Blessing day for Trigg

Yesterday was Trigg's blessing day.  He was being peaceful as usual.  These pics were taken on the fly out the door afterwards with Paul's Ipad, but hey, they aren't too bad!  It was nice to have so many able to come and participate in this special day.  Those who could stay for the rest of the meetings got a real treat too.  What a great ward.  We love you Trigg!

A day to celebrate

Today we had the privilege of joining a best friend of Bean's for his temple sealing.   It is so great to see young people getting off to the right start.  I wish they lived closer by so we could enjoy visiting with them and watching them grow up and raise their family.  

Pioneer Day...beating the heat and getting out

We decided to head for the hills, as usual, to make good use of our day off for Pioneer Day.  I guess you could say we did get a little inkling of some of the pioneer life in dealing with the weather along the trail....and actually loved it.  I'm sure dealing with it day after day might have been quite another story.  We got out of the heat by going up to Brian Head and then over towards Cedar Breaks area to do the Rattlesnake Trail.  It's only a 4 mile trail down to the junction with High Mountain Trail, but you drop 3200 feet in that 4 miles and then climb back up the same, so it's quite a work out, but also worth it.  We only saw evidence of other people - their tent and gear were at the junction.  Other than that, we had the place to ourselves.  Probably because we're the only ones dumb enough to enjoy hiking in the monsoon thunderstorms.  A couple of times we had to hunker down in a grove of trees and let it pass.  It was perfect temperature wise and every now and then the sun would peek out and we'd shed our jackets or ponchos for a while.  It was good to be out enjoying the rain and such a beautiful place!  We found some great campsites for future use too.

Just a few of the great views

More views and cool rocks and plants

More gorgeous stuff, view from our shelter grove during a real downpour,  Paul in steamy glasses.

It was interesting to watch the water change.  The first creek we walked by looked like this...pretty clear.

Then another creek - clay colored - joined it.

Here is where they joined up.

After they mixed, we had this color.

 

On the way back, after lots of rain, our clear creek had turned reddish.

Here's the same spot earlier while it was still clear.

We  stopped in Cedar City to eat dinner at the park and there was our creek, joined by many additions along the way.  Now it was a thick, sluggish, chocolate mass. 

When they get the road fixed at the bottom, we are looking forward to hiking from the top clear out to the bottom of this hike.  The last half is in the river, and it isn't something you want to do during the monsoon season and without a shuttle vehicle at the end. 

A little pioneer history & The Toadstools

All of the overcast weather has made us want to get out camping, as usual, so we went over to Jacob's Lake for dinner and then out into the Ponderosas to camp.  Had a beautiful walk and watched Silent Movie till bed time.  In the morning we had breakfast at Jacob's Lake and then we met Ferf and kids at Pipe Springs where we enjoyed learning about the settling of that area and about pioneer life there.  It was very interesting.  After a picnic lunch we made the drive over to see The Toadstools outside Kanab. They are really cool formations.  After that we made a stop at Wendy's for a little ice cream and then it was time to head for home.  Another fun get out there time! 

The deer were just as curious to see us as we were to see them.  We also saw a beautiful Kaibab squirrel, but he refused to hold still to have his picture taken. 

 

Killing many birds with one stone...and having a lot of fun in the process!

We got a lot of birds killed this weekend...and all with one stone. First we camped out at our favorite campsite in the Tushar Mts. It was rainy and beautiful. We got to try out our new dvd player and watch a movie in the tent before bed. Thanks everyone - it works great! We had to sleep in for a while the next morning to wait for the rain to quit so we could put away the tent. Next we headed north on the back roads. Saw some fun stuff and ate lunch at a so good little hamburger joint in Ephraim. Then we got to meet sweet Tahlia and hang out with everyone at Jay and Brynn's. Another beautiful grand baby! Supe joined us and Jay cooked up a great dinner. They tried to teach Paul and me to play Nuts. We will have to work on that for a while before we reach expert level. Lots of fun. Madi is such a cutie and kept us pretty much entertained too. Sunday after church we joined the Weavers for a fantastic dinner made by Juge and to celebrate Supe's birthday a little more. Monday we headed back home stopping to pick up a load of stone en route. We stopped for a minute at Lou and Bryan's to drop off a shovel they had left at our house too. Brady took me out to gather some eggs and then they gave us some to take home. Mmm...fresh eggs. We were so glad that it was rainy when we got back instead of baking hot. So we accomplished lots of fun stuff other than just getting a load of stone. I love these kind of business trips! 

Supe had a Creamie with a candle on top for a birthday cake this time.  Everyone enjoyed their Creamies as you can see.

Pretty Tahlia and some of her admirers.

Have you ever seen anyone so excited about wearing a tie?  We did manage to get her take it off before church! 

Happy #6 Ellie!

The cake blowing ceremony!

Afton's antics - she just loved Ellie's new birthday shirt and had to model it for us...stepping in at the neck hole and working it the rest of the way up. She loved Ellie's kitty card.  Cake and ice cream should be enjoyed like this, shouldn't they? 

Opening the presents!   The wagon had to be hunted for...what fun!

 Ellie will be turning 6 next week, but the chance to have both sets of grand parents plus a great grandma in attendance made it OK to celebrate just a little early.  What a cute 6 year old she is.  It was so nice that we could all come together to celebrate with her...and enjoy her favorite dinner of home made chicken nuggets, fries and salad along with yet another creative cake ordered by Ellie and created by mom and dad.  It was a fun evening.  Afton added some comedy with her funny antics.  Just wish Ellie was an in-town grand daughter so we could enjoy her a bit more often.  Life is too busy and she is growing up fast.  We love you Ellie.  Happy #6!

