Last hike of 2009

Here it is the last day of the year 2009 and what a beautiful one it is. Paul got done with work early and we decided to take a hike, well, it's really kind of a walk, up on the Red Hill. I have been noticing this little white rock in the window of another rock the last few times I have been up there. It really seemed to stick out and I thought about moving it so it didn't seem so out of place. Then somebody told me that it is a geocache. We took a closer look and found the little sign in sheet. We didn't have a pencil, so weren't able to sign in, but it was pretty crazy that I didn't figure it out without being told. Glad I didn't toss it aside the other day when I thought about it. We also saw someones imitation petroglyph of a sheep. Pretty funny. It was a beautiful day and there were lots of people up on the hill enjoying it.

Christmas 2009 at OneTrueMedia.com

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Genghis and his Christmas mouse

The first one to open a present this year was Genghis. He got a new catnip mouse. He got one just like it last year and loved it to death for quite a while and then lost it. He was so happy to get this replacement as you can see. If licking it to death means he likes it, then he does. Merry Christmas Genghis!

My heaviest Christmas present ever!

I guess the pestering pays off. I have been telling Paul I thought we needed a new mailbox post for a long time, so when he asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I made that my request. Not wanting to disappoint, he went to work. In my mind I envisioned just a very big, nice rock. He envisioned something that was much nicer and also a lot more work. I'm so glad he went with his vision instead of mine! I think it's the most beautiful mailbox post I've ever seen. Luckily some of the boys were here to help him set it. It is also the heaviest Christmas present I've ever received I'm sure. Thanks Paul for being such a nice guy and taking the time to please a pestering wife. Oh, he carved three sides of it and left one side blank. We will have to decide what's going to happen there. Any suggestions? If you have any...just put them in the mail.

An eye in my holiday hurricane

Wow, it seems like life has been running pretty hectic since about mid-October. Exercise has been hit or miss, mostly miss. Personal reading time has pretty much deteriorated to a small window each morning. Today, finally, I got to a point where I could say that all the cleaning, shopping, mailing, wrapping, cooking, laundering, etc. has come to a halt...yes, I could find more of it to do, but I'm done...until tomorrow. I just decided to take a walk up on the Red Hill and enjoy the quiet and beautiful scenery. It always makes me wish I was either a poet or a photographer so that I could some how capture it. Anyway, it felt good to be quiet, look, walk, breathe fresh air and just take it all in. Now I can come back to the house and anticipate the arrival of the first company this evening. Back to the holiday hurricane and good with it.

In loving memory of a wonderful man...

Today is the 27th anniversary of the passing of Paul's dad, L. J. Lillywhite, better known as Junior. We have been reading over one of his journals and have really enjoyed remembering what a wonderful man he was. As we got to the last page the other day, we realized that it was nearly to the day the time that he passed away. Less than a month before his passing he felt quite inspired to write a poem. He wrote several drafts before he got it how he wanted it. Here are some journal entries on the day of his first draft and on some of the days following.

"November 25, 1982. Thanksgiving Day. It is two o’clock in the morning and I can’t sleep, “irregular heartbeat”. Lately I have been reading some poetry and have been unable to understand it. Some of it I like and some seems a waste of brainpower to try and figure out. (1st draft)

"November 26, 1982. This morning I have been out fiddling around the yard. I get out of breath, so I decided I would come in and rewrite the poem I scratched down the other night. (2nd draft)

"After reading and going over it again a few changes more and I will leave it. It was fun to write it. When I first thought of it I sort of felt inspired to put something down. It was such a deep feeling in me and when I got started I couldn’t stop. Good or bad, I wrote a poem, take it or leave it."

Here's the final draft. I think it is pretty great, especially when you think of it as a first try at poetry. He was a wonderful man. I am happy to be considered related to him and to have had the opportunity to know him. We miss him.

**MEMORIES**

By L. J. Lillywhite

Suddenly spring’s warmth has turned to sleet,
Though in Memory it’s still sweet.
Since now the years have dimmed my will,
A youthful phase my heart hath filled.
God the seasons surely shaped,
God surely the times prescribed.

