Guardian Angels

Kyle escaped tragedy this last Saturday after he was involved in a rollover accident while driving some scouts home from a weekend snowshoeing trip in Pine Valley. The scouts and Kyle were headed off the mountain when an ice storm hit. The roads were quickly covered with a layer of ice and as they rounded a sharp corner Kyle's truck began to slide. He tried to manuever out of it but the back end of the truck caught the edge of the shoulder and sent the truck over an embankment where it tipped onto its top and slid to the bottom, dozing boulders as it slid. When it stopped, one scout had been ejected and was suffering a broken arm. Kyle kicked out a window and climbed out to attend to him while the other uninjured scout climbed up to the roadway to flag down help. Kyle ended up with a few bumps and bruises, a sore shoulder, back, and neck, BUT after seeing the pictures of the mangled truck and driving to see the accident scene today, its easy to see that things could have been MUCH MUCH worse. The scout that was injured had surgery to repair his arm and is recovering. We are so thankful that guardian angels were there to protect Kyle and the scouts from worse and our prayers this week are dedicated to the scout that was involved and his family! We are waiting now to hear whether the truck will be totalled, but its pretty apparant it will. Here are a few pictures.

Ride to Mesquite with the crew...

Last year we bought a nice Yamaha V-star for really cheap from a co-worker of ours. At the time, Kyle had never ridden a motorcycle, and it was quite a funny sight seeing him try to get it home (he tipped it over trying to go through a roundabout). He decided to take the Motor school offered by the PD both to get his Motor Certification for riding the police Harleys, and to learn how to drive the motorcycle we bought a little better. After passing the class and getting his endorsement, he began riding our motorcycle. After that, it was pretty impossible to get him to drive anything else. We took it on dates, to Sunday dinners at the fams house, and even to get groceries (imagine me on the backseat holding gallons of milk and bags of food, haha!). It was especially nice to save money on gas too! Kyle also got a leather jacket and a full-face helmet so he could go on daytrips with other officers/co-workers who also had motorcycles. Last month, before it got too cold to ride, they took one last trip down to Mesquite to have breakfast. They hung out for a bit and then took the scenic Old91 route home. Now the bike is parked in the garage waiting for warm weather again! These are pictures from the Mesquite ride. In the picture: SGPD Cpt Farnsworth, SGPD Chief Stratton, Deputy Chief Peck, WCPD Chief Keith, Hatz, Bob Flowers, and SGPD Cpt Graham.

Whitehead Family Pictures

A couple of Sundays ago Kyle and I went down to Stonecliff with the rest of the Whitehead family to take family pictures. It was a nice warm fall day and the colors were perfect for a photo shoot! Having Talin, Teegan, and Hagen to watch squirm around made it a lot more fun too (well fun for us without squirmers anyway). I think the photos turned out really nice - we plan on getting at least one enlarged for our living room. Which do you like better - the colored ones or the black and white ones?

Coral Pink Dunes Ride

While I slept Saturday after a graveyard shift, Kyle, Trent, and Kalin headed out to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes. They met up with a co-worker of Kyles and spent the day riding the dune hills and eating hot dogs. Ew yum. Can't get over missing out on THAT one.
Pictures compliments of Kalin. :)

Kyle's Mosaic

Well to be fair (this is OUR blog after all), I thought I'd post Kyle's mosaic. I was mistaken on his favorite drink though. It is root beer, not egg nog. And he claims his first love is me, not work, though I beg to differ. ;)

Pursuit Training

http://www.kcsg.com/news/local/27846259.html?video=YHI&t=a

Both me and Kyle had fun today training with the PD for vehicle pursuits in the industrial area south of St George. Kyle practiced evasive driving, felony stops, and pursuing, and even got caught on TV throwing spike strips. Misty practiced dispatching the pursuits, and then came out for awhile and helped officers train by being one of the "bad guys" in the cars that were stopped, being non-compliant, hiding a gun, and even running away from them. It was really good training for both dispatchers and officers, and a ton of fun too!

We want to see!!!

With the Saturday-scheduled Subway hike postponed again due to the weather forcasts for thunderstorms, we instead had Kyle lead us up to where the marijuana grow so we could check it out. The site was well hidden; we followed the trail along the stream for awhile, and then randomly left the trail to go up and over a steep and rocky hillside. After hiking upward for awhile, we found a bunch of empty holes in the ground that previously held marijuana plants, with only a few stragglers left behind. We also found remnants of the camps: soap, irrigation tubing and pipe, saws, socks, stick shelters, fertilizer, and lengths of wire strung up to tie and dry the plants. Kyle kept an extra close eye on the boys to make sure they didn't try and smuggle any leftovers out...

And this is why I love my job...

Kyle and the SGPD S.W.A.T. team assisted the DEA in seizing tens of thousands of marijuana plants from the Pine Valley Mountain Wilderness. Starting yesterday morning at first light, they hiked two hours into a rugged deep canyon at the north fork of the Santa Clara River. They searched and found four seperate grows with elaborate irrigation systems set up to water the plants. The did not, however, find anyone in the canyon (to Misty's relief), although there were signs of recent camping. They spent the rest of the day, and today, pulling, bundling, and loading the huge plants into the helicopter hoist to be lifted out. He might have been sore and worn out from the hike, but, needless to say, Kyle came home with a biiiiig smile on his face that night.

Surprises

While I was at work today, I received some some pretty, fall-colored flowers from Kyle! He's in Moab this week working with other officers from different agencies providing extra security for The Bandido's (motorcycle gang), annual get-together. So far it's been uneventful but the weekend has yet to come....