helps at all. I figure if I can continue to work out and eat a bit better, I'll start to trim down. I just gotta try and keep myself motivated. I usually do well the first few weeks, and then fail miserably. I'm tired of being fat though, so hopefully I can use that as motivation. I need to pick a day that I can report my weight. How about Mondays!? Well since it's a monday, I stood on the scale right before writing here, and I weighed 313.6lbs.

Vacation

2008-10-12T22:13:00.000-07:00

This weekend was spent in St. George, UT. Amy's birthday was today (sunday), and for her birthday we came down to see Les Miserables at the Tuacahn Theatre. It was cool. I haven't ever been to a musical quite like it. We had a good time, and even ran into some folks from our ward that went down too. We both have tomorrow off, and will be driving back home.

Today we spent the morning at Snow Canyon Park. It's a park that is about 4-5 miles long, and has probably about 10-11 different hiking trails. We didn't know what was here, so we didn't really prepare, but we ended up doing a few of the short hikes. We hiked up into a small slot canyon called Jenny's Canyon, and then we went and climbed all over the Petrified Dunes, last of all, we did a short hike they call Pioneer Names Trail. It's basically a small trail near a big rock face, where some pioneers back in 1894 wrote their names in axel grease on the rock face. Very interesting. After the morning adventure, we went to lunch at The Bear Paw. It's a small restaurant, that only serves breakfast and lunch. It was tasty food! After lunch we came back to the motel and crashed until 7. Man I was sleepy! We went out and had dinner at Wingers, and that's been pretty much our trip. It was fun, and it's a nice break from the normal day to day routine.

Trying to work on losing weight wasn't easy, and we really didn't do very well. Especially since we've had to eat out for all our meals. Hopefully we can get on the right track starting Monday. I'm pretty sure I haven't lost any weight yet, and I only have 2 1/2 months left to lose my 30 lbs that I want to lose. :)

Gosh i'm fat and outta shape!!

2008-10-09T23:34:00.001-07:00

So, tonight, Scottie and I went to a Preseason Utah Jazz game. Watching the game reminded me of my good ole days when I was skinny and in amazing shape. Since my mission I've gained about 100lbs, which is depressing and sad....anyways.

I've decided to set myself a short term goal...lose 30 lbs by the end of the year. I'm not gonna get stuck on this 100lbs deal, even though that's where I eventually want to be. So, as of tomorrow (friday) morning, I'm on my new quest. I want to try and use this blog of mine as a tracker of weight lost.

If any of you few people who read this blog notice I haven't blogged recently about my progress, you better call me, and tell me to get on it. :) Well, that is all....

BEFORE:

CURRENT:

The Pics are in!

2008-08-10T22:23:00.000-07:00

I got my pics from Rhode Island uploaded today....here's the link.

http://picasaweb.google.com/stuartcrapo/TripToRhodeIsland2008

Rhode Island - Friday & Saturday

2008-08-09T20:17:00.000-07:00

Today is Saturday and it's about 11:18pm. We are just sitting here in the living room, chillin, and watching some of the Olympics. I thought I would blog a bit about the last two days. Friday we spent the day in Newport, RI. It's an ocean town that has a lot of large ship tours, and lots of shopping. We all split up, and wandered around town. I took a ton of pics of the harbour and buildings and all such stuff. We had a good time. We found out later, that the case of "The Deadliest Catch" was in a tent nearby, and we could have gotten their autographs or something. Oh well.

Today we hung around the house until about 1pm, and then we went to Wickford, RI. Wickford is located near Naraganssett, if I remember correctly. Another town near the water. The main reason we went there was to look at the history. Wickford is a very old city. A lot of the buildings have dates on them, showing their original construction dates in the late 1700's and early 1800's. We walked around the town, and spent some time city at the harbour. After our trip to Wickford, we went over to Liz's parents house. Rick and Cindy had a BBQ of all sorts of great food. We had hotdogs, hamburgers, kilbasa, ribs, salad, etc. Very yummy. Then we all sat around and shot the bull and chatted for awhile.

