Mountain Man Rendezvous

During spring break, Dave and I went to the Mountain Man Rendezvous, a Mesa District Varsity Scout event held every 2 years. Dave has been going for years and was even the Booshway (head guy in charge) there 8 years ago. This year he was the head cook, cooking for a crew (the event staff) of 250. This was my second time attending, and this year I was in the kitchen along with his cook staff of 11 other men.

The Rendezvous is a three day encampment where the Varsity age scouts (14 &15 year olds) come with their teams and leaders and participate in events that are mostly from the Mountain Man era ( early 1800's.) These events include black powder rifle shooting, knife and hawk throwing, primitive fires (flint and steel, bow and drill and just drill), leather crafts - making medicine bags (these are like necklaces with a small pouch that the MM wore.) There was also archery, bullet casting, repelling, and many others. There were over 30 events for the boys to choose from and rotate to. The boys come in teams of 2 -10 boys with 2 leaders and visit and participate in events for two days, where they learn new skills and practice them. Then on the last day they participate in a competition event, called the Colter Run. This event is named after the famous Mountain Man John Colter who had to run away from the Indians across Montana prairie, "buck naked" for seven days before arriving at a trading post. (A little history lesson there - I could go on, but you've probably already scrolled down to the pictures by now.) For the Colter run, the team of boys run to ten different events, do the required skill, run to the next event, and lastly run up the long hill. They are timed and the team with the best time won a nice prize.


Several of the men gather round the main camp. The long jackets they are wearing are called "Capotes."

A view of the upper camp, with all the primitive tents.

Primitive Camp

Russ and Trent Durfee in front of the Chuckwagon Trading Post. "Chuckwagon" is Russ's Mountain man name.

Trent plays the Indian flute.

Primitive fires using flint and steel. "Firebird" Laurie is getting ready to time the boys. Two years ago, I was at this outpost helping teach boys to start fires.

Dan prepares something in the dutch ovens.

One of the more popular events - bull riding (no its not too primitive).

The women folk. All of us women (about 20 in a field of 1000 men) got to stay in one of the nicer cabins, where we got in some good girl talk and bonding time before bedtime.

Larry stirs up a a big pot of chili, while Dave seasons the meat in the background.

The guys made the yummiest pancakes.

We had a whole family of brothers there at the Rendezvous. Five of the Riggs (Ray, Wes, Ken, Wayne, Larry) brothers cooked in the kitchen and the other brother, Charl, was camping with his team of boys.

My main responsibility was to take tickets at all the meals. Dave told me to give them a hard time if they didn't bring their ticket, but I ended up sneaking in several tired mountain men who just happened to forget their ticket back at their outpost (event station.) I received the Mountain Man name "Ticket" while I was there this year.

Laurie and Bonnie - friends for over 18 years! She's an awesome firestarting lady and has many primitive skills under belt.

More wedding Pictures

I haven't had time to write about Alli and Brendon's wedding since they got married one month ago. Life hasn't slowed down much since then, so I haven't had time to blog. Thanks to LeeAnn we got a few pictures posted earlier, but no narrative. So here's just a quick recap of the wedding day.
Alli and Brendon got married in the Mesa Arizona Temple on February 28. Dave and I were there in the temple to witness this sacred ceremony as were many other family members and friends. After the ceremony we took pictures in front of the temple and on the temple grounds. We went to a wedding lunch later, hosted by Brendon's family. Then the reception was held that evening in our home (backyard actually.) The reception was from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. After it turned dark, all the twinkly lights bordering the yard and around the trees came on, lighting the backyard up. The pool lights were on, with the waterfall flowing, all together made a beautiful site. Dave's sister Karen and husband Russ catered the wedding for us. Karen made the beautiful wedding cake. Russ made and arranged all the beautiful and delicious food. Several friends helped in the kitchen. Thanks to everyone's help everything turned out great.

Here are a few pictures from the day.

Brendon and Alli

Family group in front of the temple.

Seth & Amy, LeeAnn, Chris, Alli & Brendon, John, Bethany, Katie and Robert

They were all smiles.

How the backyard looked before the reception started.

Alli checks out the backyard.

Alli and her bridesmaids, Melissa, Katie and Amy

Wedding cake made by Karen

Russ prepares the food table.