Youth has slipped my grasp.
Memories bring dishonor, regret and shame,
Memories bring honor, love and spring.
Happy the man who remembers spring,
Content the man who forgets the shame.
Spring’s warm breezes,
Summer’s cool breezy caress,
Winter’s friendly fireside warmth.

God sent His children, I am one.
God sent others, I have five.
God sent still others I cannot number.
Memories; with them I live,
Memories of those choice and chosen ones I love.

Though my shoulders slope,
Tis in my children I have hope.
My children? They can cope, they have hope.
Too soon their shoulders will slope,
That thought, sad thoughts provoke.

Still, God the time did set,
Still, God the seasons made.
We were there! We had our say.
I say our say was yea.
Oh! Now I hear you say.

The fray was hard,
The fray was long,
The fray was pain and strife,
But the fray was planned with love and light.
The reward is strength, o’ ye choice and chosen ones I love.

Older now, my body sags,
Still inner strength stands fast.
In retrospect? Memories if you please.
Tis all worth while,
Still I can smile.

Though lo my body may deteriorate,
My soul soars high with Memories great.
Ah, these Memories of youth and grace,
A babe once helpless,
A youth with helping hands,
A man achieving with goals firmly set,
A man requiring others help to step.
These four lines, life’s story tell.
Yet why a difference twixt thee and me?
Why tis in Memories of these choice and chosen ones.

The Cat with the Christmas tree spirit

Every year since we got him, three Christmases now, Genghis has gotten very excited about the Christmas tree. Last night when we started putting it up, he couldn't even wait until it was all the way up to start climbing in it. Here he is wondering where the rest of his favorite seasonal toy is. We had thought about giving him a new experience, a real tree, by going out into the Kaibab and cutting down one, but decided that budget wise that would not be the best option this year. He'll just have to wait for another year to have the live experience. When we got up this morning the floor under the tree was strewn with ornaments and many limbs had the sagging look from being slid down. We are in for his usual undecorating antics it looks like!

Happy birthdays - #57 Paul, #10 Brynnli & #4 Gaige

The December birthday rush has come. We started with Noah's, which we celebrated a little while he was down for Thanksgiving along with Paul opening presents (Outback cert and fun camp grill) from the Randalls and the Weavers so they could be here for it. Then came Brynnli, Paul and upcoming is Gage. We celebrated Paul's on Friday starting the day with birthday pancakes. In the evening he got his one of his birthday wishes...to cook his own steak on the grill. We added some mushrooms, sweet potatoes, salad and hot bread to that for a very nice meal. For cake we had Cafe Rio's key lime mini pies. They are Paul's favorite. He blew his candle and opened presents - digital tape recorder, hiking shirt, fireplace tools and Outback gift cards from Bonnie, the Smiths, Bean and Jay and Brynn. Next we did the family party on Saturday evening for Paul, Brynnli and Gage. We sang,opened presents and had cheesecake, brownies and chocolate goodness and did some good visiting. Paul got some great cards ala the grand kids and movie certs. from Moss & Christie and a book from Grandma K. He says thanks to everyone for the gifts and the best present of all...being a great family! Upcoming still is Grandma Poulsen's birthday on the 30th.

Thanksgiving 2009...over and done and now it's Pito's house

Thanksgiving this year was crammed full of all kinds of activities. It started out for me at school with pumpkin pie making and a reenactment of the Pilgrim and Indian feast in the hallway. The kids looked so cute in their costumes.

 

Tuesday evening (or early Wednesday morning) the Weavers and Supe arrived and spent the night. The next day the Randalls arrived and I missed out on the repelling activity at Snow Canyon with school and cooking taking up most of my day. Bryan, Uncle Jim, Noah and Christie had their first repelling experience. Uncle Jim said, "It scared the hell outa me," but he would like to try it again. The kids had fun playing in the rocks while the adults went down the cliff. Christie and Moss went down tandem (sorry no pics) and Noah went down in his dad's backpack. It sounded like everyone had a good time. In some ways, I'm OK with missing out on this one. Supe had to make good use of his time in the sun and also did some climbing with Leo and JJ, and also went hiking and repelling down a giant arch at Tuacahn Canyon with some friends. He tried to convince us all to go camping. We all opted to sleep in the house instead!

