Moyes Family Formerly of Texas But Now Repatriated to the Great Land of Idaho

2009-02-22T12:05:00.000-07:00

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2009-02-16T23:09:00.001-07:00

Tanner and I have been working on our survival skills lately. Our next step is to eat the undigested remains in bear poo.

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2009-02-16T23:05:00.001-07:00

Paul Moyes

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2009-02-16T23:01:00.003-07:00

I'm just doing some testing. I found I can post photos from my phone to the blog, so there's a chance you might see more than one post per year. I'm not promising anything yet, but keep your fingers crossed.

Texas spring

2008-04-10T09:30:00.005-06:00

Liz can probably attest to the fact that everything's bigger in Texas, especially the thunderstorms. We had one go through last night that was real scary. That was just starting to shake enought that we almost got the kids up to go hide in the bathroom downstairs. We turned on the TV and it show 4 different tornadoes right over where we live. When I got up this morning our neighborhood seemed okay, but it looks like we got our closet call yet since living in the south. The neighborhood just across the highway from us took a direct hit. Here is some video

http://www.dallasnews.com/video/dallasnews/wfaa/index.html?nvid=234658&shu=1
http://www.dallasnews.com/video/dallasnews/wfaa/index.html?nvid=234654&shu=1
http://www.dallasnews.com/video/dallasnews/wfaa/index.html?nvid=234656&shu=1

Santa Claus

2007-12-17T17:00:00.000-07:00

Our subdivision has a breakfast with Santa every year. Here are some pictures of the kids

2007-12-11T17:50:00.000-07:00

Tanner and Avery were showing off their dancing skills so I decided to put it to some music.

Avery

2007-12-10T21:57:00.001-07:00

Here are some pictures that Avery insisted I take of her tonight. She was doing her modeling poses.

I HATE COMPUTERS

2007-12-10T21:54:00.001-07:00

Our computer's been acting up lately, freezing, randomly shutting off, and anything else that can annoy me. The only thing that saved me from throwing it out the window tonight was the fact that it was frozen on my desktop wallpaper. A picture is worth a thousand words so I say no more...

Bear Grylls I Am Not

2007-12-10T20:58:00.000-07:00

So I decided to go out on a real hiking adventure where all you take with you is what you can carry on your back. A friend and I decided to do a 3 day hike up at the Ouachita National Forest in Oklahoma and Arkansas (its pronounced Wah shuh tah by the way). We extensively and meticulously planned for a couple of hours before we had everything loaded up and ready to go. Our first indication that we weren't ready should have been that our packs weighed slightly less than a Volkswagen. But both of us being Eagle Scouts figured its better to carry a couple extra pounds than be stuck in the woods without something.

Its about a 4 hour drive and when we reached the park, it was obvious we were the only ones that were crazy enough to hit the trail in the middle of December. Some bad weather was predicted (little did we know http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316271,00.html), but we figured we'd be alright, we packed plenty of hot chocolate and cold weather gear.

There was a Park Ranger who lived in his RV at the park (picture Cousin Eddie in Christmas Vacation) who was happy to give us maps and a good once over with his eyes. Suddenly trail names such as "Deliverance II", "Squeal Like a Pig", and "Even Burt Reynolds Thinks You're Crazy" started to worry us. He also gave us a warning I didn't expect, watch out for bears.

We started to get our packs on and once we did, we realized we needed to lighten the load a bit. The trail portion we were going to cover the first day had an elevation rise of over 1200 feet. That doesn't sound like much on paper but seeing the mountain in front of us, we had to re-evaluate our packing preparations. We ended up leaving about half our water because we figured we would cross some creeks along the way and I had a water purifier with me. I left some cloths behind because my water bottle leaked in my pack on the way up and soaked them, so that was an easy decision.

We started off about 1:30 in the afternoon and planned to get to our campout 8 miles away about 5 o'clock. About 500 yards from the car, I was finally brave enough to say that my legs were already on fire and my back was killing me. My friend, Jeremy, admittedthat he too was in excrutiating pain already. Suddenly our planned 8 mile first day was looking very far. By the way, it was around 75 degrees and the humidity had to be in the upper 60's. We were sweating like crazy and slowly making our way up the trail. After about an hour and a half, we were so exhausted and wore out we decided to take a break at the top of the hill. When we reached the top of the hill we were greeted with some disheartening information when we saw a sign that said "1 Mile". Plus, we had only climbed 300 feet in elevation and had over 900 to go in the next 2 miles. We were sweating so profusely that we had drank half of our water, but we still weren't worried about that because the map showed we would be crossing some streams.