Tomorrow morning we are leaving at 7am to head back home. I can't believe this vacation went by so fast. We had a good time though. I enjoyed the whole time here. It was fun. Thankfully we have Monday off to recover from our vacation, but it's gonna be a busy day. I have to make a trip to the dump, and get Amy's car fixed up also.

Well, it looks like we are going to bed now, so that was my vacation! When I get my Picasa Gallery updated with all the pics, I'll post a link in the blog.

Visit to Rhode Island - Wednesday & Thursday

2008-08-07T16:33:00.000-07:00

Well it's Thursday and our 2nd full day here in Rhode Island. I thought I would write a bit about how our trip is going on.

We arrived in Providence on Tuesday evening at about 5pm. Amy's brother Ted came and picked us up, and took us over to the car rental place. After getting the van, we headed over to Ted and Liz's house. If I remember correctly, the area they live in is called Phenix, or that might be the road name. I don't really remember. Anyways. We went out to dinner at a place call Chelo's that sat right next to a harbor. I had fish and chips, Amy had some sort of seafood soup. After dinner, we went over to Dick's Sporting Goods and picked up a cooler for our fishing trip to come on Wednesday.

Wednesday morning we woke up at 5am to get ready for our fishing trip. It took us about 40 minutes to get to the harbor, which was located near Point Judith, and Snug Harbor. My brother in law Ted had arranged a day of deep sea fishing. Our guide for the day was Bob. He had a 36 foot fishing boat called "Caught On". We took a ride on his boat out about 17 miles off the coast, near Block Island, RI. Due to crappy weather conditions, we were not able to reach some of his favorite fishing spots, but we still had some good success. The ride was smooth and as soon as it got really rocky, I lost my cookies. I had been sitting up in the cabin with Bob, and then ended up with my head over the side of the boat puking my guts out. It was a good thing I hadn't eaten breakfast. The day was wet and rainy and very windy. We hit some pretty big swells that rocked us all over the boat, but it was really quite an awesome day, and we all had an awesome time. All in all, we probably caught about 20 - 25 fish between the 3 of us. We came home around 2pm, and all took showers and naps, as we were tired, soaked, and ready for some rest. Amy woke me up later that evening for dinner. They had cooked up the sea bass that Doug had caught. It was pretty good. After that, I spent the evening playing games on my laptop, and everyone else sat around chatting, and watching tv.

Today, Thursday, we took a trip to Mystic, Connecticut. We went to the Marine Life Aquarium. There was a lot of people, but it was fun to walk around and see all the sea life. After the aquarium, we went to lunch at a place called the Steak Loft. The food was ok, nothing great. After lunch we went shopping at the shopping area they have next door. There are about 60 shops with all sorts of junk you can buy. We all broke up and did our own thing. One thing we had to do for sure was to get fudge from the General Store. It was yummy! We got a few little things, and called it a day. And that's where we are now. I'm sitting on the couch blogging. I am not sure what is in store for us later this week. We will be here Friday, Saturday, and go home on Sunday. I will probably blog a bit more about this trip as soon as we get home. I'll post my pics to my Picasa Gallery also.

The Dark Knight

2008-07-22T22:54:00.000-07:00

We went and saw The Dark Knight last night with Amy's co-workers. Great Movie! It was very well done, and Heath Ledgers performance was amazing. Very good Joker. If you get the chance, go see this movie, you will not be disappointed.

Potters Ponds

2008-07-22T22:50:00.001-07:00

Got back from camping on Sunday afternoon. It was a blast. We had a good time. I did alot of relaxing, eating, reading, swimming, biking, etc. It was great, and went by almost too fast. I had a near death experience too, going along Skyline Drive on my way to Mt. Pleasant. If you ever get a chance, pass. Amy did some fishing, and ended up catching 5 fish. I took about 500 pics, so go take a look on my Picasa gallery, or Facebook, or whatever. Click here to view my pics.

Camping

2008-07-15T22:35:00.002-07:00

I'm going camping this week. Expect to see some gnarly pics and a cool report of the trip shortly. Peace Out!

