This and that Saturday

Saturday we did this and that.  I needed to do some long overdue cleaning.  Paul needed to work on some walking sticks and check with Moss on some yard projects.  We spent the morning doing that.  Then we visited the new exhibit at the St. George Art Museum - the downstairs has a very nice, sort of different, still life exhibit  that Paul wanted to see. The upstairs is not much to brag about right now.  After lunch we headed over to check out a new trail in Snow Canyon - the Gila Trail.  It is between the highway and the rim running from the north end of the canyon down to Chuckawalla.  We only did a part of it and  decided to check out the rest another day when we can leave a shuttle vehicle down at Chuckawalla.  After that we took the trail to Johnson Canyon which had lots of evidence of the recent rain.  It is such a pretty canyon-arch.  After that we went out to see the new airport.  It's a cute little terminal, but we were disappointed that you cannot see the Greg Abbot mural - it's past the security gate.  Then it was dinner time and since I hadn't spent  any time thinking about what to make, we decided to use our dinner & a movie certificate that we got for Christmas and went to Pasta Factory and to see The Tourist.  The dinner was great and the movie is a fun one. It was an enjoyable this and that Saturday. 

Brady & Ellie keeping busy while Afton gets settled in

Brady and Ellie kept busy while Mom and Dad were getting Afton settled in.  Some of the busyness included visiting the duck pond, hiking on the Red Hill - we spied a fox while we were up there, playing Sorry with Grandpa, driving by a volcano, playing in the sand dunes and hiking to Jenny's Canyon at Snow Canyon.  We also visited Grandma Kurtz to meet her new puppy, Bandit. Visiting the Smith and Borrowman cousins was lots of fun for them too. 

Happy Birthday Afton LaRae

Brady and Ellie are the proud new silbings of Afton LaRae.  She was born on Monday, January 17th at 7:13 am in Cedar City.  She was 19.5" long and weighed 8.1 lbs.  Mom and Dad are also pretty proud! Actually, the whole family is pretty happy about this new addition to the tribe!  (The girls are now in the lead with 8 girls and 7 boys.)

Deer Valley & Bryce Canyon in the snow

This morning we hurried our way up to try out the groomed trails we spotted last week at the Deer Valley Recreation Area up Cedar Canyon.  We were on the trail by a little after 9:00.  It was really pretty and we didn't see anyone while we were out.  There were some pretty steep down hills, and we were glad no one saw us when we crashed a few times.  After a couple of hours we were pretty pooped and decided we would head over to Bryce Canyon to check out the skiing opportunities there for future reference. We stopped at a scenic view point in Red Canyon and ate lunch in the car. Then we went over to Mossy Cave and the waterfall there before going into Bryce proper.  (If you ever go to Bryce, don't miss these two little gems.  They are part of the park, but are actually to be found on the road to Tropic.)  The cave was wearing beautiful "winterbeards" and the waterfall was frozen except for a little bit that was running down a hole in the middle.  It was beautiful.  

We stopped in at Ruby's Inn to see what information they might have.  They have some groomed trails outside the park, but some snowmobiles had kind of messed them up and since it was a sunny day they said the snow was getting pretty mushy for skiing.  We continued on to Bryce and found to our delight that this weekend is a freebie - no entrance fee for the MLK holiday.  Since the skiing was not good, we just drove to all the viewpoints.  It wasn't crowded at all and so beautiful with all the snow on the red rocks.  If they get another snow over that way, we may have to try it out. 

"Winterbeards" and Snow

We jumped out of bed early Saturday, got ready, and headed up Cedar Canyon to take in some snow.  It was beautiful weather and since we got there early, there weren't many people there yet.  On the way up and down the canyon we took pictures of amazing "winterbeards".  We had a great time skiing for a few hours, ate lunch in the car overlooking Navajo Lake and headed on down. In route we found a place where they actually have some groomed trails that we are anxious to try out another day. We met up with Lou and kids in Cedar and dropped off Bryan's birthday present.  It was a really nice day out in some beautiful scenery.

Some random shots

We took a walk a few days ago during all that rain and spotted  a really big rainbow.  Unfortunately we didn't have a camera, just a phone.  We also saw these beautiful leaves on the sidewalk - again a phone camera.  The hats are just funny.  Paul is always teaching the grand kids to wear our sofa pillows for hats.  Brenden couldn't be content until we all had a hat.