Fast forward to about 5 o'clock. We were able to pick up the pace and make it about 5 miles, but it was getting dark and we were soaked in sweat, and it was starting to cool down. We quickly made camp, got a fire started and ate our dinner. By 5:45, it was pitch black so we sat around the fire for a few hours and then went to bed. We awoke at about midnight as the rain began pouring down. It would come in waves, slowly raining and then all of a sudden it would come down in massive sheets that were deafening in the tent. We tried to sleep but everytime we would fall asleep another wave would hit.

During one of the quiet moments, Jeremy and I both awoke to the distinct sound of something slowly walking toward us in the leaves outside our tent. We were both freaked out pretty good because we had been fairly careless with storing our food, or at least keeping it away from bears: it was right next to us in our tents. We whistled and clapped and made all sorts of noises but it was clear whatever it wasn't scared away, we could still hear it creaping around our tent. I finally decided to try and sleep because whatever it was, I wasn't going to peak my head out to see what it was so in my mind it was a furry little squirrel out looking for nuts, not a hungry bear looking for human blood or Cousin Eddie looking for human affection.

We both went to sleep finally only to be awaken by what was stalking us; the unmistakable sounds of wolves howling very close to our tent. Not only that but it was now 35 degrees and raining close to an inch an hour. Amazingly enough we were dry in the tent. Oh, and we were out of water. The decesion was unanimous to cut our losses and head home.

Here are a couple of pictures. Most of the pictures were ruined by the rain because the camera got wet.

Pictures from Camping Trip

2007-11-18T21:11:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from our camping trip last weekend. We went to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. There are buffalo, elk, deer, bobcats, and lots and lots of prairie dogs that roam freely throughout the park. I really wanted to try and find some elk, and thanks to the watchful eye of Lesli, she spotted some out on the prairie early one morning so I was able to get some pictures. There will be more on my photo site, http://www.paulmoyes.smugmug.com later.
We hiked to the top of a mountain one morning and Avery was pretty proud of herself. She's the king of the world...
The trees were all changing so it was really pretty.

Tanner wan't to test out his "Survirorman" skills so we took a pretty long hike. I think I about killed him because we dropped down in this canyon and I almost had to pack him on my back on the way back to camp.
Here's a couple bull Rocky Mountain elk (living in Oklahoma) we spotted.

Avery was content to play in whatever dirtpile she could find the whole weekend.
We didn't get a chance to wash her face before this pick..

Catching up

2007-11-18T21:01:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I posted, I've been pretty busy. We went on a family camping trip last week to Oklahoma for 3 days. I was a little worried about being that far from home for that long, but everything turned out real good. The weather was perfect, about 60 degrees and night and high 70's during the day. I'll try to get some pictures up as soon as possible. I've finally come to terms with my computer, and I think its time to upgrade. I've been fighting it all day long and I still can't get it to format the pictures so I can upload them to the photo site and then post them on here. I'll try to get some done by tomorrow.

Some Halloween pictures

2007-11-03T09:36:00.000-06:00

Here are the pictures we have from Halloween. We went with some friends but we got very few pictures of the actual trick or treating because of the last picture. Avery was so excited that she took off running, tripped on her candy bag and bit the dust in the concrete. She took quite a bit of skin off her nose so she was pretty upset the rest of the night

Camping!

2007-11-01T20:53:00.000-06:00

It finally cooled down enough to go do some camping with the kids. We went to Erwin Park in McKinney. Its only 10 miles or so from out house and even though you're still in the city, it at least feels like you've left. That night it got bitter cold, or at least cold for us. I bought a nice sleeping bag from REI a couple of months ago and I was all excited to try it out. I was afraid I would be the only one warm and the kids in their $9 Walmart bag would be freezing. Exact opposite. They slept all through the night and were completely warm, and here I am in my expensive sleeping bag freezing to death. Oh well... Here are some pictures.

Making breafass in the morning.

Daddy and Avery

Avery was extremely excited to get up and help me make sausage and eggs in the morning.

Avery waking up in her sleeping bag.

Tanner cooking smores

Avery cooking smores

Tanner's never met a camera we wouldn't pose for.

Avery and her sunglasses at 7:30 in the morning. By the way, if anyone knows where they are, please let Avery know because we've shed a lot of tears when they went missing.