Worn out

2008-06-22T00:43:00.000-07:00

Well, today I spent the day working in my parents yard with my Dad. We finished up the wall that divided their garden from the yard. What was expected to be a half day project turned into a full day project. The sun was hot, and bright, and sure made us tired! But the wall looks good! And why am I blogging about this at 1:44 am? Good question. I should be sleeping. Tchau!

The bike

2008-06-19T19:04:00.000-07:00

So here it is. My new Specialized CrossTrail Sport. It's snazzy! In the last two days, i've put about 42 miles on this bike already. I am sore and tired. Makes me wonder why the heck I am going to the gym tonight. HA! I'll tell you what though. Bikers shorts help out so much. I got some nice ones with gel in the butt. I didn't think it would make a difference, but it sure does.

Save money...Lose weight....Get Fit!

2008-06-18T20:37:00.000-07:00

So, I made a new purchase. I just bought a Specialized Crosstrail Sport bicycle. It's pretty rad. Why you ask? Well, it's because 1) I'm fat, and could use the excercize, 2) Gas is to freakin' expensive, and it will save me money, and 3) Because I hope to get fit.

Today was the first day that I rode to work. My butt hurts so bad! I take the Jordan River Parkway all the way to work, it's a nice ride! I was telling people at work that the ride is about 7-8 miles. Well I was mistaken. According to www.mapmyride.com my ride to work is 10.89 miles! That makes my commute about 21 miles a day! Thats over 100 miles a week! It made me happy that I was able to bike that far, that's for sure. I hope I can keep it up. I'm burning about 2000 calories a day from the rides. That adds up over time. Here's a piture of my route:

I hope to keep blogging about my progress. A friend a work has a brother doing the same thing, and has lost 50lbs. That's some motivation for me. Now, I just hope my butt gets used to the ride. LOL!!!

Here we go again

2008-06-10T00:44:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a while since I tried to lose some weight. I wasn't very successful. I lost about 10-20lbs and quit. Dang soda. Grrrrr. Oh wait, I was lazy too. A few of us are doing another weight loss contest at work again. I am hoping that maybe I can find some sort of motivation that will really help me continue to lose weight. I really miss being skinny. I stepped on the scale in my office today to find that I weight about 322lbs. That's so horrible. To think that only 6 years ago I was barely 200lbs! So crazy. So, I'm hoping to blog more often about this weight loss stuff, maybe that will help. I guess we shall see! Wish me luck!

Facebook & Blogger??

2008-06-05T23:01:00.001-07:00

Apparently I can have my blogger entries show up on my facebook page, so I guess this is my test!

It's been awhile...

2008-06-05T22:47:00.001-07:00

Well, it's been awhile since my last blog, so here I am. I am not exactly sure what to blog about though. lol. Things are going well here in the house of Stu. Today is Amy and my 4th year anniversary. Time really does fly. I couldn't be happier.

Yard work is coming along. We now have new siding on our house. It looks great. Much better than the crappy wood paneling. Now I'm just waiting for them to come back and put up my gutters. We cut down all the trees, and now I have a huge pile of trees that I need to figure out what's going on. If you want to see some of the pics from our house, check them out at the link below:

House Pics

I went and saw Indiana Jones 4 on opening night. It was a fun movie. Probably not my favorite Indy, but it was still fun, and enjoyable.

Let's see, what else has been going on in the life of Stu? Ah yes, I was recently called as the 1st Councilor in the Elders Quorum in church. So far I am enjoying this calling, and enjoy the people I work with.

Well that's about it, so I think I'll end this blog here for the day...or night. Whatever....lol.

Yard Work has Begun!!

2008-04-12T22:14:00.001-07:00

Today was a really nice day, and so we took advantage, and started working in our yard. I started out by just taking down the old swingset, and the day turned out very productive. My father-in-law came over and we took out two trees. We have one more apple tree to go, and a small pine tree. Then I need to find someone who can chip and haul off all the trees we chopped down. It was fun, but now I have a crappy sunburn all over. :(

Another year has passed.

