The Birthday Girls!

We all got together for Kennis, Weed, Grandma and Ferf's birthdays. We thought it would be fun to have fruit and chocolate fondue instead of cake...those who didn't want chocolate could be good and do the no sugar thing. It turned out that there were no takers on that one except Brenden. We just sang to the girls over the birthday plate with a communal candle in the middle since there was no cake. A BIG THANK YOU to Moss and Christie for bringing and setting up the chocolate fountain and to everyone who brought fruit. The kids thought it was so much fun. Birthday cakes might not be very popular after this! Unfortunately while Christie was slaving over it, she missed getting her picture taken. Sorry Christie. Derek was sick and couldn't make it. After most of the gang headed home Brenden went around showing off his new bipedal skills. He was pretty pleased with himself and we were pretty impressed. Happy birthday girls! We love you all. M&D

Dad's and Donuts with Kaebri

Last week Bloomington Elementary had a Dad's & Donuts breakfast. Paul was very happy when Kaebri called to invite him to go in Derek's place (he was already at work for the day at the appointed time). Paul went by and picked her up and they went over to the school. They got their donuts and chocolate milk and then went to meet Kaebri's teacher and see her classroom. We were still on our diet at the time, so he had to fudge a little, but it was well worth it for the fun time spent with Kaebri.

Grandma's other gate

Here's Grandma's other gate. Paul got it finished just in time for her birthday. Now her little pooch, Wonka, can go outside unattended for potty breaks and exercise. Isn't Paul a talented guy?

Fun in a snowstorm

Ross came to town for a load of stone and for Grandma's birthday. She was fielding phone calls all day and didn't want to go anywhere, so we took Ross (with Moss' borrowed skis, poles and boots) up to Cedar Breaks to cross country ski. He had done it once about 100 years ago and was excited to do it again. He did great...only fell down once. It was really windy up there this time. We got to the yurt just in time for lunch. When we arrived we took off our skis right next to this little kid carrier that the hosts of the yurt had carried their two kids up in. On closer inspection, one of them was still in it taking a nap. He was sleeping really well and was nice and warm (the yurt hadn't warmed up yet) so they had let him continue napping. He woke up while we were there and came in for lunch. There was quite a group of people there by the time we were ready to leave - the volunteers, some other cc skiers, and several snow mobilers including some rangers up working the area. We went a little further after lunch, but with all the blowing snow and poor visibility you couldn't hope to see the Breaks, so we decided we'd better head on back before the wind filled in the road. Luckily the snow plows were hard at work packing the blowing snow down on the road edges, so we didn't have any problems. It was really fun and Paul and Ross had a good visit while I had a good nap on the way home.

All work and no play...not a chance!

Saturday Paul needed to get the scouts to and from the merit badge pow wow, and it was raining, so we decided we would just have a stay home and work Saturday. The house was in great need of cleaning and Paul needed to work on his next Grandma gate project. I cleaned and cleaned and he scouted and welded. About 2:30 when it had stopped raining we decided we had had enough... and took off to Pine Valley. We were relieved to find that it was not raining. We parked by the entrance to the equestrian campsites and headed out for yet another cc ski session. Pretty soon it started snowing pretty hard, but it was so pretty that we just kept on and ended up doing the full loop and back around to the campgrounds. We saw where they have made some new sites up along the road between the equestrian sites and the Lion's Lodge. There's the Forsythe Group areas and the Gardner campground. Of course we couldn't see much since they were covered in snow, but it should be fun to check them out next spring. It was very hard to ski in the fresh powder because it kept sticking to the bottom of our skis, but it was very good exercise. After a while it quit snowing and was just white and peaceful. There was no one else dumb enough or lucky enough to be there but us. We had to walk a little ways on the road back to the car where the snow wasn't deep enough on the road that had been cleared before this snowfall. We got back to the car about sunset and didn't feel bad about laying around watching the Olympics that night after all that exercise. We sure don't ski as well as the people we were watching! (But we only fell down once apiece...that's improvement!)

