I was able to get my bumper and other items from the powder coat shop yesterday and now just need to find the time to get them installed.  They all turned out great and I'm ready to get my Jeep finished up.  I'm still waiting on my King shocks and it may still be awhile.  They are slooooooooooooww! 

The weather doesn't look great for SMORR this weekend.  That sucks as I really want to go and have the top and doors off.  I may bail on the trip and go in October.  Maybe I'll have my coilovers installed by then too.  Hoping the forecast changes though.

I'm ready for it to cool down around here. It's hot again and last night, my tee shirt was soaked at the end of my shoot.  At least tonight is a boy and we'll be getting in the car every 15 minutes or so.


 

I wound up having Saturday off as one of my co-workers said she would work my OT if I wanted her to.  Be my guest!  So, I got to do a couple sales sessions with Jodi (that were awesome by the way) and then we began our prep for the Jeep Invasion at the lake the following day.  We went to the store and bought meat, charcoal, buns and more stuff that we donated to the event and got everything ready for the next day.

On Sunday, we arrived at the lake about 11:15 and started setup.  By 2pm, we had about 60 Jeeps there.  We did some aerial drone shots and I grilled up the meat with the help of a couple friends.  It was a fun day and we stayed until sunset.  Everyone enjoyed the day and wants to do it again next year.

Video I took at the event.

I made a new friend at the event as well.  His name is Dexter and I got to love on him a lot.  Really miss my dogs.

We had a great sunset too.

  

I'm heading to the powder coater today to get my bumper, skid and coil over parts.  Need to get the bumper on by the weekend as we are headed to SMORR Saturday morning at the butt crack of dawn.  

We missed Jayson's 2nd baseball game but through video, we got to see some of his hits (he had 4).  This one was a screamer over 3rd that apparently took the hat off an opponent!

I'm doing a creative photo shoot in a nature sanctuary today with one of my models who will be wearing Jodi's creation.  There is a waterfall and I plan on using some dry ice to create some fog too.  It may be an epic fail but going to give it a go. 

Our Jeep invasion at the lake this Sunday looks like it's going to be a really big event.  We may wind up with 100+ Jeeps.  I hate being an organizer really but I wanted to do something different than just get together at a bar and grill.  I hope it turns out well. 

I have 4 photo shoots lined up for this week and 4 more the next.  Crazy busy.  We had some really good sales sessions on Saturday so we are hitting our sales goals this year.  I was thinking early on that our volume might be down this year but so far we are doing well.  I need to book about 5 more sessions in October and I will be satisfied. 

It has begun again.  It's been 20 years since JD's first baseball game.  Yesterday, we attended Jayson's first baseball game.  He got hits in both of his at bats, recorded the only out on defense by both teams by fielding a  grounder while playing first base and touching the bag and he threw really well too.  The most impressive thing was that he stayed focused the whole game.  We really enjoyed seeing him playing and there were a lot of laughs watching the little kids play. 

I spent yesterday afternoon and evening doing 4 pre-session consultations and then followed those up with an ordering appointment.  We are in a very busy period and won't see much of  slow down for another couple months.  This has been a very good summer for us and fall looks very good too.  We still have some openings in October I hope to fill but our goal is 12 clients per month and we have exceeded that thus far with the current class. 

We have a pretty good sized group going to SMORR in two weeks.  Two of the people I most like to wheel with are going so we should have a great time.  We're all staying at the same hotel too so we should have some fun nights as well.

Sunday the 16th is my Jeep Invasion event at Smithville Lake.  We have 72 Jeeps currently RSVP'ed for the event and hope to add many more.  We have a lakeside pavilion rented and will grill up a lot of food, have raffles and talk Jeeps. 

Here is some recent work we have done since I haven't shared in a bit. 

I was able to get my front bumper and coilover kit hardware to the powder coater yesterday and I should see them back in a week or so.  It appears they shipped my skid plate over to 4 Wheel Parts with a load of other parts so they have to retrieve that from them.