Tanner and Avery playing Chubby Bunny

2007-10-27T13:16:00.000-06:00

Tanner and Avery

Paul and Les

More Trunk or Treat Pictures

2007-10-26T20:05:00.000-06:00

Here are some more pictures from tonight's Trunk or Treat

Trunk or Treat

2007-10-26T19:41:00.000-06:00

Tonight was the ward Trunk or Treat. The wards out here are huge, they typically are lasting about 18 months before they have to split. Right now we are waiting for two new buildings to be built so they can split some more wards. Anyways, my point of that is that our ward combined with another ward for the trunk or treat and there were massive amounts of people there. Unless you rob a candy store or take out a home equity loan to buy some candy, you'll run out in about 5 minutes as the hoardes of princesses, ghost, goblins and Napolean Dynamites descend on your car. Avery for once wasn't a Disney princess, she was Tinker Bell.
Tanner was Shrek because that's what was left at Target on the way to the church. Every year I swear I'll get costumes before the last minute, as I'm buying costumes at the last minute.

I'll post more pictures later, and if I can figure out how to, a video of Tanner doing the robot in his Shrek costume

Enjoying a summer day at the ballpark

2007-10-23T20:14:00.000-06:00

Here are some pictures I took of the kids this summer on a day where you didn't feel like you were getting cooked alive. Actually this summer was quite mild, way better than last year.

More pictures of the kids

2007-10-23T20:07:00.000-06:00

Here are some pictures from a couple of Saturday's ago. Avery and I were attempting to make mom's cheesecake. I think I finally have it down.

Tanner wasn't too interested, he enjoys playing on the computer too much.

Catching up

2007-10-23T19:54:00.000-06:00

Due to popular demand, everyone wants to see pictures of the kids, not my Halo screenshots; weird.

Anyways, here are some different pictures from over the summer. We inherited a stray cat last spring that was a pretty good cat because it was borderline feral. It wanted nothing to do with us and that was fine with me.

Well one day Abby tried to take ride in the fan of my truck and didn't fare so well. The kids were devastated. Tanner missed a day and a half of school because he was pretty attached to Abby. So I found a free cat off of Craigslist and now we have Katie.

She's also a pretty good cat except that I think she's going to run away because she looks like an article of clothing on the floor in the middle of the night and frequently gets kicked and/or stepped on.

That and Avery thinks Katie is her baby and tries to feed her, put her to bed, spank her, etc.

Halo 3 is the debil

2007-10-23T15:08:00.001-06:00

Some of the crazyiness I mention below has been alleviated by the arrival of The Greatest Game to Ever Grace this Planet - Halo 3. Dustin and I have spent many a late night into the morning wreaking havoc and destruction upon our enemies. We've become quite adept at the "Warthog", and typically bring fear into the other players hearts once we board our favorite weapon. Here's a screenshot of me driving and Dustin laying waste to all that oppose us...

Mid Fall Crisis?

2007-10-23T14:38:00.001-06:00

Well I have once again reached the time of year what I think I'm going to go crazy and run away if I don't find some 1.) Mountains, 2.) Snow, 3.) Snowy Mountains, 4.) some crazy adventure. Training for a triathlon helped contain me through the summer, but when I wasn't able to compete in it, I stopped training and have been itching some other adventure.

A friend and I decided two weeks ago that were going to go camping somewhere that had some sort of mountains if it killed us. But we only had one day to go, and we wanted to keep it within 3.5 hours of Dallas. I searched all over the internet and finally found a place in Oklahoma called the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge. There are very few pictures of it anywhere, but we decided to give it a shot.

My friend is a pilot, so he's gone a couple days a week, home a couple days, etc. We set out very early on a Friday morning to make the drive up there. Considering we weren't really expecting to be there much longer than 36 hours, the amount of gear we brought was quite ridiculous; it filled the back of the truck, and I had to fold up one of the back seats to get the rest in.

We hadn't gone more than 10 miles before my friend started feeling cramps in his stomach. By about two hours in, he said we needed to stop and get some medicine because he wasn't feeling well at all. When we were about 20 miles from the mountains (more about the mountains later), he suddenly said, "Pull over now!" which everyone knows means throw-up time. After tossing a cookies for awhile he decided he was fine and we should continue on... he wasn't. To make a long story short, we got there, he was so dizzy and sick he could barely stand so I had to haul the enormous amount of gear from the truck to the campsite, and set everything up.

He was alternating between chills and fever so he decided to go lay down in the tent. I was able to set out and do a little of bit of hiking around and took a few pictures. The mountians were really incredible. Imagine the City of Rocks sitting in the middle of the Oklahoma plains and you get the picture. There are wild elk, bison, and tons of praire dogs. We're hoping to go back with the family in a couple of weeks if it doesn't get too cold. Here are a few pictures I was able to take.

I don't know what to say...

2007-10-23T14:34:00.000-06:00

So after reading everyone else's blogs, I once again feel guilty about our lack of communication with the outside world. I have failed to find an easy method to update everyone, so I may try this again. Previously, I was having problems uploading pictures, so I went to the Flickr site. Then I found out the Flickr site only would take so many of my pictures. Then I paid for a membership on SmugMug, which I did because it has tools built in so that people could buy my pictures if they wanted. But it doesn't really allow for any type of blogging features... so anywho, I'll give this a try again and I should be able to link to my pictures from the other site.

