the State Fair

Random Pictures (stolen from Mom's blog)

Timpanogos Storytelling Festival Performance Saturday Sept 5th

This year again my band is performing at the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival in Orem at the Scera Shell amphitheater. It'll be this Saturday . . . if you're already going to the festival or haven't heard about it, we're performing just before the "Laughing Night" at the Scera shell (outdoors). Its agreat band, with Bart Olson on drums (from Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband and earlier the Shriners if you knew me in high school), Hayley Singley Kirkland (last month she sang the national anthem at an LA Dodgers game, she's the regular singer in my band) and guitarist Kenji Aihara (japanese ninja guitarist master).

We're performing from 6:45 to 8pm. Hope to see you there! Nicolle and the kids will be there as well . . .

My latest cd

I just finished another jazz album, I'd like to share it with everyone who cares to listen. If you go to this link you can listen to samples from the album: http://www.robbennion.com/natureboy.html

Also I have remixed some of the songs with local rappers, here you can listen to the remixes featuring local hip-hoppers from SLC:

http://robbennion.com/mp3s/myfunnyrmx.mp3
http://robbennion.com/mp3s/natureboyrmx.mp3
http://robbennion.com/mp3s/canthelprmx.mp3
http://robbennion.com/mp3s/atlastrmx.mp3

Thanks for listening!

soak zone

For the very first show we went to Shamu and sat on the very first row, good for getting wet and seeing things up close; bad for camera.

Eat at Joes-crabshack that is.
I took mostly movies at Sea world so I will try to upload those later.
The one with Colette and sparklers was for the 24th of July (Pioneer's Day)

Want it, need it...

http://www.youtube.com/obamatimecapsule09

The only problem is that I don't have many pictures from the whole thing, or maybe that is why I need this book all the more. :)

pictures

Misc.

We are saving up for a trip to San Diego and Texas for Colette's birthday so we haven't gone anywhere for the last couple of weeks, so there are no super fun pictures to post. But a couple of cool things have happened, such as the Bennions are back! We are so happy to have Grandma, Grandpa and Chris back safe and sound from England. We have also been hanging out with Betsy and baby Ethan more, which is always fun. Michelle started working for the National Children's Study which has made me more inclined to work more hours too. I have also been trying out some crafty stuff posted here. Oh and we gave away the bunny, but it was to a friend close by so hopefully we will get to visit him. I can't think of anything else to update about so that's it for now!

Cancun!!

So we have finally been to Cancun! I really wanted to go a few weeks ago, but instead we went to Disneyland first, which I can't complain about, and this time around it was pretty awesome. The trip there was horrible, horrible, mostly because of the red-eye flight from SLC to NYC (we have to go NYC first and then to Cancun), I don't know what it is about that leg of the trip but Jonton was especially monstrous. So we stayed in this awesome all inclusive hotel. It was especially family friendly and since there is the H1N1 virus thing it was really empty and cheap. Colette was really good at swimming with her little swim wings and Johnathan was terrified of the ocean but a fearless daredevil in the pools. The ocean was beautiful and we had the BEST spot for us, the water only came up to our knees and there were NO waves. Oh and it was really funny there were a few crabs and Rob was messing with one of them and it nipped him. Hehehe. The food was delicious and the people were really nice. They also had a great little kids club with its own pool with slides and everything. Colette loved it. The first picture is Rob with his sad face at having to leave, it was Colette's idea and she took the picture. It was super fun but I doubt we will be back soon, and I am kind of hoping that is our last long, expensive trip for a while :)

MIWA!!

Our lovely friend Miwa came to visit us here in Utah a few weeks ago!! It was awesome! In fact it gave us the opportunity to visit some places that we had never been to before such as the salt flats and the Salt Palace. The salt flats were pretty crazy, we drove for a looong time expecting to see the white stuff right away but we were almost to Wendover by the time it was really white. The mirages were kind of scary too. It was really hard to tell where there was water and where there wasn't. So from the salt flats we went to temple square and ate at the JS building. It was pretty expensive. We walked around on top of the Conference Center, it was beautiful. Then we drove by the McCuen Mansion, Miwa seemed to be interested in the idea that it was haunted. Then we went to the Capitol building but we couldn't stay long because the kids just wanted to run around. So we walked down to Memorial Grove park and played with dogs. From there we drove to Park City and walked along Main street for a little while before driving home and watching Wall-e. The other days she was here we mostly just went shopping at dollar stores and such. It was pretty wonderful to be able to take her around to see things, she is so SWEET!! Pretty soon we may be able to visit her in Japan more too!

Jonton's Birthday!!

It's Johnathan's 2nd birthday today. We don't have a party planned yet, we were thinking about going to Chuck-e-cheeses today, as well as having cake and stuff today. It is kind of funny that before three they really don't get what their birthday means, but Colette is totally aware and looks forward to her birthday in July. I will post some pictures of our birthday adventures later.

First rides at Disneyland!

The first ride we went on at Disneyland was the Dumbo ride. I think the kids were a little overwhelmed about the whole thing when we first got there, but the Dumbo ride was a pretty good first ride for them. After that we went to the storybook boat ride that had the ADORABLE miniatures of some of the most famous Disney stores, such as Snow White, Cinderella, The little mermaid (the picture is of the castle and ship from the movie), Pinocchio (we went through the Monstro whale). All of the plants surrounding the miniatures were real but kept tiny, I thought it was super cool. I was surprised and a little dissappointed that there were SO many people there on a Monday morning. Maybe school was already out in California, or maybe it only seemed like a ton of people but really it was not that busy, I just know that the lines were too long for us to get to ride a lot of the things. Who knows when we will get to go back (if ever, according to Rob, you only need to go to Disneyland once ;)

Disneyland...

The first picture is of the view from the submarine on the Finding Nemo ride. We waited in line for this one for over an hour. The kids were hot, hungry, thirsty and tired but once we got on the sub and they looked out the windows they forgot all about that. Johnathan especially loved it. Colette got a little scared but she still loved it. And fortunately the ride was pretty long, so it was worth the loooong wait.
One of the highlights-for Colette at least-was that Colette got to meet her favorite fairies! When we first approached the area and I said that she was going to meet Tinkerbell she naturally thought that she would be tiny and that she had to look for her, so that it what she is doing looking under the big mushrooms. When she first saw the fairies she jumped up and down and squealed but when we got up closer and she was supposed to pose with them she was all shy and confused. So as we were about to walk away I suggested she give them a hug. That did it, she ran back to them and nearly knocked them over with her best hug. It was really sweet. Unfortunately you can't see the joy on her face, but she was pretty ecstatic.