Pine Valley dinner...and a passing rainstorm

It was a good time and a good dinner, but then the thunder, lightening, wind and rain made for a very quick clean up.  Too bad everyone went home.  We decided to wait it out and by the time we drove down to the camp ground area it was pretty well gone and we enjoyed a beautiful, fresh air, cool evening walk!  We saw all of picnickers high tailing it and all that was left were the campers with their smoky fires adding to the evening air.  It was lovely!  Glad we stuck it out!  

A few too many snakes!

Yikes!  I don't much like snakes.  We did enjoy some beautiful scenery on Smith's Mesa and did find the little arch that Lance took us to once before, but in the process we came across a couple of snakes in a very short distance.  I was ready to move along to new territory after that!  We did move on and ate our picnic lunch at Lava Point and then drove home over Cedar Mountain (which I slept through way too much of) and made it back in time to head to Pine Valley for a stake leaders dinner. Snakes...they creep me out!  These were the first poisonous ones we've seen this summer, thank goodness!  

Snake number one (coiled up) was sitting in such a cool, shady spot that he couldn't be bothered to rattle and on our way back we chucked a little stick at him to see if he was even alive.  He answered with a little tongue flick and nothing more.  The other one (bottom right) was much bigger and more awake and gave us a good warning rattle and went on it's way. 

The little "hobbit house" was really well located so that you could miss it very easily.  It was a very interesting little piece of construction.  

Cub Day Camp 2015 - Adventure is Awesome!

This year's day camp went with the Lego Movie theme as well as the new, updated Cub Scout program's Adventure theme.  Our stake was lucky enough to enjoy being in charge of the climbing wall again.  I went Friday evening to help with the Webelos and just stopped in to make sure everything was running well and train the volunteers on Saturday morning...2 more just like that to go still.  It was hot, but so much fun.  The kids don't really pass anything off at the wall, but it is a favorite and I love it because they do learn that they can do hard things and gain a lot of confidence with many of them racing for the best time by the end of their session.  The best one for me was the kid who didn't think he could do it at all, but just kept trying going a little higher each time and on his last go before it was time to move to the next activity, he made it all the way up!  His mom was there and it was great to watch that interaction and to hear him say he had done something he had never done before!  It was awesome!  And it was great to have Paul there to support me by helping set up both times. (I made it up one of the walls before we got started too. I'll try another one next time if I have time.)

Tavin #14 & Torin #1 - the oldest and youngest grandsons

Tavin and Torin got older one day apart last week and we joined them for presents and cake! Tavin is as nice as he is good looking and we are very proud of the good young man he is growing up to be.

Torin has to be one of the most adored and tended to little guys there is. The kids pretty much fight over who gets to tend him.  Both of them are very loved by their immediate family and by us!  Happy birthday you two!  

Happy #27 Bean!

Was so happy that Bean was feeling like enjoying his birthday with the family yesterday!  He chose and helped make the meal he wanted for dinner - his special coconut/navy bean/orange soup - which is really good.  He also wanted vegetable k-bobs, tortilla chips, and salad and we threw in some grilled corn on the cob.  It was a very tasty meal...and he ate it with Paul, Grandma Kurtz and me.  Later those who could came over for desert and presents and he enjoyed that too.  Thankful for the good days for Bean.  Thanks to everyone who could make it over to join the celebration.  Happy birthday Bean!  We love you!  Glad Grandma was able to stand our noise too.