We also went down to the Visitor's Center and viewed the Reflections of Christ photography exhibit and saw the manger scene. Lou Anne and I went down to the Santa's Workshop craft show after going to watch Supe and friends climb with Paul and Bryan and taking Brady and Ellie on a little hike. Of course,Thursday was the day of women cooking, men taking children hiking, feasting, visiting, napping, visiting, resting, checker and chess in the front yard, grandkids against Supe wrestling match,visiting with the Smiths and Borrowmans, pie eating and laying about watching Up. We also watched another movie another evening - Hoodwinked - a very different rendition of the story of Red Riding Hood.

We spent time at Grandma's watching BYU beat the Utes...Yea! We had a nice relaxing day at church and then did a little early birthday celebrating with Noah and Paul.

We hung out in the yard taking in some sun and then kissed the company good bye. Now our house feels big and empty (pretty dirty too)...the Pito's house syndrome. We love you all and are thankful for a wonderful, chaotic, fun-filled, stomach-filled, love-filled holiday!

Poor Genghis...a night on the town is pretty hard on a cat

Last Monday Genghis decided to sneak out the door and have a night on the town. We tried and tried to call him back, but he was determined. We finally had to go to bed and leave him to it. I went out in the middle of the night to see if he was interested in coming back in and he came trotting over to me ready to come back to the house cat life. In the morning we found him to be very sore on his right shoulder and found a little puncture wound. We cleaned him up and he seemed to feel better in a couple of days. Then the infection set in and on Monday next he had to make a visit to the vet and get fixed up. He had an abscess and has to wear the "cone of silence" for the next 10 days so he won't mess with his wound while it's healing. It has some stuff hanging out of it to keep it open while it drains. The "cone of silence" is doing part of the job, but not the silence part. He also has a hard time navigating around things and is always banging into stuff while he walks around. He loves to have you scratch his head and neck since he can't do any self scratching. He's getting a little used to it, but he looks quite dejected. We are hoping for a speedy recovery and no repeats of the night on the town activities in the future.

Grand Canyon - 35th Anniversary Trip

 

To the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back via the North Kaibab Trail