2008-02-28T23:05:00.001-08:00

Well, another year has come and gone, and I am getting a little older. Birthdays seem to pass by alot fast these days, and they seem like just normal days too, not like when I was a kid. I did arrive at work today to find my office completely covered in confetti. It's a real mess, and I haven't even really begun to start cleaning. I'm gonna be finding confetti in ever corner of that office for months to come. You can see pictures here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/stuartcrapo/MyBirthday

Good times. We didn't do too much exciting stuff today. I had a basketball game, which I went to, and then we grabbed some food and came home. Oh, and we did a little shopping before my game too. Tomorrow we are going out to have some Chinese food with my family and Amy's family. That should be fun! And that's about all that happened today, my birthday.

Windows Live Writer

2008-02-23T00:26:00.001-08:00

Well apparently Microsoft has come up with a program I can use to blog without going out and doing it on blogger directly. This is my first test using Windows Live Writer. I wonder if I will continue to use it. I guess we'll see.

HOLY AWESOME!!!! - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-02-14T11:10:00.000-08:00

Losing Weight....Slowly - Week 7

2008-02-12T22:25:00.001-08:00

Well, it's now week 7. Weight loss has been fast then slow, then fast then slow, and then me being a slacker in between. Tonight after coming home from the gym, I weighed myself, and I am showing 306. Not a huge improvement, but when I look at it, I'm exactly on par with my goal of 2 lbs a week. This being week seven, and I have lost 14lbs total. My goal is to hit the gym more often, stop eating crap food, and to reach my March 31st goal of 294, before that date. We will see. Below are pictures we took tonight. I want to take more pictures, so I can see my progress. To be honest, these are pretty gross, but hopefully in a few months I'll start to look a little thinner! :)

Conquest to Lose Weight - Day 13

2008-01-12T09:19:00.000-08:00

Well, it's Day 12 of my conquest to lose weight. I stepped on the scale first thing this morning, and I am now sitting at 307, which puts my grand total of weight lost at 13lbs. This week I cheated a bit, and ate out a few times. Probably because I had a few days off work, but I have stuck to diet soda and water, and when I'm at work, I've been eating relatively smaller meals. If I lose 11 more pounds, I will have already reached my goal for March 31st, or 294. Amy and I went and got our gym memberships this week, and have been a few times. I hope that will help in the loss as well.

Conquest to Lose Weight - Day 6

2008-01-05T23:50:00.000-08:00

Well, it is day 6, and I thought I would write a little about my progress towards weight loss. This week I did ok. I weighed myself just now, and it shows that I weigh about 310. That puts me at an 8lb loss for this week. Not too bad, considering the only work out I got was playing a church ball game this week. (Which we won of course!) All I have done this week to lose weight, is watching what I eat a bit better. I still had the occasional goody, and we did go out for dinner last night, but, my goal of 2lbs per week is on a good start. As for that Detox7 thing I bought, it was crap. The stuff I was supposed to drink was disgusting! I actually never got any in my mouth due to the fact that it smelled so bad! I mainly have been trying to drink a lot more water, and smaller portions, and so far, I can tell that Caloric deficit is working. I have found that I have more of a hunkering for sweets, than actually hunger. Hopefully I can keep this up. We never made it to the gym this week, as things kept coming up. Monday we are planning on starting up our memberships again, and going as often as we can. Well it's really late, so I think it's time for me to go to sleep now.

My Conquest to Lose Weight - Day 1

2008-01-01T22:21:00.000-08:00

As alot of people do, I also have a New Year's Resolution to lose weight. Today is Day 1, and all is well, so far. I thought I would write a bit about my plans for this year, and what I hope to accomplish. To motivate me, I am participating in a few weight lose contests with coworkers, and also with my dad. On 12/31/07, I officially weighed in at 318lbs. By the end of 2008 my dream goal is to weigh 220lbs. I will be happy if I can reach 240lbs by the end of the year. To start my diet/weight lose program out, tomorrow I will be trying a detox/cleanser 7 day program I bought at the store. I have to drink some stuff in the morning, and take a pill in the morning and night. Not sure if it will do anything, but what the heck. I hope to write at least once a week about my weight loss progress, and how things are going.