Beat the heat...walk in the river

The other night we decided it was just too hot to take our regular evening walk...so we walked in the river instead.  It was  a whole lot cooler and a nice change of scenery.  We saw lots of cool plants in the process.  The only bad thing was when Paul's phone got dropped in the river.  Oops! Good thing we have insurance on it. 

We did add a face to the "water witch" with the long green hair.  The water was way down, so the moss was just piling up around the rocks. 

Tahlia Grace...can't wait to meet you in person!

We are pretty spoiled and lucky having most of our kids and grand kids living close by.  I don't think we'll ever get all of them here, so we just have to suffer (not in silence obviously) missing the ones that aren't quite as close.  We are looking forward to meeting our latest (#18) grand baby - Tahlia Grace - who was born on July 7th.  She weighed 7.7 and was 20 inches long.  So far, we are happy to hear that all is well and thank goodness for e-mail so we can see how cute she is...even from a distance!  So happy she arrived safe and sound.  See you soon Tahlia!

July 4th fun and more

Our 4th of July started with the patriotic program and breakfast at the church.  Then some of us headed up to Pine Valley for a picnic and hike and some cooling off.  That evening we got together for dinner and the fireworks.  It was a really fun day with plenty of family, food and fun.  Thank goodness we live in this wonderful country where we have so many opportunities and freedoms.  I'm sure that I have no idea just how great I have it.

Thursday Paul and I had the sweet experience of attending the temple sealing of our neighbors.  They were sealed and then they brought their little boys in to be sealed to them.  In the evening we got to visit with the Randalls for a few minutes at the Green Show in Cedar City.  After that we went to the play To Kill a Mockingbird...thanks to all of you for the gift certificate for that.  It was fantastic!  We also used our gift card from the Randalls to got out to dinner up there..thanks.  It was yummy.  It was a great day, but didn't get any pictures of all that goodness.  

Friday when Juge and Lance got to town she organized some of us to head to the Town Square for a picnic and cooling off.

Saturday we needed more cooling off, so Paul and I went out to Falls Park with the Weavers for some fun in the sun, sand and water.  It was a blast! (I'm getting more and more convinced that I need a waterproof camera for all of these fun outings.)  Lance, Paul and I took our turn jumping off that rock (see pic) into the deep pool while Juge watched the kids and kept her hair looking nice!  In other years when the water is more plentiful, you can jump off in more places.  I love this place.  You can enjoy views of Zion and play in the water at the same time. 

Sunday morning Supe headed north where he will wind up all his stateside business, get some rest from all his St. George activities, and then take off for Africa.  We've all enjoyed having him here for a few days.  We hope we'll be able to have him here permanently someday.

Cooling off at Little Jamaica

Yesterday afternoon we decided to take the afternoon off  and go to Little Jamaica with some of the grand kids.  This is when I miss my old van...we could only take three and even then had to take the big gas guzzling truck.  But it was worth it.  We had a great time.  Bean, Tavin and Brynnli had some swimming races while we were there...they have a ways to go before they can beat him, but they did give him some good competition.  Wish it was a little closer so we could get there more often.  Also, it is really hard to take pictures because you have to be so careful not to get the camera wet when you are all wet yourself.  I took the old one and by the end it was a little damp and stopped working.  Didn't get any pictures of playing down in the river which was a lot of fun too.  It reminded me of the old days playing in the river with my kids. The Wound Fin minnows got some chasing and gold was searched for but not discovered.  Glad we can borrow some grand kids to bring back those good times. We all felt kind of crispy from the lime afterwards.  Of course, Arctic Circle got a little of our business to wrap up this little grand "edventure". 

Birthdays & Peruvian hats

We have had many birthdays of late.  We had to celebrate them as conveniently as possible.  We couldn't always have the whole gang together unfortunately, but celebrated they were.  Derek, Moss, Bonnie and Supe were the locals and Madi and Lance got the long distance treatment.  However they got celebrated, the love was felt.  

We celebrated Supe's b-day early (while he is in the country) at the family feast of the fast over dinner.   He brought everyone Peruvian hats some of which are modeled below.  

A Quick Visit to the Tushars

Saturday we made a quick trip up to the Tushar Mts. above Beaver.  We had hoped to go up there camping Friday night, but that didn't work out.  They are as beautiful as ever and we lunched in our favorite camp spot.  After that we drove up to where we could hike across the ridge top to see the mountain goats.   The air smelled of flowers as we hiked.   We didn't have time to hike close enough to get a really good look...another day.  (We also stopped for ice cream and curds in Beaver on the way up. We are old enough that we feel like we can have dessert first.  We enjoyed the curds with lunch.)

The goats are those little quite specks up by the ridge, over by the snow on the left and in the middle of that brown expanse.  Zoom in for a better look if you can.

The picnic spot, Lake La Barron, goat info., flowers, Paul, views, wool left behind by the goats, meadows, more flowers, a log that fell in the road after our passing...we moved it so we could get by. 

Cool evening respite...Pine Valley

Don't think we could survive the summer heat if we couldn't get away to Pine Valley for a picnic here and there.  It was fun to have Weed and kids join us up there for dinner and a walk for FHE (Derek was out of town).  It was kind of a celebration too...Kaebri got her braces off!!!  Here's to cool evenings and smooth teeth!