First Adventure of 2011 and New Year's enchiladas and games

New Year's Eve we were just old fogies and watched movies and went to bed.  New Year's Day we were a little more exciting and ventured out in the two degree weather of Pine Valley to don our cc skis and see if we remembered any of last year's hard acquired skills.  We did!  We didn't fall down once.  It was perfect conditions with good powder and cold enough that it didn't melt and stick to your skis.  We got some great exercise and along with seeing some beautiful scenery.  We only saw one other person on our way out.  Can't wait to get out there again.  That evening we had a fun family get together with everyone bringing food for dinner and then the adults played a really fun game that Juge and Lance brought and the kids enjoyed a movie.  (Didn't get any pics of the evening activities.)

Happy Birthday to Eden

Eden's birthday is the first one of the new year and since she was here we decided to celebrate it a little early so we could enjoy it with her here.  In lieu of cake, we decorated some more cookies.  Eden blew out her candles and Noah needed one on his cookie too...good practice for when his birthday comes.  We are glad we got to celebrate #4 with you Eden.  We love you!

Making wonder stoves

Dorothy was nice enough to let us all come over and put together everyone's Wonder Stoves (Juge gave them to us for Christmas - assembly required) in her garage.  It was fun with Noah and Brenden zooming around the garage playing bumper car as we tried hard to keep all those little Styrofoam beads from getting away from us.  It took Juge, Christie, Weed and me to cover that and Dorothy sewed them up to keep them from escaping after we got them into their little bags.  Afterward we watched the how-to dvd.  Thanks Juge.  Now we are all a little more prepared. (Sorry - phone pictures are not quality.)

Christmas 2010...a change of tradition

Traditions seem to need some adjusting as life changes. It's hard to change, but we did something a little different this year, and I think, at least for us, it was a good change.  We are getting so much offspring now that it is sometimes quite chaotic to get us all together in one house, especially in the winter when we can't spread a little to the outdoors.  We thought that instead of walking over each other and Grandma Kurtz feeling too overwhelmed by everyone getting together for Christmas morning, we would be the ones to go out and visit each of our local kids for Christmas morning and doing our gift exchanges there.  Everyone was nice enough to agree to our change of plans and other than Supe and Bean being sick and not able to come around with us, it worked out pretty well.  Grandma was so pleased to be able to come with us and not spend Christmas morning alone because all of our noise is too much for her.  Thanks to all the family for agreeing to our change of tradition. Paul and I started our day by opening our gifts  to each other and some that were here from some of the kids (Supe and Bean were not ready to get up to join us then.) Then we went to Grandma's where she opened some gifts.

Then we started our rounds at Moss & Christie's.

 

Next we visited Juge and Lance at the Sheffield's little casita. where they were staying while visiting for the holidays.   

Then we headed over to Lenae and Derek's.

After stopping by the house, opening presents with Supe and Bean, and grabbing a bite to eat, we visited the Borrowman's.  Bean was feeling better by then and came with us.

Then it was off to the Randall's in Enoch.  

 Later in the evening it was fun to have people come over for a bite to eat and some visiting (and some cookie decorating and karaoke). 

Grandma had a good day with us and was fine with missing the evening get together.  She did such a nice job of having different ones of us over for little dinner parties earlier in the month.  She's such a great cook and hostess. Thanks to all of you for the nice Christmas gifts and for agreeing to let us switch things up a little this year. 

Crazy full month...catch up time

After the early in the month December birthdays, which we celebrated  in conjunction with Thanksgiving, we got to wish Gaige a happy birthday #5.  We love you Gaige...happy birthday. 

Next on the agenda of fun stuff was a visit from Jay, Brynn & Madi.  We had such a good time hanging out, visiting and we even did a little early Christmas gift exchange so we could enjoy opening gifts to each other.  Madi gets cuter all the time.  Thanks to Brynn (and everyone who sent her pictures) for the so fun book.  (I think Brynn must have been avoiding the camera...where was she whenever I was taking pictures?)

 Then came the rain, rain and more rain.  Paul and I decided to go out to look at the waterfalls at Hell Hole Canyon in Kayenta and then just couldn't resist hiking up the canyon.  The rain was warm, so even though we got pretty soaked, the amazing views were so worth it.