Merry Christmas 2007

2007-12-25T22:23:00.000-08:00

Well Christmas has come and gone already, and it's getting closer to new years. I thought I would quickly go through all the fun events that have occurred.

Christmas Eve was spent with the in-laws. We had an excellently tasty meal of Ham and Funeral Potatoes. Yummy! We opened gifts after dinner. We gave Amy's parents a gift certificate to Famous Daves, and they spoiled us with all sorts of good stuff. I got a brick of .22 shells, and Amy got some crafty stuff, and then they gave both of us a food sealer. Very nice! The rest of Christmas Eve was spent watching movies, and dinking around on the computers.

Christmas Day, I rolled out of bed at about 10:30am, and went through all the fun stuff Amy put in my stocking. We didn't have any presents to open this morning because we got all our gifts early because we are spoiled. This year we each got coats, a memory foam topper for our bed, and a few other things. And of course, I got a new laptop. :) After breakfast, which was muffins and hot chocolate, we slowly got ready, and headed to my parents for the rest of the day. While my parents were making dinner, we all played Rock Band, which was pretty fun. Dinner was the traditional dinner my mom does every year. We ate Turkey, Potatoes, Yams, Brussel sprouts, etc. Yum! We also got gifts from the fam too. Mom and Dad gave us money, which we had used a while back on stuff. Sarah and Shaun gave us a egg&muffin maker. Pretty cool. Simon hooked us up with some cool Skull Candy headphones, Scott got us some really fun board games, and Sam got me a book, and Amy some pink slippers. Very cool! The afternoon after dinner was spent playing dominoes, eating goodies, and having a fun good time. We just barely got home, and it's already 11:30pm!

Christmas was very fun this year! I am looking forward to New Years already.

The rest of the week

2007-12-16T22:57:00.000-08:00

Well, I didn't make it to commenting on the rest of my trip, but that's ok. Let's just say that the trip was a success, I had a good time in Des Moines, and it's nice to be home now. Amy picked me up from the airport Thursday night, and was pretty glad I was finally home.

Friday night we had Amy's company party. Every year it's up at the Little America Hotel in SLC, and there is usually a buffet food, and then some sort of crappy entertainment. This year they had a hypnotist, and surprizingly, it was very entertaining. It's the first year we haven't walked out after the food. After the party, we went out for ice cream with a few of Amy's coworkers too. Also, while we were at the party, my brothers came over and made themselves at home, as they were planning on staying over at our place for the night.

Saturday morning was my ward's Christmas party. We had a breakfast buffet, which was tasty, and I am not sure what the entertainment was, as we quietly snuck out after eating. I spent the remainder of the afternoon with my brothers playing video games, and hanging out. That night was my parents ward christmas party, and I had been asked to do some photography. I took the pictures of all the little kids sitting on Santa's lap. It turned out well, and I ended up taking some nice photos. And that, was pretty much my weekend.

Oh, and my new Dell 1521 laptop came in the mail on Friday. Happy early Christmas to me! :)

Trip to Des Moines - Day 2

2007-12-11T19:10:00.000-08:00

Well today is day 2 of my trip to Iowa. This morning was very interesting. I woke up and turned on the news to find out that a lot of schools and such had been closed due to bad weather conditions. I went out to my car to go to the office here, and my car was completely encased in ice! It was crazy. I have never seen weather like that before. Below are two pictures from the inside of my car before I cleared off my windows. It took a while to get the ice off, and I broke one of the ice scrapers before I was able to clean it all. Luckily I had another one in my car, and that one didn't break. The day of work was ok, I didn't some system training with the folks out here, and the day went by pretty quickly. After work, I drove around the area to find some dinner. I went to the mall nearby, to find it deserted, and shut down as the weather was crappy. I drove around a bit more, and ended up going to Chili's. I then stopped by the grocery store to pic some stuff up, and then headed back to the hotel. And that was my very exciting day. :)