More snow...more practice

Happy President's Day! We decided to try once more to find the Cedar Breaks yurt and cc skiing trails that supposedly leave from it...and we did. We got a pretty early start and it wasn't even crowded. You park at the junction of the road to Cedar Breaks/Duck Creek. The road towards Duck Creek is cleared, but they don't plow towards Cedar Breaks after that. It's about a mile to the yurt. It is manned by volunteers. There was a very nice couple there and we had hot chocolate and visited with them for quite a while. It was about 40 in there when we got there, but they stoked the stove and by the time we left it was about 70. It's such a neat little place. Then we headed off on some cc ski tracks/and on the road (snowmobiles keep it well-packed) along the rim overlooking the breaks. It really was a beautiful day with lots of sun and blue skies and hardly any other people. We saw some snowmobiles and a few snowshoers. We went quite a ways, fell down less times than before, saw beautiful scenery and took lots of pics. We headed back after we reached Chessman Point. We had a great time. It was actually nice to get out of St. George for the day, even though it was 70, because there are so many people in town for the Parade of Homes. On the way back we stopped off at Kolob Fingers and just drove to the top, looked and left. We got home about dinner time. We have decided that with this nice weather the snow won't last, so we'd better take advantage of all the practice time we can. I have to say I have never really enjoyed the snow much and never wanted to spend much time in it. I've never had the equipment or clothing for it before, but this has been really fun now that I do have some things that make it so much more comfortable - gortex outer layer, good under layer, wool socks, water proof boots and gloves, ear bags and skis.

We're getting a little better...not much

Saturday we decided we would head to Pine Valley to practice our cross country skiing skills. (We don't have many.) We have watched the library video a few more times now. It was a perfect sunny, crisp day up there. There were quite a few people there - a scout troop finishing up a winter camp out, crazy kids tubing off the dam and even someone with a tent set up to ice fish out on the lake. Lucky for us someone else had been there cc skiing and left us some nice tracks to follow. (In case you don't know, on groomed trails, they put tracks in for people to use. It makes it a lot easier than just having to push through brand new snow.) We decided to head up to the end of the road to where the new camp grounds are being put in. It's kind of uphill, so pretty soon we were shedding some of our layers. It's a real work out. Here and there we fell over. When we got to the top we went over to the stream and up the trail a for a little while. We had to go up a hill to what we thought was the main trail and let me tell you, the herring bone just wasn't cutting it so we just went up it sideways planting our skis as we went. Paul thought it was so funny watching me that he took a movie, but luckily he didn't do it right and only caught seconds of my clumsiness on video. We went off on what looked like a trail for quite some time, but found that it must be the ditch that heads off towards the cabins by the cemetery. We backtracked until we found a pretty open space to head back down the hill to the road we came up on. If getting up the hill was hilarious, going down was even more so. Snowplow just wasn't cutting it, so we resorted to the sideways ski method again and stair-stepped and fell our way to the bottom. Four or five crashes later, we made it back to the road. Thank goodness those other skiers were no where in sight for all of our antics. We did so much better going back down the road and even started getting some real speed and gliding into it...then we would fall down. I'm afraid we aren't too well coordinated yet. Even with all the crashing, it was still fun and so beautiful and lots of exercise. I have some sore muscles and a few bruises, but I learned a lot about better ways to get up when you crash. We finished up by eating lunch in the car and then walking across the dam to watch the crazy sledders and see the frozen lake. On the far side of the lake we were so pleased to see tracks of the other skiers crossing the overflow area of the dam and going up the other side using the sideways method we had been using. Hey, maybe we aren't so dumb after all. They didn't show that method in our video, but we figured it out on our own. After we got home, we were so tired out we had to take a nap. Then we did our Costco run and stopped in to the the first day of the art show at the college. They have some wonderful paintings as usual. Be sure to get there. We will probably head back up to Pine Valley on Monday for a few more chills and spills.

Happy Birthday #6 Kennis!

Kennis celebrated her #6 birthday on the 11th. We got to see her and give her her present yesterday afternoon. With so many birthdays popping up, we have a hard time always getting to the celebrating part on the day of. She was able to come by and we sang over some birthday bears in lieu of a birthday cake and she opened her present. Tavin informed us that the day after her birthday she lost her first tooth. If she hadn't lost it then, she probably would have pulled it out on one of the chocolate covered cinnamon birthday bears. Happy Birthday Kennis! We love you! (Koen came in his Buddha disguise - JK - his shirt got dirty and he didn't have a spare.)

Grandma's new gate

With the addition of a dog to her household, Grandma has been wanting to get some gates so she can put Wonka outside to play. Paul just finished and installed a beautiful new gate for her for a Valentine's/Birthday present for her. He welded it up and then had it powder coated. Doesn't it look just spiffy? His next project will be one for the other side of the house. It will be quite a bit bigger project...maybe a Mother's Day/Christmas present deal.

Our first daffodil is out!

We've been watching this little flower and yesterday it started to open...today it was all the way out! The sun just happened to be out too. I love seeing the bulbs popping up in the spring when everything else is still looking pretty gray! Hooray for the daffodils!