Taiwan Video

Taiwan!!!!

This was a Jr High School we stopped at on our scooter excursion through Maolin National Park (near Meinong). We stopped and played basketball with them for a little while, it was way fun! These kids are of aborigine descent, and are much darked skinned than regular Taiwanese. They also speak a different dialect of Chinese. They are known as the Haka.

This was the Gao family that I taught while as a missionary. Their mother joined the church at the time, and since then the little girl and oldest boy have both been baptized. When Becca and I visited them, the little girl was running around the apartment yelling "He baptized Mommy...he baptized mommy!" It was really cute.
This is the Chen family that we spent a couple days with. They joined the church the 2nd to last week that I was in Taiwan (during SARS). We met him originally at a post office. They are both teachers, and speak pretty good english. They took us (with my parents) out for crab and the night market one night, and we went to lunch another day. Their english names are Michael and Katherine. Mike LOVES basketball, and is a huge Yankees fan.
This is the four of us during my parents visit to Taiwan. My parents later visited mainland China and Korea for business purposes, but we were fortunate to have them in Taiwan with us for a few days. This night, given the "unique" aroma of real Chinese food, we were able to find an Outback Steakhouse across from our hotel. It was nice to eat good American food for a change. While my parents were there, we were able to see the mission home and meet the mission president & missionaries, see the church (above), some of my old apartments, the main city that I served in (Kaohsiung), and many people that I taught as a missionary (namely the Ou family, Jiang family and Chen family).

This is Monkey mountain, and probably Becca's highlight of the trip. We saw probably 50 or so wild monkey, and were able to get up close and personal from the peanuts we had gotten at the bottom of the trail. The monkeys were friendly and fun...they only turned ambitious and active when they found the peanut stash in my pocket!!!

This is the Jiang family (D-Terrance, M-Lydia, daugthers Vivian, Amy and son Henry). They are a really special family that I met and taught as a missionary. Even though there were never baptized, they represent the goodness and joy that are in millions of Taiwanese people. Terrance is a doctor, and Lydia stays home with the kids. They are planning a trip to come to America (Utah!), where Vivian is looking to go to school. After meeting them for a few minutes, you can't but simply fall in love with Chinese people in general, and realize what unique and great culture they have. My last waining hours as a missionary was spent in there home bearing testimony of the the restored gospel and eternal families. I know there is still hope!

Lake Powell - Jacobson Style!

Lake Powell was a blast as always, and we had a hoot even though the trip was short and sweet. Albeit our time was short, we still were able to enjoy such things as the wakeboard, water weinie, jet-ski, lovely hawaiin haystacks, playing cards, tossing the football, swimming and best of all just relaxing and being with the family.

Don't be decieved by this picture. I purpously cropped the image so you would think that I am a master wake-boarder. I'm sure I face planted it as soon as I landed this "wicked" jump.

Becca is more of the wake-boarding pro in our little family, her jump is perfectly legit!!!

American Idol Try-out

This is at 6 am when we showed up for registration. By then, there was aleady 5-7 thousand hopefulls lined up down the block for their shot at Hollywood.

This is Becca on the floor, just minutes before our audition (you can see the try-out booths in the background).

After a 13 hour drive to Omaha and waiting 12 hours at the Arena for our shot at "Hollywood", each of our 25 second auditions weren't good enough to impress the judges. So it appears our chance at fame will have to wait yet another year :-) The road trip, however, turned out to be an overall fun experience, as we enjoyed hanging out at the hotels, visiting Winter Quarters Temple and visitors center, and see various landmarks along the way. Check out more of our trip here:

Lake Powell

Our 3 day get-a-way Lake Powell trip with the Welch's was fun, and for Becca the first since being in the family. In was a nice time to relax and hang out with everyone, and test our skills on the water-weinie, wakeboard and cliff jumping. No major injuries were reported, despite some good wrecks over the wake and some red sunburns. Check out more footage from the trip here:

Yellowstone

This is at our first site just chillen. We fished from off the dock by the boat. No bears were seen at camp, but we did hear howling wolves at night and a few deer came innocently strolling along.

We spent a few days up in Yellowstone with the Jacobson clan, and had a fabulous time enjoying the family and natural surroundings. While we all caught a good amount of fish, the overall amount wasn't as much as in years past, but still tasted as tasty as ever.

Michael Buble Concert

Here is some footage from our long-anticipated wait to see the one and only MICAHEL BUBLE in person!!! The guy even filled the arena on the last song without a microphone. This dude truly can sing!