#16...surprise early arrival!

This morning we got the phone call we have been waiting for, but thought we would be waiting longer to receive.  Juge and Lance welcomed baby girl Weaver this morning at 4:30 am.  I don't think that early morning thing is Weaver style, is it?  Early or not, they seem pretty pleased with this new little one.  I was feeling sorry for myself about not getting to see her right away, but then I thought of how long my parents had to wait to get a glimpse of most of our kids.  They had to wait until we had finished the roll of film and then had time and money to take it in to be developed and then mail one to them.  We have at least received, via text message technology, a picture of this cute little sweetie.  Juge kept assuring us that she wasn't going to arrive until late in the month or early in April, so we were pleasantly surprised to get the news today.  Her name has yet to be decided (Eden says it's Polly or she will give up her name to the baby and become Delphinium Twinkle instead). "Polly" weighed 7lbs. 2 oz. and is about 20.5" long.  If the weather had looked better, we would have run off this afternoon for an up and back trip.  At this point, I guess we will just have to be patient until we head up that way at the end of the month.  From the sound of things, Eden is pretty excited about her new sister and was actually awake for her arrival (she's was born at home).  Noah hadn't really woken up to get acquainted much when we talked to Juge and Lance this morning.  Congratulations to the Weavers!  We look forward to meeting little "Polly" soon. Update - along with a few more pictures we are hearing that this little girl will probably be Sarai - another bible name to match the rest of the kids. 

More spring break fun...

I really wanted to get the good out of this time off, and so far I have.  Monday we continued the good times by taking a family hike to the little slot canyon above Snow Canyon and to the vortex (we think that's what it's called) out by Sand Cove, eating picnic lunch at Sand Cove reservoir, and then a driving by the Gunlock spillway.  We all brought our lunch and after the vortex we sat around by the lake at Sand Cove and ate.  Everyone did great on the hikes.  Some people kept getting hit by flying juniper berries along the way...where did those flying berries come from? Some new names were carved on the rocks. Tavin was attacked by a fear crazed lizard on the way down from the vortex.  It ran right up his leg.  Brynnli was able to rescue him and  all the kids took a turn comforting the little lizard before setting him free.  After eating lunch we checked out the little tunnel that brings the water into Sand Cove reservoir.  The kids were having fun throwing rocks into the water.  Ferf did get in the way one time and Tasia got her with a rock...no serious injuries were sustained.  The kids are still in the process of learning that you can't stand at the back of the group and throw rocks without the people in the front being somewhat peeved at you.  It was a fun outing and the weather was in complete cooperation.  Sorry the Randalls weren't able to join the fun.  Sorry that all the rest of you weren't here too.

That evening we packed it up and headed over to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon to wash off 6 hydro stations that we did over there.  We spent the night in Cameron at the cool motel there.

In the morning got to work washing off the stonework.  In the process of doing it we had to go from one end of the park to the other and got to enjoy all the views along the way.  There were quite a few people there and at a couple of the places we washed stone there were people either going down or coming back up from the bottom of the canyon.  It made me want to join them.  The weather is perfect there right now...still a little snow on top, but not so hot that you die of heat stroke while doing the hike.  Maybe another time...we finished up and went over to pick up some stone mantles from Ashfork.  After that it was late enough that we decided to spend the night in Flagstaff and then head home on Wednesday morning.

I loved this little sign among all the handiwork of Heavenly Father's creations that I was enjoying.  It was nice to see Him getting credit for something for a change.

Let the good times begin...spring break!!!

Don't get me wrong.  I love my job...but I am so ready for this spring break.  I came home from school on Friday and was jumping up and down excited just like a kid getting off school.  I couldn't decide what to do first.  I calmed down enough to think logically and we got some shopping done, went out to dinner and then went over to Grandma's to watch the BYU/NM game.  Grandma had tickets to the BYU Folk Dancers, so we just had to watch without her.  I had been wanting to watch "Jimmer" and he put on a record breaking show of 52 points.  Saturday we wanted to be home for the BYU/San Diego game at 4 pm, so we decided to go and check out Cathedral Gorge St. Park over by Panaca, Nevada.  We had done a quick stop by once before, but wanted to do the whole thing.  It's not a big place, but has some amazing scenery.  It was perfect weather and we had a great time and got back in time for the game, which was not great.  Today we had our St. Paddy's feast of corned beef and cabbage.  Spring break is off to a great start!!!

Cool places revisited

Yesterday Paul and I decided to try and find some places we had hiked to in the past, but had kind of forgotten how to get to.  We got lucky and with a little bit of wandering scored on both places and threw in a bonus visit to another cool place.Our first destination was a little slot canyon above Snow Canyon that has quite a few petroglyphs.   We hiked to where we thought it was and it wasn't there for some reason.  On the way back we kept looking around and happened upon some cairns that led us right to it.  We tried to make some really good mental notes and should be able to find it next time without  a problem...we hope!

Our second destination was to find the rock bowl with names carved in it out by Sandcove/Gunlock area.  We hiked there once a long time ago with the kids.  Once again we did some wandering and bushwhacking, but found it and now know the faster route.  Both places were so pretty (and yesterday was perfect hiking weather).  Only one thing could have made it better...if all of the family could have been there to enjoy it with us.

We decided to go through Gunlock on the way home and the bonus was that the dam was overflowing.  That is such a beautiful site.  We couldn't resist hiking over to it and taking a few pictures.  There were a couple of falls that the only way to see them was to go downstream a ways.  To really see them well you needed to cross the river and hike up the other side to a better viewing location.  Paul took the plunge and got the shots.  I didn't get in...had on my new leather hiking shoes and didn't want them shrinking on me.  If I had had on my old tennys , I would have gone with  him.

When we got home we got lucky again with a dinner invitation from Moss and Christie.  They did all the work and we just ate up the fruits of their labors...mmm good.  Then we headed off the the Saturday evening session of our stake conference which was held in the Tabernacle.  We met there again today for our main session of stake conference.  We had the best seats in the house...front row of the balcony facing the podium. Sunday evening we got together for the first of our monthly feast of the fast over family dinners.  We didn't have the full crew with Derek sick, Ryan working and Moss and Christie at baby blessing festivities, but we had lots of fun and plenty of good food.

Snow & Birthdays

 Monday morning Paul and I headed up to Pine Valley to try out the snow (I had no school that day).  There was plenty, but conditions were really poor for skiing with lots of hard crust some places and melting snow other places making it pretty easy to fall on your face if you weren't careful.  It was really pretty and lots of exercise, but not very good skiing. 

 In the evening we got together for cake for Lenae and Ferf's birthdays. Here's the usual flattering "what a windbag" shot.  While we were hanging out we had a little family council and decided to try to have a once a month family "feast of the fast over dinner" rotating to different people's houses to eat and to celebrate the birthdays around that time.  It's hard to find a day other than Sunday when everyone is most likely to be able to make it.  We decided on fast Sunday because no one could possibly be out home teaching that early in the month could they?