Even the pool got some decorations, we had a string of bride and groom duckies going across the pool. (Sorry, you can only see the bride duck in this shot.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVE !

TODAY IS DAVE'S 50th BIRTHDAY. What a landmark - 50 years! ! I want to wish my favorite man a very happy day.

Dave in his new office.

Getting ready to weld. This is one of Dave's favorite things to do.

Dave welding.

Dave is a one of a kind guy. I guess I'm kind of partial to this guy, but I think he is a super talented man. Here just a sampler:
1. He's a computer expert.
2. He's a great cook, a creative cook, and can cook for hundreds with his cook trailer.
3. He's great working with puzzles and has quite a collection. "CONUNDRUM" is his Mountain Man name.
4. He's funny. He makes light of bad situations and can make puns of just about everything.
5. He's a welder. He has welded cook trailers, shade structures, and even the light hangy things he put by the trees for Alli's reception.
6. He's a woodworker. He made beautiful shelves for our dining room, along with the dining room table (welding involved there too), and the corner shelf, and other things in the past.
7. A great scout leader - Many scouts and other leaders have benefited from his passion and dedication to the scouting program.
8. etc, etc.

I could go on but you get the idea. Pardon me for bragging about my husband. But I feel since it's his 50th birthday I have a license to brag. I love this man very much, and am thankful to be a part of his life.

Happy Birthday DAVE!

love,
Bonnie

Hurtado Wedding

Family pictures

In December we had family pictures taken by Marie Renard, a photographer who lives in our ward.

This is our backyard.

On the rock waterfall & slide structure above our pool.

Bonnie & Dave
Bethany, LeeAnn, & John

Bonnie & Dave

Bethany, Bonnie, & LeeAnn

Sisters - Bethany & LeeAnn

LeeAnn was the only one that wanted solo photo shots that day.

Garage Party

Dave hosted a Garage Party here on Friday night to celebrate the finishing of his garage. The long awaited garage doors were finally installed the first week of January. He invited a bunch of friends and relatives over and we put out some good food to eat. Here are some pics to show our event.

LeeAnn serving up the cheese.

Dave, in the background, is as happy as can be.

We caught our hired help in the kitchen slurping from the ladle.

Remembering December

December has passed and along with it the wonderful Christmas season. It is hard for me to let go of the Christmas lights, music, and decorations. I wanted to leave our tree up until the end of January, but I got outvoted. With every nativity, ornament or Nutcracker that we put away, I cringed, thinking "Why can't this season last longer?" " Why don't we leave the nativity sets up all year long? After all we think of Jesus all year long, right?" This year, we have chosen one simple nativity to leave up the year round. It is a simple one piece ceramic of Mary, Joseph and Jesus.

Now that everything (well almost everything ) is packed up and put away, we have time to write about the highlights of our Christmas season.

Here is the story of our Christmas.

Start with a tree. This may not look like the most beautiful tree in the world, but it was beautiful in our eyes. We chose to put up a real tree this year, a Grand Fir. It smelled so good and lasted well.



Now, after dark and when all the house lights were dimmed, it took on a magical glow.



This year we put a new ornament on the tree - Pink Ballet Slippers in honor of Michelle.

We put up our nativity sets,

The kids decorated a Gingerbread house,

Made snowflakes for the doors,

and put up the wooden Nutcracker soldiers.

On Christmas Eve the family gathered. Our numbers total twelve these days, with our future son-in-law Brendon included. We enjoyed being together.

We opened a few gifts.

Some were special gifts. This is a memory quilt that Katie, Amy, Alli & Chris made using some of Michelle's old t-shirts. The older kids made two quilts, one for Dave and me and one for their mother, Debbie. Most of the t-shirts represent an event or group Michelle was involved in. Michelle was involved in so many things that there were plenty of t-shirts for two quilts. Click on the photo to enlarge it to see the individual panels.



This couple was hiding a special secret all evening long.


Later, after the others had left Amy and Seth came back in with another gift. In it was this picture frame. (scroll down)













YES! Amy and Seth are expecting a baby! That means that Dave will finally get to be a grandpa and I a grandma. Their expected arrival date is in early August. Hurray!