More Muddin' pics

2007-06-01T16:53:00.000-06:00

Okay, here are some small videos from us climbing in the Samurai the other night, as well as pictures of us all covered in poop mud after I discovered a sewage drain field.

Try it once again

2007-06-01T16:41:00.000-06:00

Okay, I've tried a million different things to get pictures up and nothing seems to work very well, but I'll try again. Here are some pictures from the last week. I've got the Samurai #1 running good and we've been taking it to an abandoned golf course by our house. I found out that there are sink holes hidden throught the golf course and had to have another friend in his Samurai come pull me out.

2006-10-30T15:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a neat map that shows all the states you've visited. Here's mine:

create your own personalized map of the USA
or write about it on the open travel guide

Picture of Avery from today

2006-09-24T19:29:00.000-06:00

Making up for lost time

2006-09-13T22:17:00.000-06:00

Avery got an umbrella for her birthday (July 5th) and there hasn't been a drop of rain since early July. The area is in the worst drought in 50 years so the mayors of the six surrounding cities asked our Stake to have fast (over Memorial Day weekend nonetheless); we get two inches of rain the next day. Avery got up bright and early and was waiting at the door to use her umbrella.

2006-09-13T22:10:00.000-06:00

More pictures

2006-09-13T21:46:00.000-06:00

Avery and her first make-up job she did by herself.

Here are some more pictures from Saturday... Its finally cool enough to swim in the pool again.

Try again....

2006-09-13T17:31:00.000-06:00

Our every two month post

2006-07-12T20:25:00.000-06:00

Here some pictures just to let grandma know we're still alive!!

Some family photos and race pics...

2006-05-11T09:34:00.000-06:00

Here are some pictures from the last few weeks. I have a lot more, but these are the only ones I have at work.

Tanner trying hustle a few bucks from the neighborhood kids. At least he's not selling dead birds to a blind kid.

Avery is very proud of her Princess Easter egss.

It's been awhile....

2006-05-11T09:10:00.000-06:00

I know, I'm lazy. Here are some family updates. We are still in Texas, stop. Sometimes it is very hot (109 two days ago), stop. Sometimes its cold (50 this morning), stop. Tornado missed us by about 8 miles, stop. Come to Santa Poco, put on big show, stop.

Here are some pictures from the tornado (it was an F3). Enjoy...

This pickup was found over a mile away from where it was parked

2006-03-06T21:55:00.000-07:00

Daredevil Tanner

2006-03-06T21:50:00.000-07:00

Tanner asked the other day if he could borrow some wood from the garage. I should have asked what for.

Ah, the joy of motherhood

2006-03-06T21:48:00.000-07:00

Amanda, Andrea, guess what you get to look forward to!

Random Pictures

2006-03-06T21:29:00.000-07:00

Here's some random pictures. Some are of the kids, some of are of me at the last race. I took 1st Place again at my last race and won 2nd Place overall for the series. I won a lot of cool stuff, and Tanner is holding my trophy. They don't call it the Winter Series for nothing, it started snowing during my race.

Mid-life Crisis

2006-01-16T17:58:00.000-07:00

My favorite part of the race, the start. Its fast, scary, and you don't want to be in back. I'm in 4th place in the picture.

Assorted pictures from the 1st round of the Texas Winter Series, the largest amatuer event in the country this winter.

By the end of the first lap I had pretty muched ran away from the field and ended winning the race. If you're interested in more pictures, go to www.mxpictures.com and search for rider #322

Tannerman!!!

2006-01-16T17:53:00.000-07:00

Tanner with all the essential spy gear.

Tanner getting in the motocross spirit. He got like three feet of air that time.

Avery Christmas Photos

2006-01-16T17:43:00.000-07:00

Here's Avery the Christmas Princess. Actually she insists she's a princess all the time.

Avery's doing a nice job of defending the heavy blows from Lesli...

OH!!!! AND LESLI STUNS AVERY WITH A STRONG LEFT JAB!!!

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Moyes for the stroller for mom and dad to trip over at night.

Avery and her Christmas baby

Thank you Amanda and Ryan for giving our daughter the ability to paint the entire house in nail polish. Just kidding, she loves to paint her nails now.

2006-01-11T08:36:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of Avery and Tanner from this summer in Idaho. Don't worry, Tanner has his two front teeth now.

2006-01-11T08:29:00.000-07:00

Hi......
I don't know what to say here. I figure since Amanda and Ryan have a blog, I needed one too. I will post pictures when I get home.