Happy 35th Anniversary! A while ago Paul and I made a "bucket list" of things we wanted to do before we are too old. One thing on the list was to hike rim to rim in the Grand Canyon. It has seemed to be a complicated thing to somehow have a car waiting on the other side for us, so we decided we would just do it a different way. We would hike down one side and back up and then another time, hike down the other side and back up. Isn't that the same, only different? Any way we decided the weather is perfect at this time of year for one stage to be done, so why not do it for our anniversary? We left here Friday afternoon about 3:30 and arrived at Jacob's Lake for dinner at 5:30. We stayed in one of their old fashioned lower rated rooms and watched a movie on Moss and Christie's portable DVD player. We got up at 5:00, ate breakfast, packed up and were at the North Kaibab trail head and started our hike at 6:58 am, just as the sun was rising. It was pretty cold, about 12 degrees, so we had on our layers: shirts, jackets, gloves and I had my trusty earbags. We headed on down and enjoyed the beautiful sunrise. It wasn't long before we could start un-layering and by the time I got to the first bridge, Redwall Bridge, 3 miles in, I was down to just my long-sleeved shirt. (One dumb thing to start out was that I had two right legs for my zip-offs so had to wear my jeans for the hike). We headed on down taking some extra time so as not to kill our knees. The only people we saw were a couple coming up. They had started from the South Rim at 1:00 am in the morning and were doing a rim to rim to rim trip in a day. Crazy! As we got close to the bottom of the canyon, we saw more people who were coming over from the other way to see some of the sights en route. We enjoyed the views at Roaring Springs, but didn't hike right over to it. We moved on to Cottonwood Campground (nice spot) and then past Ribbon Falls (really beautiful even from the trail) and on to Phantom Ranch, which is really cool (and has super nice restroom facilities), then to Bright Angel Campground (very nice spot) and on down to the Colorado River and across the Silver Bridge. We arrived there, 14.2 miles, at 12:38 pm. We had hoped to make it by 12:00, but were OK with the extra time. We stopped and washed our feet in the icy Colorado, had lunch, filled up our Camelbacks, and headed out for the return trip at about 1:30. There were lots of people staying at the Phantom Ranch and Bright Angel Campground and lots of folks out on the trail, that we visited with en route. We saw two guys who were running the trail rim to rim to rim (42 miles) coming both ways and they seemed to be doing great. We also saw the couple from the morning coming back still going strong. The scenery is amazing all along the whole hike with so many different kinds of rock, deer, the Bright Angel creek, etc. The temperature was perfect. We got back to Cottonwood Campground, 21 miles for us so far, about 4:30 and ate a snack. Coming back out was definitely going to be a challenge from here on out. We got to Roaring Springs about 6:00 pm and ate another snack and put on our headlamps. Only 5 miles to go...the hardest 5 miles I've ever done. We were feeling it and were very happy whenever we came to a more level section and could make some time. We had to stop quite often to catch our breath. As we got closer to the top, stops got quite frequent, but not so much to breathe as to gather a little energy to pick up one foot and put it in front of the other. There were some people coming out behind us that we could see by their headlamps. We stayed ahead of them until the last .75 miles when the first one caught up with us. It was a group of 4 guys doing the final leg of their rim to rim to rim hike which they had started about 4:30 am that morning from the North Rim. They were doing well, but were a little slower coming out than they had hoped. One said he was really looking forward to a big cheeseburger when he got out! The last couple of miles were really killer. If there was anyway I could have gotten out of doing them, I would have taken it. I was so tired I could hardly lift my feet over the water diversion rocks in the trail. We were so glad to get to the parking lot and especially when our car started. The battery was having trouble with the cold weather and we were a little worried about it. The 4 guys said they would wait and make sure we could get it started. We got there about 15 minutes after they did, at 9:30 pm. It was about 19 degrees. Coming out we were using so much energy that we didn't feel the need for coats, but did put on our gloves for the last little bit. I jumped in the car, turned on the seat heater, put all the coats over me, drank my orange juice and fell asleep and pretty much didn't wake up until we got home. If Jacob's Lake had still been open, we probably would have spent another night there. Paul was a trooper and drove us home with a couple of rest stops...we just had to leave the car running in case the battery wouldn't do the job. Did we enjoy it? YES! Would we do it again in a day? Probably not. 28+ miles is just a bit more than I need with such an elevation change. Is it beautiful? YES! Very much a Grand Canyon. Happy 35th and one crossed off the bucket list!

Blog changes and a pretty calm week end

In case you haven't noticed, I am changing lots of things on my blog. I saw Moss and Christie's new blog book (it's so sweet) and since it doesn't print any of the little side or big bottom gadget pics, I am changing the way I do them. I want everything in my book, when I actually print one someday! The movies won't be in it either, but I just couldn't do without a few movies here and there. As for our weekend, mostly we were lazy...we watched Ferf's kids a couple of times so they could attend Kensi's temple session Friday evening and also the sealing on Saturday morning. The kids ate dinner with us on Friday evening and we watched a boring movie, but ate lots of popcorn and drank loads of lemonade to make up for it. Saturday morning they came for breakfast and then we got them ironed, dressed and combed up really sharp to head down to the temple for pictures and to the wedding brunch. They wanted to sing the little ditty, "Here Comes the Bride" to Kensi and Josh as they exited the temple, but we did a little rewrite of the kids regular "big, fat and wide" version to read: Here comes the bride, her wedding knot is tied, here's her handsome groom, he makes her heart go boom! They decided that would be better. I don't know if they ever sang it or not. I'm spending the afternoon making bread, going to lunch with pop and updating this blog and Pop mowed the lawn, got a haircut and is doing a little job at the college while there are no kids on campus. We also checked out the newly remodeled and added on to Deseret Book, Mormon Handicrafts and distribution center.

Need to buy some gas?

