Kyle Renee & Hayden: December 2008

Monday, December 29, 2008

We CANNOT believe what we are hearing on the news! Maybe this lady didn't see it how we did... either way it is NOT what happened. This lady, Marchelle Elmer according to KUTV 2 News, is saying that a car passed her at a high rate of speed and forced the animals off the cliff to their death. BLEH! This upsets me a lot. To make it all worse, someone said they spoke to the driver and he acted like he didn't even care! Seriously? If anyone knows us or our families, they know that hunting, fishing, camping, and enjoying nature and wildlife is a big part of our lives. We love to drive up in the mountains to look at the animals. We love to go on drives when my family from Las Vegas comes up, to show them the beautiful scenery that we are so lucky to have so close to our home. We would never ever do anything to scare the wildlife, let alone practically push them off a cliff. We are not cruel people.

Also, we are noticing that people are finding our blog via google searches for 'elk forced off cliff in Provo'. We hope that you are the lady who reported this to the news. We want you to know that you are not the only one who has a side in this story. You were not in the car with us. Your exaggeration on the news has made us feel terrible. Maybe that's what you were hoping for... It saddens me to see that people like you thought we were deliberately trying to kill the elk. P.S. Our Land Rover is blue not black.

As for whoever told the news that the driver of the SUV acted like he didn't care, I apologize for the misunderstanding. We told the officer exactly what we were trying to do, which was make them run down the road instead of jumping. If that seems like we didn't care then maybe we are cruel people. I do, however, see how it may have come across like he didn't care. He was at work when we was called and asked about it! He works construction and it is kind of hard to talk and work at the same time! Also, he is not supposed to be on his phone at work. Maybe he was trying to hurry before he got caught... ever think about that? Just for the record, he does care.

This whole situation has upset me greatly.

For those of you who would like to see the story on KUTV 2 News:
http://www.kutv.com/content/news/topnews/story/Several-Elk-forced-to-Leap-to-Their-Death/o8KqDCAZF0WcXyRrvZD1HQ.cspx

And when you do watch it, notice that in her picture we are not the car in fron of her! That is a different BLACK SUV. Not a BLUE Land Rover!

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Sunday drive

After church on Sunday, we decided to go for a drive to Park City. I love to see the ski resorts and all the snow, and it's just a pretty drive. Well on our way home about 25-30 elk crossed to road right in front of us! The poor things were so scared of the cars jumped off the edge of the road right where the new wall is in Provo Canyon! How sad! If you haven't been up there, it's a huge drop from the west-bound lanes down the the east-bound lanes... probably a good hundred feet or so it seems to me. Some of them kept running down the road til there wasn't a drop. But can you imagine being in the cars in the east-bound lanes?! Elk dropping from the sky... splat on the road... sad... crazy... yikes! Anyways! I tried to take some pictures, but at first the flash was on so there was a glare on the windsheild, then it was too dark to have the flash off so none of them really turned out...

Ok, now to set the story straight! We were watching Fox 13 News this evening where we heard something to the effect of "Fish and Game said that 6 elk jumped of a cliff in Provo Canyon after a car got too close, forcing them off..." Appearantly, they were misinformed! There were only three cars there... and we were all stopped completely when they crossed! Some of them ran straight down the mountain, across the road, and over the edge. I bet they would have done the same thing if there were no cars! And the ones that we eventually got close enough to to take pictures of didn't jump! We only got close to them after we passed the cliff! And as soon as we did get close to them they ran across the other side of the road towards the river, and one even ran back in front of us (and we STOPPED again!) and went back up the mountain! So if anyone is to "blame" for the elk jumping off the cliff, maybe it's the people who thought it would be a good idea to put a cliff there haha... I don't know. I feel terrible about the dying, and we knew the cliff was there so there is no way we would get close enough to make them jump. That is so sad! But we didn't kill them!

Hayden's early birthday presents

He got a See'n'Say from Great Grandma and Grandpa E

And he got a John Deer tractor with animals from Grandma and Grandpa B

He likes to chew on the animals

Our lovely drive home from Page

The roads were HORRIBLE most of the way... and when the roads cleared up, it started snowing... poo

It was pretty though!

Chrismas

We had such a wonderful Christmas this year in Page.
We went to the Nutcracker, where Jessica and Tiana did a great job.
They are such amazing little dancers.
We got to visit with Grandma and Grandpa E.
We ate and ate and ate and ate... mostly treats!
We had yummy Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners.
We drove around to look at pretty Christmas lights.
It snowed in Page!

Hayden got so many new toys, church clothes, play clothes, more toys, Wall-E, a snow suit, v-tech games, v-tech video game,...
Kyle got money, an iPod nano, work pants, a toothbrush, pants, an iTunes gift card, Sportsman's Warehouse gift card, other gift cards,...
Renee got a cute shirt, a cute wallet, gloves, perfume, money, lotion, fuzzy socks, a purse, The Work and The Glory movies, Marie Calendar's gift card, other gift cards,...

Thank you, everyone, for our Christmas gifts!