Mt. Delano, the goats, rain and hail!

It was time to make our pilgrimage to see the goats on Mt. Delano.  We did our cleaning at the church, packed our picnic and took off.  Oh, it was SO beautiful!  The flowers in the lower elevations were at peak with color everywhere!  You just wanted to inhale it all somehow!  And it was  wonderful to get away from the heat for the day.  And we did get away from it for sure!  We decided to head up the St. John's Flat road first and check out the goats.  We couldn't see any from the road, so it was off for a hike up the mountain to see if we could find them.  Some people pointed us in the direction of a group of 3 that we could see quite well, but couldn't really get close to because they were too nervous.  We knew there had to be more, so we decided to climb the peak to see if we could see them from there.  We were just about to the peak when we found the main group.  They were also too far away to see very well and someone had come closer than us and they were nervous, so we called reaching the peak good.  Just as we finished putting the sign-in back in the mailbox, the rain stated.  We decided we needed to get off the mountaintop fast, so down we went again.  It was a little sketchy with rain, then hail, and thunder and lightning and more rain.  We even stopped once to hunker down in a ravine, but when we checked the weather and saw that there was just going to be more, we moved on back to the car staying off the mountaintops as much as possible.  It was still raining strong, so we hurried down the road to get across the two stream fords before they were too full and then down to Beaver.  We ate our lunch there at about 3:00.  (We had eaten our candy bars and some grapes on the way there.)  Then we headed back down to the heat and home.  It was a beautiful day and just whetted us for a camping trip up there to see the other fork that we didn't do!

The goats are in the two bottom right picture near the peaks.  

  

Ashdown Gorgeous, etc.

This is a little out of order.  The Saturday before Kai was born we took the amazing hike to Ashdown Gorge.  We were a little worried that we might miss the coming out party, but luckily he waited a week!  This hike NEVER disappoints us.  It is just the best of the best.  We were a bit concerned when it started to drizzle a bit as we ate our lunch.  Being in a canyon when it's raining is not necessarily a wise thing.  We kept watch on the water level and color pretty close and nothing seemed too bad, so we finished the hike.  We only did a short version for lack of time, but we made it to Flanagan's Arch and the Lake Creek and Rattlesnake Creek waterfalls.  That's all we had hoped to do and it was totally worth it! It was the perfect hike for getting out of the heat since we were in the water pretty much the whole day. On the way home we took the long route. We drove on up to Cedar Breaks and caught the wild flowers there. Then we drove up to Brian Head to check out the remnants of the recent forest fire...sad, but thankfully not as bad as expected.  They were still mopping up. Then we drove back through Zion and stopped in at Oscar's for dinner.  It was a full and beautiful day!  (And we did our cleaning assignment at the church before we left!)

Cedar Breaks for July Birthdays!

It is always pretty cool, and even has a few sprinkles sometimes, but oh how good it is to get away from the heat to celebrate July birthdays at Cedar Breaks!  We sang to and opened presents for Beacher, Tahlia, Supe and Ellie this year.  Jay and Brynn were on their way back from their CA trip, so we made it our monthly Sunday dinner too (only on Saturday) so everyone could come and join the fun (Derek and kids were in Hawaii).  Juge was in charge of the food and she brought the most amazing pulled pork.  The rest of us brought stuff to go with it and Brynn made beautiful cakes - purple for Ellie and a unicorn for Tahlia.  (Supe and Beacher just joined them on this).  We ate, walked over to enjoy the wild flowers and basked in the coolness of the evening! Afterwards a few of us stopped by Juge and Lance's house to witness Supe's haircut and just to hang out!  Fun stuff! Happy Birthday to all...we love you mucho! (This all took place the same afternoon that Kai was born!  

Malakai Moss "Kai" Lillywhite!

Saturday, July 15th, at 2:42 in the afternoon, Malakai Moss "Kai" joined his earthly family here in St. George, Utah!  He came a few days later than expected, but we are all so happy that he arrived safe and sound.  Everything went well for Mom too!  He arrived with a crowd there to welcome him.  The Key family always has a big turn out for the coming out party. The Lillywhites are a bit more reserved about it and after a crazy morning taking care of Grandma and cleaning the church and getting ready for the afternoon family dinner, we arrived soon after the party got started.  We think he looks a lot like Brenden (8) without the red hair.  He and Eliza (4) both seem so very pleased to have this little guy join the family!  We all are!  Congratulations Moss and Christie!  