Trip to Des Moines - Day 1

2007-12-10T18:33:00.000-08:00

Well today is the first day of a 4 day trip to Des Moines, Iowa. I am here on business for ADP, to do some training at our office here. This morning I worked from home, and then my father-in-law took me to the Airport. I got there early, so I ended up waiting around for about 2 hours. The plane to DSM was very small. Probably the smallest plane I have ever ridden in. It was a 50 seater. Luckily no one sat next to me, so I had a bit more room to stretch out. The flight was about 3 hours, and went by pretty quick. I grabbed a rental car - Chev Impala - and headed off to the hotel. It was interesting trying to get there, but luckily didn't even get lost. I am staying at the Marriott, which is pretty nice. They gave me a Jacuzzi suite. It's got two rooms, two flat screens tv's, and a huge tub. It's pretty tight. Right as I started to get comfortable, the fire alarm went off, and they evacuated everyone out of the hotel for a few minutes due to a reported fire in the hotel. So I headed over to the McDonalds for a quick bite to eat. And that's about it for today. I will be doing some training Tues, Wednesday, and coming home Thurs. If I remember, maybe I'll blog about my week after it's over. :)

Turkey Day!

2007-11-25T01:50:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and for some reason I am still hungry. Ha! We spent this year's Thanksgiving at Amy's parents house, as we do every other year. This year we continued the tradition of deep frying the turkey. Yum! I must say, it is much better than try to not burn one in the oven. We basically just made food, ate, hung out, slept, and relaxed. Our puppy Rio even got in on the festivities by eating a Turkey heart! What a perfect Thanksgiving.

Eagle Court of Honor

2007-11-13T21:38:00.000-08:00

My younger brother Scott has completed a great accomplishment in his life - The Award of Eagle Scout. Tonight was his Court of Honor along with his friend Kevin. It was good to see him get his Eagle award. I'm proud of him, and all he did to get his award. I was even surprised, as he presented me with a Mentor pin. I actually got a bit choked up. It was an honor that he would think of me as someone he would look up to. Congratulations Scott on your Eagle!

An unfortunate loss

2007-11-10T16:29:00.000-08:00

Today was a sad day for the Jordan Beetdiggers, who lost to Bingham for the state championship. They've had a good season, and will be playing this week in a tournament in Las Vegas. The game was very one sided at the beginning before defense picked up a bit and made a few good stops. In the long run, Bingham was able to come out with the victory. My brother Sam played well, and it's been an awesome season, to be able to come and watch all of his football games. I am glad he played football this year. We've had a lot of fun.

To view pictures of the game click here.

Ouch!

2007-11-05T17:44:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been awhile since my last blog. Thought I would post a cool picture or two or my most recent injury. I was lucky enough to roll my ankle playing basketball this last saturday. It was a pretty bad sprain, it cracked loud enough to make me go to the ER to have it x-rayed. Luckily it was just a really bad sprain. It has however, bruised all the way through my foot. Sweet!

Catching up....it's been awhile

2007-09-27T20:44:00.000-07:00

Well it's been awhile since I have updated my blog, and my website to be exact. A few things have gone on. Simon came home from his mission. It's good to have him home.

We went to Fish Lake a few weeks ago. It was a good trip, and was nice to have some nice time to relax. We mainly fished, rode bikes, and just relaxed.

That's really about it. Everything else is the same!

Jordan 42, Copper Hills 0

2007-09-01T13:37:00.000-07:00

Well, little league football is upon us. My youngest Bro #42, Sam plays for the Jordan Beetdiggers. He plays mainly backup QB, but also has recently been added to special teams, and defense as a safety.

Today, Jordan played Copper Hills in South Jordan. The game was a good one, especially since it was the first game of the year. Jordan came out hard and smothered the Copper Hills offense. I honestly am not sure how many sacks occurred in the game, as there were so many. Copper Hills never ever got close to a touchdown, and had maybe 2 or 3 first downs the whole game. Jordan dominated on the defense side, scoring twice off of turnovers and blocked kicks.

There was however one altercation. Shortly after halftime, a pushing match turned into a full brawl resulting in the ejection of 2 players from Jordan, and a handful of players from Copper Hills. Jordan responded to the fight by scoring a touchdown right after.