I stopped by the Ford dealer later in the day to get an oil change and tire rotation on the Taurus.  While there, I couldn't help notice this F-550 sitting on the used lot.  What a nice tow vehicle that would make.  I texted Jodi about it and she said "keep walking".  :)

The rumors are pretty strong these days about buyouts at work to assist in the restructuring plan.  A new rumor in the press is buyouts at $120,000 per employee.  Wow, what a nice parting gift that would be. 

Jodi and I had a nice weekend as we both took a break from work for a couple days.  Saturday evening we went to the casino with friends.  I won $300 and Jodi lost $100.  We didn;t get home and to bed until about 12:30am and then we were up bright and early at 6am for a day of wheeling at Kansas Rocks.

Our group was small as many don't go wheeling over the holiday weekend.  We arrived at Kansas Rocks and of course, I was again chosen to lead the group, which means not much in the way of video and photos.  We had one guy who was not locked with our group so we had to keep it more to the tame side the first half of the day.  The trails were a bit slick due to the rain and there was standing water in the typical places.  Going up the steeper grades was more challenging because of it and the rig that was open couldn't make it up the first steep climb.  We wound up having to winch him.

We decided to head over to the older section of the park where there is more rock on the trails and we had a lot of fun for a couple hours.  Before heading back to the staging area, I decided to give Zuk's Squeeze a try.  I gave it a go but the buggies and krawlers have it so dug out that I don;t have the clearance needed to get through.  I was bottomed out on both sliders.  Here's a screen grab from a  video of me climbing up into the squeeze.  Once the left front came down, I was bottomed out. 

After lunch, we went back out to give Carnage Canyon a try, another area I had not been in before.  All the trails in the area are black and with the slippery conditions, it would be double black.  We felt that Bad Axe was about the only trail we had a good shot at making and just me and another guy would give it a try.  The other guy went up first and made it with a lot of skinny pedal.  Naturally, he made it more slick for me spinning his tires up the trail and over the rocky ledges at the top.  I took a more slow and steady approach and powered through a couple spots where it was really slick.  Bad Axe done.

Next up was Bear Tracks and I didn't know what I was about to encounter.  I was just told that if you wanted to flex, this was the trail.  Holy crap!   They sent me in first to see how it was and we wound up pretty much laying on our side driving through huge, deep ruts that put us way off camber with our nose up in the air.  At one point, I was unsure if I should continue powering my way through but I kept going and made it through the first area only to find similar immediately afterward.  The muddy conditions definitely made this trail much harder than when dry and it took some power to get over some deep ruts and obstacles in the trail and I got my first trail damage, my license plate holder!    The next rig through didn't make the second area and we had to back him down the trail and get him out of the deep ruts by going sideways and over the ruts. The other rigs didn't attempt the trail.

 

That led us to one of the funniest moments of the day, well, for most of us.  Bill took the lead from me and we cam across a big water hole.  His wife told him to stay left of it.  Bill decided to go through it.  Bill's decision was a bad one.  It was pretty deep and he was stuck, not able to get out going forward or backward.  The right side of his Jeep was lower than the water and mud level and it kind of filled the passenger side of his vehicle.  His wife is not a fan of mud period, (she jumped out during their adventures on Bear Tracks) and was freaking out a bit.   We were basically in a mud bog and my hope was to be able to find a place to turn around and get my winch on him.  Luckily, I didn't get stuck and wound up being able to turnaround and position myself in a somewhat dry area to winch him.  After getting him out, we got to see how much mud had oozed into his vehicle along with how much he had splattered into the interior spinning his tires trying to get out.  His wife was not thrilled but we couldn't help but laugh and razz them a little about it.  He was going to have fun cleaning his Jeep!

It was time to head home and we aired back up for the drive home.  It was a fun day and we capped it off by stopping at Imo's in Overland Park for some pasta and pizza.  We got an extra pizza and dropped it off to JD and Megan on our way home.

Last night, I pulled my bumper off and have it ready to go to the powder coater along with my coilover kit parts.  Since my photo session scheduled for today is rained out, I'll have a chance to get that over to them.