Perkinsons' Travels: Memoir of Our Gypsy Lives

This is Blogmaster Bryan checking back in with yet another blog ... yes that is two months in a row. I know there are a number of you girls out there who will read this (that makes it sound like we have way more friends than we actually do) and think "he's not the blogmaster, I am - he did two in two months, I do two a day!" All I can say is that you are weird and don't count. I am proud that Whit and I are actually doing enough cool stuff to even warrant
blogging in the first place. Now truth be told, this blog is like an amalgamation of five different trips that Whit and I have taken in

the last few months. I thought about making each one its own entry and then I remembered that I have a life and that Whitney gives me crap when I do blogs in the first place so I thought I would put it all together and sum up our adventures all at once.

1) First Trip - Merril Family Reunion.

At the end of the Summer we went with Whitney's family up to

Payson to this national park for her grandma's family reunion thing. Now I love Grandma White she is maybe the nicest person I have ever met, but a family reunion wouldn't typically make the sparse blog we have going one here

except that this place was sick! There was this natural tunnel/cave thing that was really cool. Problem is I don't remember what it was called but it is right outside of Payson and I recommend it to anyone .

2) Next Trip: Provo for the first BYU game. Once again this probably wouldn't have made the list (11 hours in a car is no bueno)(and I am not that hardcore) but we actually had a blast and Max had a huge game and got things started off right.

3) Next Trip: Romantic Weekend at Sedona.

This was awesome. Props have to go out to my Uncle John for hooking us up with a hotel room at his hotel in Sedona, I owe him so many favors its ridiculous. Anyway, we relaxed, drove around and took in the sites, did stuff that young married people are supposed to do, and pretty much had a blast. Yes, that fat guy jumpin off the cliff is me at Slide Rock... I may be fat but I am still fearless! Whit actually manned up and jumped from the same spot. I was legitimately surprised (she only did it cause she couldn't let me one up her). We got to see some crazy monsoons and Sedona is pretty much the prettiest place ever.

4) Next Trip - Back to Logan.

BYU played up in Logan against my Ags so we took that opportunity to return to our favorite place ever. I have to give our another shout out to my brother Ryan Bohm. (yes he is black but he is still my brother) Ryan and Jeanna let us crash with them and we had a really fun time. We got to see our old stomping ground, we hung out with some old friends, I beat Bohm at Birch which is the greatest golf course on earth, and best of all the Ags put up a fight and didn't embarrass us. For any of you who have never been to Logan in the fall it is the prettiest place ever...I just said that about Sedona but Logan wins in the fall. (It puts Provo or anywhere else in Utah for that matter to shame)

5) Last Trip - and it really was almost our list trip in this life -The Grand Canyon.

ASU lawschool has a fall break so a couple of weeks ago Whit and I decided to take a trip up to the Grand Canyon. It wasn't much of a planned outing...we just kinda threw some stuff together and went. We got up at like four thirty Friday morning and drove up to the park. We got there at about ten. We found a campsite and set up our tent. Then at about eleven we went down to the Bright Angel Trail. Now the trip to the GC was totally my idea, but hiking the Bright Angel trail was all on Whit, she talked to her boss

who goes there a lot and he recommended this trail. I am an idiot and didn't do any supplemental research before we started and I had no idea what I was getting into. Luckily we both had backpacks and plenty of food and water, but we were totally not dressed appropriately or in good enough shape to do what we did. On the way down everything was cool. We were jacking around and Whit was falling all over the place making me laugh and it was fun. Then we get to Indian Gardens which is five miles straight down and we realize that it is now two thirty and we still have to get out. So we ate and then started going up. Now I had seen people coming up on our way down and they had just looked hammered, but for some strange reason it hadn't dawned on me that I was going to have to do the same thing. ( It probably didnt dawn on me because for some strange reason I still think of myself as an athlete and if others can do it so can I, yeah that is a fallacy.) To make a long story short, we made it out but in the meantime: Whitney almost passed out and died, my shorts turned my inner thighs into hamburger meat (there is an image for you), and we almost got trucked by male big horn sheep that was trying to get a piece of a female sheep. After we got out we were dead tired and dirty. Luckily I there was a public shower at the top that we were able to use to clean up before we went to camp. Now I consider this a PG rated blog - and for that fact I cannot narrate here the absolutely traumatizing experience that happened to me in the men's public shower. If you are intrigued enough and aren't too sensitive feel free to email me and I will give you the adult version of the story...it was absurd. Anyway we went back to the campsite, I built a great fire we roasted some dogs and had a nice night around the fire. Sleeping was miserable because there was a windstorm blowing through and I slept about an hour. But anyway it was fun and we made it home alive.

Those are our recent travels, we are looking forward to some more fun trips once the semester gets over. I will post another blog soon to give some more info about what else we are doing but for now there you go.

Mi casa no es su casa

Well - its only been about a year since we last posted a blog, so I thought it was about time to do something else on here. To be honest I thought if I got the first few blogs going that Whitney would take this thing over and make it all cute like some of you other strange girls, but she didn't. To her credit, she works like a pack mule and I don't blame her for not wanting to come home and blog. Additionally, we don't currently have cable or internet at our house (the greatest thing ever - it makes us read - that's why we are smart!) so she cant really do it at our house. Anyway, much has happened over the last little while and I will try to sum it up concisely. 1) Still no progeny, 2) Whit fixes alot of ugly peoples teeth and makes them pretty, 3) Law school absolutely blows, 4) Its really hot, 5) We bought a house.

This blog is focused on number 5, seeing that it is the most positive of the above listed (even though I still see the lack of progeny as a positive). At the beginning of the year I started thinking about maybe looking for a place to buy. It just seemed like a decent time with the housing market falling like Lucifer out of Heaven. My cuz Danny Perk moved down and started looking for us around ASU. We were paying like 900 bones a month for our 1bedroom apartment and we figured we could find something close to that to buy. Anyway, we looked for a while and almost bit on a couple but it just didn't feel right. We were getting close to giving up and renewing our lease when Danny suggested we check out a new development a little further east, on Greenfield and Southern. I didn't really want to be back in the old mesa stomping grounds but I went out there with him to check it out and I was sold. This development is a mixed condo / duplex complex. I didn't like the condos (too close together) but along the back row of the development there are a line of duplex single story houses. I was pretty sure about it after looking at a few of them, and when I brought Whit back it she liked it and it was a done deal.

Getting the loan through was a little bit of a nightmare - luckily my other cuz Dallas pulled some strings and made it happen (that sounds like it was one of those shady mortgages - it wasn't its with Wells one of the few legit lenders out there). However, it is interesting that two years ago a single mom with three kids making two grand a month could some how get a no money down four hundred thousand dollar loan and now you have to fight for every cent you get. Our financial system is a freaking joke - but that's a tirade for another blog. Bottom line is we moved our crap out of our third story apartment - I almost died twice - and we got moved in during the middle of May. Whit decorated and painted like a champ and we couldn't be more happy with it. I don't have too many pictures right now but I will post some others later. Its a three bed, two bath about 1300 feet. We have a nice little yard in the back - its all dirt right now. And it has a two car garage. Its fun and we like it. I would invite everyone to see it but - I'm not big on visitors so pictures are going to have to suffice.