The coming out party!

First visit to our house!

The latest family picture!

Lillywhite chicks fun!

Brynn and girls stopped off for a couple of days on their way to their "family camp" down in CA. Jay had to leave early to be there for some business meetings, so the girls were on their own.  We had lots of fun with them!  All who could came for cooling off and popsicles at Nisson Park one evening.  The next day we visited the Desert Garden with Juge and kids and swam with them at the Sheffield's pool. That evening we took the girls - Madi, Tahlia and Essie - for their Christmas edventure date to Veyo Pool/Crawdad Canyon.  (We took Brynn and Clara too so they could see the place and Supe and Beacher.)  We caught crawdads and fish, swam, ate and then partied with Beacher for her birthday.  It was a full day.  In the midst of all of this fun we were checking in on Grandma Kurtz in the rehab center.  That made it just a little crazy, but life happens unexpectedly and you just deal with it.  After all of the fun we had to send them off on the 2nd leg of their trip.

Clara mostly came for the ice cream!

July 4th fun 2017

Well, it started out well and ended well, but in the middle it wasn't the most fun!  The starting out part was stopping by Kolob Fingers and getting my Senior annual national parks pass for life...for only $10.  Found out that next year it goes up to $80, so I'm glad I got in on the final year deal!  Then we headed up the mountain to go get a small load of wood at the Bulloch's property...and we got a flat tire on the little truck.  So we put on the donut tire, which isn't in the best shape, and drove back down the hill to Cedar City to try to get the tire fixed.  None of the tire stores were open, but we finally found a gas station/mechanic shop that would fix it.  And it was too bad to be fixed.  So the guy hunted up a new tire (they are a crazy size) and put it on.  It was expensive and not that great a tire, but it was the only option we had!  Then we headed back up the mountain and got our load of wood.  It was really pretty and hard work.  Then we drove over the mountain which was really pretty! We had one more truck adventure when we tried to drive all the way around Kolob resevoir...it can't be done and especially not in our little truck.  Lucky Paul is good at getting us out of bad situations!   We got home in plenty of time to watch the fireworks with the Borrowmans and the Smiths up on the hill. They have moved the shooting off location to the university stadium, so our seats aren't as grand as they used to be.  We had rootbeer floats and it was fun!  

June birthdays...and a broken hip

It was a real struggle to find a  time when we could all get together for the late June birthdays for Derek, Moss and me.  We finally found the best time...and it almost worked out!  The Sunday evening before the party of the following Thursday Grandma Kurtz slipped and fell down.  She landed hard on her hip.  She said it hurt really bad, but could still get  up and kept going until late Thursday afternoon when it just hurt too much.  I took her to Instacare and they found that she had broken it.  So then we went to the hospital and finally got her settled in there.  Paul and I decided that we wanted to be there with her...but the party needed to go on and it did in fine fashion!  So glad it turned out so well and so glad that Juge shared pictures of the fun!  Grandma had her hip replaced the next day and we are heading into the rehab phase tomorrow.  The party included crawdad fishing, a picnic, birthday presents and cakes and a swimming party (Supe kept the pool open late just for the family after everyone else left!)

Zade & Trigg - Christmas "edventure" at Veyo Pool/Crawdad Canyon

Our Christmas date "edventure" with Trigg included Zade.  They seemed to be the best match.  We went up to Veyo Pool/Crawdad Canyon on Friday late afternoon and went down to the river to try our luck crawdad fishing.  We had great luck and picked up a lot of little fish to boot!  The boys had lots of fun with that!  Then we went up to the pool and had dinner.  The boys tried Pronto Pups for the first time and they were a hit!  They loved swimming in the lazy river area right next to where we ate and were even happier when Supe found them some goggles from the lost and found!  After that we got into the big pool and had a fun game of keep away with the toypedo from that we still had from when we had a membership in the neighborhood pool and our kids loved playing with it.  Several other kids joined our fun too.  When it was time for the pool to close Supe treated us to twist cones.  I think the boys were pretty tired out after all of that fun!  It was just the right date for Trigg...and Zade just lucked out!