First hike in a long time!

 Paul and I took a really nice hike yesterday up the Browse road.  It was the perfect weather - not too hot and mountain breezes keeping us cool on the sunny day.  We ended up doing about 6 miles.  We went up a new section of trail that has never been accessible before - The Wet Sandy trail.  We just hiked up it for about 20 minutes after lunch.  We had heard there was a big boulder down in the road from the forest service, but never did find it.  Maybe they had already taken care of it.  But we had such a nice out in the forest with no one else day.  The streams were cold and we soaked our feet in one and sat by one to eat our lunch.  We found some new good camp spots too.  We were pretty tired by the end, but it was good to get out!  There were so many pretty flowers along the way!

We came across this sign in what had looked like a good camping spot along the Wet Sandy Trail.  Guess not!  We skedaddled out of there!

Grand 'Edventure' dates - Trigg, Eliza and Torin

We had fun singing in the car, eating ice cream and then going to Snow Canyon State Park to participate in the Scorpion Hunt activity.  We had a great ranger that shared info with us and led us on the hunt for scorpions out in the sand dunes.  It didn't start until 8:30 and we didn't go out hunting until it was full dark and we could spot them with black lights.  Eliza was pretty scared about it at first, but by the end all 3 of the kids were having a good time.  The ranger also took time to point out and tell some about of the constellations which Trigg really enjoyed as well.  It was good to spend some time with these three.  

Good byes are hard

 We had one on April 19th when Derek's mom, Marie Smith, passed away in the night and Kevin found her gone in the morning.  She had slept in another room because she had a bad cough and didn't want to keep him awake.  What a sad thing for him to find her gone.  Of course we know she is not gone forever, but just gone from him and all the rest of us until that time when reunions happen in the future.  She didn't want a funeral as usual.  They just had a viewing and then a graveside for family and close friends.  Kevin gave a sweet talk there and they had a white dove ceremony which was really beautiful. We joined them in a very nice lunch at the church afterwards also.  I'm so sorry for Derek to have lost yet another important family member; Lenae, his brother Trevor and now his mom.  She was such a sweet lady and so good to the grand kids.  They are going to feel a huge void yet again.  We are all going to miss her every ready hugs and smile.  

I have to say here too that another passing touched my heart recently.  I sat by a lady at one chemo session that had been down a long hard road with pancreatic cancer.  I found out in our conversation that she had been a building inspector that Paul had worked with.  She had lost her husband quite early and became an inspector to support herself and her kids for the rest of her life.  She said she was doing this last round of chemo just because her kids wanted her to try one more time.  She said she was ready to be done if this one didn't make a difference. Her kids were all grown up and doing well now and she was ready to go and be with her husband again.  When I saw her obituary in the paper, it touched my heart knowing she had fought the good fight, but was now reunited with him again.