Paul and I took a short trip to Ashfork for some stone for an upcoming job. We had to drive way out in the boonies to a rock yard and in route we saw this crazy sign in a front yard. I had no camera but my phone so it's kind of blurry. Ashfork is a very unique town with, as you can see, some very unique people. I forgot to tell one funny thing that happened on this trip. We stayed in a motel in Flagstaff. We were afraid it might be pretty cold to camp out. We stayed at one that we usually do in the winter. They have quite a nice hot breakfast. This time there was a whole bus load of people staying there too. When we went to breakfast, we found that they were all French people, probably coming to visit the Grand Canyon. They were in line for breakfast with us. They had one of those little waffle makers, but they didn't seem to know what it was. The man in front of us got some coffee and them took the pitcher of waffle batter and poured some in his coffee. He must have thought it was very heavy cream. I wished I knew how to tell him what it was. His wife did the same. They ended up sitting by us and drank their coffee right up. I was thinking that they would find that American breakfast food was pretty awful. Maybe is wasn't so bad after all!

Sequoia camp and short walk...

 

One last camp and one "short" walk...

We thought we'd do one last camp out in the mountains before it gets too cold. We didn't have lots of time, so decided to go close, just up to the sequoia tree by Browse. We hurried, at little too fast, to get ready after work and ended up without a few essentials...air bed, hot chocolate pot, lantern...but we were able to make do and had a great camp. It was a little cool, so we had a fire. It was so nice. We haven't done one for quite a while. The campsite was somewhat changed. It looked like a flash flood had gone through not too long ago and the picnic table was lodged in a pile of logs. There were lots of piles of debris around that have never been there before. Still, it was a nice spot. We had great food, a fairly good sleep and a warm breakfast and then decided to check out some of the trail maintenance that the forest service said they had done. We were only going for a short walk, so we left water and walking sticks behind. They trail had been very well cleared and was easy going, so we decided to go just a little further. Then we came to a trail sign and saw the Syler Springs was only a mile ahead...sure we could do that. Anderson Valley was another 5 miles and we wouldn't take time to do that. When we got to a little spring, it didn't seem like it was as far as the sign said, so we went a little further to see if we could find the one the sign was really talking about...never found it all the way to the top and Anderson Valley. We were missing our walking sticks on the very uppity trail, so found some sticks along the way and when we were getting pretty thirsty, the snow showed up and we enjoyed an icy cold drink that way. Now we can say that we have found all three trails into Anderson Valley...they each have their pluses and minuses. We enjoyed them all! Coming back down was much easier than going up and we got back just in time for Paul to make it to his Saturday afternoon stake conference meeting. So much for a short, 12 mile walk!

A visit with Jay and Brynn

 

Family visiting and Halloween

We had a great weekend with lots of visiting and not very much Halloweening. The only bad part was that we never got to hook up with the Smith family. Jay and Brynn arrived on Friday evening and we all hit the sack pretty quick. Saturday we did some fun visiting with the Borrowman kids while their mom and dad were at the temple and Moss, Christie and Brenden. We went over and made the ducks happy with our crusts. Koen and Gage wanted to eat the duck food too. Then Ferf and Ryan made it back and everyone was good enough to eat up leftovers for lunch. It was such a nice day that we ended up out on the front lawn and had some of Paul's yummy kettlecorn for dessert with lemonade and had some checker and fox and hounds games along with some running around and Brenden sleeping through it all in the swing. Later we needed to get moving a little. Moss and Christie and Ferf and Ryan took off, so the rest of us went up and enjoyed a little exercise by walking the Quarry Trail. Then we headed out to the Borrowmans for a yummy dinner and a little more visiting. It was nice to sleep in on Sunday and we got to go to church with Jay and Brynn where they got some baby tending practice with the little girl on the row behind us. She took a real shine to Jay and Brynn and spent pretty much the entire meeting on their laps. Grandma came to dinner and then it was time to kiss Jay and Brynn goodbye. Hope they got enough sunshine to fortify them for the "dark and doomy" days ahead in the north country!

My own Mr. Bony & Happy Halloween!

After several years of helping the kids in the class make these in one of our centers, I finally just had to make one of my own. Very good project for dexterity. I found I could use some work on mine! Happy Halloween!

PS Here are some other fun Halloween pictures - a class picture and one of Brenden in the big cauldron!

Tasia #5 & Koen #1 - Happy Birthday!

Tonight we went over to Lenae and Derek's to have a birthday celebration for the two latest birthdays in the family - Tasia's #5 and Koen's #1. Tasia had requested a "brown party" so everyone who had it wore brown clothes. We had brownies, chocolate ice cream, chocolate licorice straws and chocolate cookie things. You could even have chocolate milk to wash it all down with. It was a good time and nice to have everyone there for a little visit. We sure have cute grand kids! Happy birthday you two!

