Genghis on peach patrol

In the bottom left picture he's licking his chops just thinking about the birds he might snag!

Genghis is doing a pretty good job of keeping watch over our peaches this year.  If he could just be out all the time I don't think the birds would get much of any chance at them.  He has a little spot just barely big enough where he lays in wait for any feathered snack that might come his way.

Happy June birthdays & Father's Day

What a nice week end!  Jay, Brynn and Madi came down to join the week end fun which started on Friday evening with dinner and visiting with Moss and Christie and Brenden. Jay couldn't wait for Moss to open his birthday present so he did and they had fun playing with min helicopters. Saturday morning we went to the samples sale at the Kelty factory and picked up some good deals and then took a walk up on T-Bone Mesa.  Then Lou and Bryan and family (Afton is getting cuter all the time, but not ready to leave mom's care too much yet) arrived and Moss and Christie rejoined us for more visiting and Moss got to open another present early - pedals for his new bike which they then installed.  He was pretty excited about that.  Then there was a bit more helicoptering until the Borrowmans, Smiths and G'ma Kurtz came over and we had dinner out back and then opened all the rest of the birthday and Father's Day presents.  It was lots of fun!  I think the most loved present would have to be the one the kids put together for Paul, a book of remembrances about time he spent with them growing up, and Weed made a beautiful pencil drawing of Paul for the cover. Thanks to everyone for all the wonderful gifts and especially for that highlight gift.   Later those that could stay a bit longer did and played Phase Ten (which Bryan/Bonnie won - Bonnie may have ignorantly cheated to do it). Sunday we got to have Jay and Brynn and Madi go to church with us - Madi stole the hearts of all the back row ladies in Relief Society.  Then while Bonnie did the typing we chatted with Supe and Paul and Jay, with the able assistance of Brynn, made their own Father's Day dinner.  It was SOOOO good!  Then it was time to say good bye again.  Madi felt good enough during this visit (she has always been under the weather on other visits) that we got to enjoy her cute little personality and even some snugly hugs.  We got to visit with Juge and Bean via phone which finished the goodness.  As usual, the only thing that could have been better would have been if those that couldn't be here could have been here (and if the chili had been more tasty - we'll work on that for next time).  I think that "no empty chairs" thing is something we all will enjoy later - even more than we do now!

(Oops - we goofed and didn't get any pics of Bonnie & Derek doing the birthday thing.)

A week of this and that

Our week started out with going to a free concert in the park for FHE.  It was really fun just sitting in a shady spot and listening as Kerry Christensen, a world class yodeler, put on a nice show.  There were lots of people there.  He did lots of yodeling while playing his accordion, of course, but also played an alpine horn and a zither.  It was really cool hearing those neat instruments.

On Thursday evening we went to the art talk at the St. George Art Museum and listened to Amado Pena talk about his exhibit (top floor) which was quite interesting if a little long, and also enjoyed the Minerva Teichert and Rembrandt works exhibits up there too. The ground level exhibit of southwestern landscapes by Charles Thomas is really nice also.  Afterwards we went for a walk up on the Red Hill and saw a cute little arch and also went up the Narrow slot for a ways until we didn't want to scramble around to go further.

 Friday morning we took Wayne Stucki on the vortex hike up by Sand Cove so he would know where to go when taking the scouts on a hike up there.

It was 64 degrees and overcast - perfect hiking weather.  We ate our breakfasts at the top and met up with some people from the Biggest Loser place who came up just shortly after we got there.  Its been a fun week of this and that.

Kaibab camping and Grand Canyon hiking...and Jacob's Lake cookies!

Our camp spot

We are pretty spoiled I guess, but we just have to take advantage of the chance to get out during camping season.  After our nice camp out last weekend, we decided we would do it again.  Friday after getting things done, we took off to find a camp spot over in the Kaibab on one of the many dirt roads that filter through it.  There are so many that it's kind of hard to pick. We found a nice spot among the aspen, fir and spruce.  We didn't see anyone else the whole time we were there.  Paul cooked up a nice dinner and we went for a long evening walk and then came back and watched True Grit sitting out in the cool forest air.  After a great night's sleep and tasty breakfast we decided to use our new park pass again and went the few more miles over to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  We had only the day, so we picked a hike we could do and then drive home in time to get to bed.  The Widforss trail is a 10 miler that goes out to Widforss Point which is a very nice overlook.  There's a little interpretive guide for the first half of the trail that was informative and there is a picnic table at the point, so we lunched there.  It was a really nice hike on a good trail.  There weren't many people there compared to the rest of the canyon.  

Widforss Trail and water stations at South Kaibab trail head and North Rim Administration Office

We also went over to the main lodge and Kaibab trail head area and checked out a few of the water stations that we put in last winter to see how the looked all finished up.  They turned out well and people are making good use of them.  I even washed my feet at one of them.  They were pretty dirty after the hike and I wanted to wear my flip flops without that black ankle line of dirt showing!  We stopped in at Jacob's Lake and had some good food and cookies for dinner. After that it was time to head for the hogan. Only wish we would have had one more night to camp out. 

Desert, alpine & family fun!

It was another enjoyable weekend.  We decided to just load up and go camping on Friday night.  We went out to the old stone quarry between St. George and Leeds on that very rough road between the two.  It was a perfect night, so we just slept under the stars.  We ate dinner before we left and just came home for breakfast in the morning, so it was quick packing up and setting up.  We had a little time to hike around before dark and were able to harvest a few yucca poles to make some walking sticks.  They are hard to find, especially ones that aren't bug eaten, so we counted that a bonus.  We took the laptop and watched Rabbit Hole which is a sad/good drama (some laughs too) movie that we both enjoyed and then piled into our comfy sleeping bag for a good starlit and fresh air to breath night's sleep.  In the morning we weren't really interested in heading home for breakfast until we had gone down and hiked for a while in Cottonwood Canyon (we had looked down on it the evening before and knew we couldn't leave without some time there).  The stream was full and sounded so nice from up above and in the canyon.  We did lots of back and forth across it during our stroll and loved it all!  

After coming home for a quick breakfast, we loaded up lunch and our coats and took off for the high country on Cedar Mountain with a stop by at Lou and Bryan's to drop of some stuff and say "Hi" to them.  We wanted to go and check out the site for G'ma's b-day bash.  The road got bad after a bit and we left the car and hiked (we had planned on this) off to find the place.  There is still snow and water everywhere and lots of mudslides/trees down from the big snow of the winter. We saw lots of crazy snow sculptures. In a few places lower down we saw just touches of aspen leaves coming out.  We sort of walked past the place we should have turned off to head to the campsite (no sign on the main road about it) and had a nice hike and then back tracked and found it, explored it and sloshed back to the car.  Then we drove home through Zion - thanks for the pass everybody!   

Oh, one evening earlier in the week we took another evening walk in Snow Canyon (found out the pass was actually good for another month) and did the unthinkable and went off trail in the canyon behind the sand dunes.  It's really cool!  We were lucky that the ranger we ran in to on the way back to our car didn't see us out there!

Genghis didn't get to go, be he got some relaxation in before we left. 

To finish off the week end, we had our "feast of the fast over family dinner" at Moss and Christie's house.  I am so glad we decided to do this and thanks to everyone for taking turns hosting.  It is a blast hanging out and visiting and the food is always so good.  The kids are great - forgot to take a picture of the older ones because they just played together so well we didn't even know they were there! One other thing that was great was that we got to chat with Supe (in Africa) and hear more about his adventures there.  It was fun to get more details about everything he's doing and what its like over there.   It was another one of those hard to beat it weeks. :O)