Tomorrow is the Day

2007-08-20T21:24:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, my little bro Simon comes home from his mission!!! I can't believe that he has been gone for two years already. I am real excited to see him. It's gonna be weird for a bit, but it'll be good to have him home!

Less than a week

2007-08-15T21:34:00.000-07:00

Well, the countdown is almost to an end. My little brother Simon will be home from his mission in less than a week. I AM SO EXCITED!!! It'll be nice to see him again since he has been gone for 2 years, serving a mission in San Bernardino. I am hoping to help him get a job too at ADP where I work. We shall see. I'll just be excited to hang out with him again. Woo hoo!

New Video Card

2007-08-15T00:21:00.000-07:00

Well today I got spoiled. I got a new video card for my computer. The nVidia GeForce 8600 GTS. Probably not the best one on the market, but it's pretty darn good. I can play all my games at the highest resolution, and the games flow so nice. I'll tell ya, it makes such a difference to play a game the way it's supposed to be. Way awesome!

Losing Weight - Contest Results

2007-08-12T14:10:00.000-07:00

I did it. I won. Just barely. In one month, I was able to lose just over 11 lbs. Not too shabby. I have now officially lost about 21 lbs since May. I lost 3.77% of my body weight, while one coworker, came close to that by losing 3.43%, or something like that. All I know is that I won, and I am happy about that. Now I just need to take this new found motivation, and keep it going for the next years...or I should say my whole life. I don't want to stop trying live healthier. I set up a spreadsheet for me to track my weight. The goal is 2 lbs a week, which will put me at 258 by New Years. If I can reach that goal, I will have lost just under 70lbs this year. I will be a happy man... We shall see if the 2 lbs a week is a reasonable goal during the next few months. We are starting another contest tomorrow, which is a Monday. Hopefully we can get plenty of people to join us this time, as people are starting to drop out of our contest. Either way, I am going to continue to try and eat less, and to keep working out.

Losing weight - NOW!!

2007-08-09T20:19:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the weigh in day for our weight loss contest. I am now going to spend the rest of the evening trying to lose as much weight as I can, so that I can win the $125 prize money...

Good luck to me!

I'll have to report on the happenings of our contest after it's over tomorrow.

Random Ramblings of the Day

2007-08-08T23:29:00.000-07:00

Well, I don't have an actual subject to blog about to day, so I thought I would ramble on for a bit. Today I spent mostly at work, and then Amy and I ran to Sam's Club to grab some groceries and a cheap hotdog for dinner. Yum! Then I spent the rest of the evening watching my brother Sam at football practice. He is trying out for quarterback this year. He played wide receiver last year, but really seems to like the new position. He is doing well, and I enjoy watching him play. Games start August 25th, and I am way excited. I have created a page on my website for YouTube videos and pictures that I take of his games. I have two videos now. http://www.stewee.com/jordanfootball.htm . Only two more weeks until Simon comes home from his mission in California. I am excited to see him, as it's been two years already since he left. I am doing good still with my weight loss. I just made a spreadsheet to track my weight over the next year, and by next April, I hope to have lost 70lbs. That's 2lbs a week for the next few months. I hope to keep it up. Well my mind is blank, so I think i'll end here for the day...

Losing the weight

2007-08-07T21:30:00.000-07:00

Well, it's good to say that I am finally making some progress with my weightloss goals. I am really excited. When I started to lose weight I was at a whoping 322 lbs. Today after coming home from the gym, I weighed a nifty 298. I was very happy to pass the 300 mark. I really need to stop weighing myself everyday, but I can't help it. My goal for 2007 is to weigh 250-260 by Christmas time. I am hoping to stick with my diet (better eating) and keep working out.

Battlefield 2142

2007-08-07T21:18:00.000-07:00

Well it's about 10:20-ish. I just finished a few good solid hours of BF2142. I was proud to pass the 300 unique dog tags mark. Woo hoo. I know no one really cares. But I still think it's cool.

Blog - Started Over

2007-08-04T20:51:00.000-07:00

Well, my blog was giving me problems, so I needed to delete the old one. Look for updates shortly...