Yosemite, Bakery & Aliens

 

Sequoia & Kings Canyon

 

UEA...time for a visit to some amazing places

While in recovery from some illness, swine flu or otherwise, UEA school break gave us a chance for a long hoped for visit to Yosemite. Since the east entrance at Tioga Pass was closed for snow on the day we wanted to use it, we decided to take a southern route and come up through Sequoia and Kings Canyon National National Parks & Sequoia National Forest/Giant Sequoia National Monument. We left Thursday am plied with Tylenol and Dayquil. We arrived Sequoia Foothills Visitors Center entrance and drove to the Potwisha campground for our first night. It was perfect weather, about 67 and we had a great night there. Next morning we headed out to see the sights after breakfasting in camp. We saw some really cool things including Auto Log, Tunnel Log, Cresdent Meadow, Moro Rock, Tharp's Log and the Big Trees Trail. We also visited the General Sherman's Tree - the world's largest tree. While we were there we also ran into a little black bear. We lunched on the back of the car while waiting for a road stop for a controlled burn. We loved and were truly amazed by the REALLY BIG Sequoia trees and all the other amazing scenery. It was extra pretty because of the fall foliage too. It wasn't crowded at all. We then headed off for King's Canyon where we visited General Grant Tree, one of the world's largest living trees. It was also declared the Nation's Christmas Tree by President Coolidge in 1926. On a little hike we also saw the Fallen Monarch, the Gamlin Cabin and the Centennial Stump. Then we drove the road all the way to the end of Kings Canyon and visited Roaring River Falls with many photo stops in route. We headed into Fresno for the night. Saturday am we headed off to Yosemite entering at the the Wawona Rd/Hwy. 41 entrance and headed off to one of the best views in the park - Glacier Point. From it you can see 4 huge waterfalls, Half Dome, Sentinal Rock, El Capitan, the whole Yosemite Valley, etc. Truly amazing vistas. Then we headed into the valley and did the hikes to Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite Falls, Mirror Lake and further also seeing many beautiful stone bridges and the beautiful river. It was just about dark when we got done with our hikes, so we headed out of the Park via El Portal road via Hwy. 141 and spent the night in Merced. We did our Sunday food shopping that night. Next morning we enjoyed a really good sacrament meeting and then headed back to Yosemite. We really enjoyed the trip there through the beautiful Merced Valley canyon and stopped for a picnic lunch along the way. In the park we walked through the Ahwahnee Hotel and then took the road out of the park via Tiaoga Pass which had opened back up. We had many stops en route to enjoy more amazing vistas. We stopped for quite a while at Olmstead Point where you could see back into the park and see the back side of Half Dome. It is truly a commanding feature of the whole park. We saw climbers on the way out too. Just as we were leaving the park, it started to snow again. We got out in the nick of time and were so glad that we got to see that part of the park before it closed up again. We found a nice campground several miles outside Bishop and ate picnic dinner and spent one of the windiest nights camping that we ever have. It was a really nice spot, but we nearly blew away. It was just windy, but not really very cold. We breakfasted in Bishop and visited the so cool Erick Schat's Bakkery there. It is one bakery that everyone should visit. We bought our lunch there (Mulekick sandwiches)and put it in the ice chest and headed on to the Extraterrestrial Hwy. and home. We didn't see any UFOs, but did see a lot of desert. We got back home in time for dinner Monday evening and were ready for our own bed and some rest from a fabulous, beautiful trip!

The fine day with Grandpa & Grandma

 

One fine day with Grandpa & Grandma

We had a fun day with Brenden. He loved his bath, slept through a ride in the stroller, swung outside, ate yummy food while pulling funny faces and making funny noises, snoozed some, played with toys (some that his dad used to play with), and was just a good boy the whole time. Our only troubles were Grandpa trying to put a mitten on for a sock - "what's that funny thing sticking out from Brenden's heel?", a blast from the past that ended up on the shirt, a fountain of youth that ended up on the rug, and a small battle with the Fisher Price record player...the record player is harder than Brenden's head. We had one fine day together! Still, he was pretty happy to see mom and dad come back.