A New Twist On An Old Favorite - Ashdown Gorge via Crystal Springs

After taking it rather easy for recovery from shingles and bad colds for a few weeks, it was wonderful to get out on a great hike Saturday.  Juge and Lance had done this recently and it looked great...and it was!  We had never hiked the Crystal Springs Trail down to the Ashdown Gorge.  We usually do it from the bottom up to the middle and we have gone from the Rattlesnake Trailhead at the top down to the trail that continues down to Ashdown Gorge.  We have never done top to bottom because we never set up a shuttle car at the bottom.  Juge and Lance offered us their car to leave at the bottom and we drove our car the short distance up to the Crystal Springs Trailhead.  It was great because that made it a pretty much downhill hike other than one steep ridge and the final pull up out of the gorge to where the car was parked.  It was a beautiful hike starting out through the forest and then ending up hiking in the river in the gorge. Recent rains had made for many flowers and greenery and lots of cool changes in the gorge from so much water coming down.  Some places the river had completely changed coarse and there were some landmarks that had completely changed also.  It was as spectacular as ever!  Perfect weather made it great too.  We did about 12 miles, but it didn't seem tiring because it was so awesome and enjoyable!  It's one of those hikes that you can do over and over and still enjoy and wish every time that you could bring people along to see how amazing it is and enjoy it with you!  

Amazing views from the forest section!

And  in the river section!

This is waterfall is where Rattlesnake Creek joins Ashdown Creek in the gorge.

And this is where Lake Creek drops in to join it.  Notice the rappelers on top.  This was something we had never seen before.

Flowers, greenery, butterflies and raspberries!  

This waterfall has become completely filled in since we went a few years ago.  The top picture shows me with the waterfall above me  (and the other pictures).  The one with Paul shows how it is now just a small step up.  

Flanigan's Arch

The fun didn't end with the end of the hike.  Just as we were leaving from picking up our car at the Crystal Spring trailhead we met the Weavers along the road out.  They invited us to join them for a hot dog and s'mores cook out.  We drove to a good spot and roasted up some great dogs and amazing s'mores with the Grandpa's superior roasting skills. Eden reminded us that the s'mores were "the main part of the meal," and for her they were! Zion kept us smiling tromping around in his new boots and Sarai's pink shorts.  It was a fun way to end a great day! Many thanks to the Weavers for the lend of their car and for dinner!  

And here's this funny boy peeking out from the safety of dad's protection.  He's not quite sure about these strange people called grandpa and grandma.  

Perfect in Pine Valley

Saturday we knew we wanted to get out, but we didn't want go too far, so Pine Valley was the answer.  It ended up being a perfect choice.  It was 68 degrees when we got there and the recent rain was still evident in the cool dampness in the air and soil.  We decided to revisit one of our favorite little hikes - we call it the waterfall trail.  It isn't a maintained trail and had many fallen trees, but it was as beautiful as ever.  We found some very ripe raspberries along the way and what a treat they were.  We followed the waterfalls past where the trail ends until it got to be more bushwhacking than fun and then came back down and ate lunch at our favorite falls.  

After that we went over to follow the White Elephant  Saw Mill trail for a while.  We went along as usual, took a nap at a great shady spot and then noted some pink ribbons marking the trail further up the mountain...and they kept going, and going and going until we peaked out after some pretty sketchy scrambling here and there in some very steep spots.  We were hoping it would top out into the Whipple Trail but again, it just kept going.  We had no more time or desire for the scrambling, so we had to call it a day as we were not prepared to spend the night up there trying to see where it came to an end.  We were quite relieved to get down from the high part and back to the regular trail.  A fun day in a beautiful place.  We topped it off with a shared piece of strawberry rhubarb pie at Veyo Pie on our way home!  Mmm good!  

The healing power of the mountain air

I think Paul would be "well enough" to go camping if he were on his death bed.  It isn't quite that bad, but his shingles haven't made for an easy week.  Friday he had had enough of hanging about he house doing honey do home repairs and with the excuse of checking on a phony stone repair job in Brian Head we loaded it up and went camping.  He's also catching my cold and I'm still coughing and blowing my nose, but thank goodness we went!  It was so beautiful and the weather was perfect! You can be sick in the mountains just as well as you can at home!  

Paul cooked a great stew and dumplings for our dinner.

In the morning we hiked and coughed our way up the Twisted Forest Trail.  Love these gnarly old trees and the awesome views from the top.  

I guess these are different stages of pine cone formation as well as a cute little baby tree starting to grow.  

We also stopped to hike another bristlecone pines trail, saw turkeys and beautiful flowers and awesome views.