Rock trips are great!

Luckily Paul's need for rock and my work schedule meshed so I could join him this week.  We had a great dinner at Jacob Lake and spent the night in Flagstaff.  We picked up our rock the next morning and headed home.  Stopped at Outback for coconut shrimp and blue cheese wedge salad for lunch and then cookies and pit stop at Jacob Lake.  We finished Three Against the Wilderness just as we got back home as well as listening to other good stuff and just talking and relaxing!  Love it when we can combine business with fun time together!  (While they loaded up the truck I walked around and enjoyed seeing lots of beautiful stone!)

Love our Red Hill

So happy we have such an amazing back yard!  I got some new hiking boots in anticipation of a backpacking trip this summer.  I decided the perfect place to break them in is in the back yard on Owen's Loop.  I'm also breaking them in on our daily neighborhood walks.  Love seeing the red, white and blue of nature on display as I do it!

Afton, Brady and Brenden - Happy Birthdays!

With January nearly gone we have finished up the birthdays for the month.  Sweet Afton turned 5 and Brady 11.  We went up to celebrate them with dinner, cake and presents all in one.  Brady wasn't unhappy about getting his early I don't think!  Then a bit later we had a little celebration after a day of celebrating with Brenden and family for his #7.  We had Snicker candy bar "cake".  He's being patient and waiting on his present to come in the mail in monthly increments throughout the year - a magazine subscription.  Happy birthday to all!  We love you!  

We had such fun...

We had such run redeeming our Christmas present Friday and Saturday!  The gift cert to Jacob Lake Inn complete with gas card, room and meals was so much fun to use!  It gave us a chance to relax and make a furn memory together while enjoying way too much great food, cookies and some beautiful winter scenery!  I loved how cute our room was too.  I'm not really that interested in winter camping, so this was a much better way to enjoy a little cc skiing without having to make the drive both ways in a day.  We were the only ones staying in the hotel amazingly, so we had the full attention and royal treatment of all 7 of the winter staff.  Thanks to all of you for a really fun, relaxing good time!  

We added some more fun by taking the long way home through Zion to see and even drove up the Kolob Terrace road until it got to icy to check it out!  Loved seeing the winter frosting everywhere!

Pine Valley CC Skiing

After about 3 years of not doing it for the sake of Paul's knees, we tried our luck at cc skiing again up at Pine Valley.  His "new" knees performed beautifully and we had a great time in the beautiful winter wonderland last Saturday.  It took me a while to loosen up a little and not worry so much about falling down and not being able to get up.  By the end I was relaxing and enjoying it more.  Did take one fall and was so glad that only Paul was there to watch me wallow my way back up! I would label myself as an extreme novice, but it is fun to enjoy the snow with gear that makes it comfortable and then leave it behind and enjoy it from a distance in St. George!

Surprise Bryan - Happy #40 and happy #9 Eden - not so surprised!

With lots of cooperation from people at Bryan's work and people in the family Lou was able to pull of a great surprise birthday #40 for Bryan!  It was so fun to see him completely taken in and to celebrate with him and Eden.  Bryan was sure he was coming to the church to pick up the body of someone who had passed away there for the mortuary he works for.  Instead it was for celebrating his 40th with dinner, cake and presents.  

Our sweet Eden was happy to join his fun and blow out a lot less candles.  The balloon inside her present was loaded with cash - one of those buy it yourself birthday presents.  

I knew she'd like that little bear!
We love both of you so much!  Happy, happy birthdays to you!

Happy New Year's Day 2016 - first hike of the year!

It wasn't really an organized, planned hike, but we did enjoy a few hours in the outdoors and it felt very good!  We had hoped to use our gift coupon from the kids to enjoy New Year's at Jacob's Lake, but since they weren't really open, we opted for something closer to home.  We planned to head down past Mesquite to check out some new roads, but got side-tracked in the Gorge looking for some petroglyphs that someone gave us sketchy directions to.  We never found them...but we had such a good time just hiking around in the desert scenery it didn't even matter!

The highlight was checking out this little arch.  We saw it from below, hiked up above to see it from that view and even got into it.  

More fun scenery!  

Happy New Year 2016!

We did a little celebrating for New Year's Eve thanks to the Borrowmans hosting a little get together.  The Smiths came too.  It was fun to eat, play and watch a movie together!  I found out that I'm not too good at picking up a dime with my teeth out of a pan of flour!  We had good food and a good time!  Thanks to Borrowmans for making it happen.  

Good food, fun game and all tired out!

Trigg was the under the stick champion!  Even little Torin wanted to try it!