Fall Evening in Pine Valley

 

Nourishment for body and soul...an evening in Pine Valley.

I'm sitting here with Brenden. He's extremely busy cleaning out a bucket of toys. Each one needs to be examined quickly and tossed aside. Paul and I are tending the Bud while Moss and Christie are at the temple with a future sister-in-law. But, back to the beginning. Since we knew we would be tending today, we decided to do a hike/date last night. We headed up to Pine Valley around 4:30 pm yesterday and did the hike we had done with the grand kids (Old Mill Trail)only continued on until it turned to a bushwhackers trail strewn with beaver felled trees. It was lovely. The oaks were full of color - red, pink, purple, gold, yellow and green. The little stream was still running, the air was cool and we didn't see one person. We had to park our car at the lake - the gate was all locked up. When we got finished with the hike we walked back through the campgrounds along the road. (What a great time to now would be to go camping or for a cookout. You'd have to bring a wheelbarrow to haul your stuff up the road to the picnic or camping areas, but then you would have the place to yourself. I'm thinking about it!) We headed on through the picnic area and to the lake. Fish were jumping like crazy and you could see their tails flipping. Back to the car(about 7:15)we decided we'd stop in at the Brandin' Iron in Pine Valley for some of their delicious beans, garlic bread and salad. It was a great meal and then we headed on home, well nourished in body and soul. Oh, another great thing happened yesterday. When I got home from school I headed over to Hurst's to mail a few packages. In the process I came across their parking lot sale and wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles...they were selling all their cross country skis, boots and poles. These are the ones that we used to rent. They were a fantastic buy with a set of poles, boots and skis only $12.00. I called Paul and he was in that area and hurried over and we got a set for each of us. We are so excited to be able to give it another try this winter. What a great find!

Duck Creek autumn leaves

 

What a great conference day!

Wow, what a great conference. We stayed at home and watched on Saturday and then on Sunday we went to Grandma's. She fed us one of her scrumptious meals for lunch and then we all had a hard time not nodding off during the afternoon session. I think I won the staying awake contest. Paul and Grandma lost. Wasn't Elder Holland fantastic?! Of course, he's kind of a favorite around this house. After it was all over we took Grandma up by Duck Creek to see what was left of the leaves. With the sudden cold snap last Wednesday, they went very fast. There weren't a whole lot left, but she was happy to see what there was. It was freezing up there. Then we stopped by the Borrowman's on the way home to help eat the "tons of spaghetti" they had left from Ryan's dinner. He made homemade sauce with the last of the tomatoes and peppers from their garden. It was yummy and we were glad to be able to help them out with their leftovers! We also got to see their little bull calf...Chuck, as in chuck roast! It was a really nice day.

Genghis has a made a new friend next door.

Last week at church the neighbors informed us that Genghis has made friends with their puppy, Gunner. He's kind of a big,clumsy,slobbering,type friend, so he has to be kept in line. Genghis likes to lay on the wall between our house and theirs and when Gunner comes over to say hi they touch noses and do the sniffing thing, but all the while Genghis keeps one paw up in the air and has to occasionally give Gunner a little tap if he gets a little bit too fresh in his sniffing or nose touching activities. I have yet to see this take place for myself. Genghis seems to look forward to getting out to that area of the yard a bit more now. The neighbors gave me this picture that they snapped.

I love this sign!

Today is the St. George Marathon. I think it's great that people work so hard and feel so good when they accomplish their goal. It's nothing that even remotely appeals to me. Give me a bike ride or a long hike and I might be interested. Paul and I did go out and take a walk this morning and crossed paths with those out doing the Mayor's Walk. While on our walk we spotted this sign...I love it! They've had it out other years too, but I've never gotten around to taking a picture of it before. What a sense of humor so near the finish line! I wonder if the runners think it's funny.

Conference has been great so far. I also got bread raising before it started and into the oven while it was on. Had fresh bread/toasted cheese with banana chilies, apples and homegrown tomatoes with chilies for lunch after the first session...mmm good! Almost time to head back for another feast, for the spirit instead of the stomach. Happy listening to all of you.