Water Fight!

Last week Andy headed over to his parents house to pick Kira up for the evening while I went to a photo shoot. He text me and said they were going to stay for dinner and to stop by when I got done. I headed over there and we hung out for a little bit with Kira's cousin's Kade and Kaisley, Grandma and Grandpa and Angela. Kira and Kade were playing with water guns in the pool when Andy joined in and started a full on water fight. Kira was not too happy about getting wet and kept switching teams based on who was getting soaked. After I ate dinner I started helping Kade out and then Kaisley started helping me out. It was a super fun night. By the end I don't think anyone, including grandma and grandpa, were bone dry. Everyone lot a little water on them. 

Love | Hate Topic

My jeep is a LOVE | HATE relationship. I LOVE my jeep, BUT since Easter Jeep Safari I kinda HATE it as well. Let me explain. 

If you've heard me complain about death wobble here's the story behind it. 

In April we went down to Moab to Easter Jeep Safari.. remember that post? I said we were meeting our friends from Nemesis and had bought new tires and wheels from them? We installed them in Moab and hauled the old ones home. While we were down in Moab the jeep did the "Death Wobble" a few times. Come to find out my Steering Stabilizer Shock had worn out so we replaced it while we were in Moab. The wobble didn't come back while we were there or on the drive home so we thought we were in the clear... We couldn't have been more wrong. 

We got back to Logan and that started this 4 month battle with my Jeep and this darn wobble. Yes that's right, 4 MONTHS! If' you've never seen Death Wobble it actually looks really scary, but driving it's not horrible... you are just forced to slow down and stop because that's usually the only thing that will stop it. So after fixing the steering shock we had 4 different alignments done to it and the wobble didn't go away. We checked every possible part that could be out of tolerance, worn out, etc. and found nothing that was a red flag. Next up were Upper and Lower Control Arms, pretty pricey too. Didn't change a thing. Fixing the Caster, Toe settings to a huge variety of options also didn't change a thing. Remounting and balancing the tires multiple times (which isn't easy with the new double bead lock wheels) also didn't change much. The shop we had helping us out did say two of the tires balanced ok but they weren't 100% perfect and they had a hard spot in them. They contacted Falken and the Falken rep was really cool and actually warrantied all 5 tires. I had the wheels and tires sitting at Thunder Mountain for nearly 2 months and finally decided I was going to sell my old Wheels and Tires and just go with the new ones. I had high hopes that the new tires from Falken would fix my issue.... And they didn't. It was back. Next up on the list of parts we replaced: Upper and Lower ball joints. That actually made a good difference and so far it's only wobbled once on us. We also beefed up the front axle with a gusset kit. Since it still wobbled we ordered a new heavy duty tie rod kit as well as some brackets to weld to the axle for the control arm bushings. This may be a continual problem until EVERY part on the front end is swapped out. Ugh. Going to bigger tires I never thought I'd have this many problems.

JEEP does stand for Just Empty Every Pocket, right? Well so far, not including wheels and tires or the work Thunder Mountain has done for us (which is a lot) we have spent just over $1500 and we seem to continue to throw money at the next part that COULD be causing the wobble. Ugh, Like I said. It really is a LOVE | HATE relationship with this jeep.

Good bye old Wheels and Tires! 

New control arms

A while ago while jeeping I hit my diff cover and it started to leak so we upgraded to some heavy duty covers in the mist of all the other issues with the jeep. 

I also added 2 A Pillar Lights as well as a Light on my winch. Nothing too spectacular but they work great for what we are using them for. Andy also installed a pretty cool relay box for all the accessories on my jeep when he installed the lights. 

So this is us today. New Wheels, New Tires, LOTS of new components under the front end, and a small case of Death Wobble. Come on girl, you gotta get better! 

A few Random Photos!

Last weekend my sister got Married. She was a beautiful bride. I was so happy to be her photographer. With Andy's help as 2nd shooter we captured her day. I have not yet edited those but will update this with a link to her blog post when they are done. Kira was so in love with the flowers that day she kept holding the bridesmaids bouquets and wanted to ask if she could keep one. Well Jamee instead gave her the bouquet she was going to throw. Kira was in heaven. 

Andy and Max just relaxing in the shop. Max sure loves Andy, and Andy is so good to play with him (even though he'll deny it).

Playing with Nick and Alexis's little man, Titan.

Andy and Kira got to spend multiple days together just the two of them while I was in Texas. I sure missed both of them. Sounded like they had a blast! They went to our friends Klay and Julie's house for the 4th of July and a grand firework show, like $400 of fireworks. I always look forward to that as it's tradition, but usually on the 24th of July so it's in combination with Klay's Birthday. I guess I missed it this year, but they had so much fun. They even went to the 4th of July Parade and got way too much candy!

Boating Adventures

It's almost the end of July and we've only been boating a handful of times. Something is seriously wrong with this! lol. With Andy being out of town, me being out of town and photography our lake time has been limited. I lumped all of our trips this far into this one post. We've had a blast and Kira is doing so much better swimming in the water. Monday night we went out and took Shayna and Collin. I was amazed at how good Collin did in the water. He wouldn't let anyone help him. He's quite the little swimmer.