Happy Birthday Kennis!

We were a little early, but we had a good time celebrating #7 with Kennis and visiting with the Borrowman family for Sunday dinner last week.  The food was good along with the company!  After dinner we played a round of Camping and then had the birthday cake blow out and present opening.  Afterwards we had an introductory lesson in Hellsapoppin'  before it was time to call it an evening. We love you Kennis! (Sorry I forgot the camera - thanks for taking some phone pictures for me Ryan.)

I wish I hadn't done it!

I have some catching up to do.  Starting with the most recent means I will have to admit to being a clumsy bum.  I went out to untangle the cat and got tangled up myself and crashed down onto the planter edge with both knees.  Luckily the other one didn't end up like this too.  I haven't had stitches since I was 4 years old when I fell down and hit my chin on the front steps to the house and got 4 stitches.  Since I was so good about being sewn up, the doctor said I could still go to the beach that day as long as I didn't get it wet.  I tried to be good this time too while the doctor sewed me up with 7 stitches.  I was hoping to just be able to super glue it at home, but the ask-a-nurse said it was a sew up job since it was in a bendy place.  I was glad it happened early in the day so that even with a two-hour wait at Insta-Care I could still make it to school on time.  As they say, "It'll feel better when it quits hurtin'!"  (Excuse the gory picture.)

Kayenta Canyon, sunshine and visiting

I don't know if it's called Kayenta Canyon or Hell's Hole Canyon, but either way, we had a good time hiking it with Jay, Brynn, Madi (in her darling hiking tutu), Judd and Becca.  The sunshine felt good to all of us, but I'm sure it was especially nice for the gang from up north.  Even though Madi wasn't feeling the best, she seemed to like being outside.  Judd and Becca were good sports even if they aren't avid hikers.  It was also fun just visiting around the house and enjoying Jay's good cooking skills for dinner.  Madi was glad to see our baby again and visited with it whenever she got the chance.  Thanks for coming down to see us and the sun!

Happy #2 Brenden

We got to go to Brenden's #2 birthday party...it was so fun.  I love being around Christie's family.  They are just fun people.  Brenden was so excited about the balloons when we got there.  Paul managed to blow up one of those long, skinny cheek killer balloons for him and he was really happy about that.  We enjoyed the yummy soups (Paul and I tried every kind) and rolls.  Most of all it was fun to see Brenden get into opening his presents and all of the other kids enjoying being together with their cousins.  Thanks for letting us hang out at your party Brenden.  We love you!

This and that Saturday

Saturday we did this and that.  I needed to do some long overdue cleaning.  Paul needed to work on some walking sticks and check with Moss on some yard projects.  We spent the morning doing that.  Then we visited the new exhibit at the St. George Art Museum - the downstairs has a very nice, sort of different, still life exhibit  that Paul wanted to see. The upstairs is not much to brag about right now.  After lunch we headed over to check out a new trail in Snow Canyon - the Gila Trail.  It is between the highway and the rim running from the north end of the canyon down to Chuckawalla.  We only did a part of it and  decided to check out the rest another day when we can leave a shuttle vehicle down at Chuckawalla.  After that we took the trail to Johnson Canyon which had lots of evidence of the recent rain.  It is such a pretty canyon-arch.  After that we went out to see the new airport.  It's a cute little terminal, but we were disappointed that you cannot see the Greg Abbot mural - it's past the security gate.  Then it was dinner time and since I hadn't spent  any time thinking about what to make, we decided to use our dinner & a movie certificate that we got for Christmas and went to Pasta Factory and to see The Tourist.  The dinner was great and the movie is a fun one. It was an enjoyable this and that Saturday. 

Brady & Ellie keeping busy while Afton gets settled in

Brady and Ellie kept busy while Mom and Dad were getting Afton settled in.  Some of the busyness included visiting the duck pond, hiking on the Red Hill - we spied a fox while we were up there, playing Sorry with Grandpa, driving by a volcano, playing in the sand dunes and hiking to Jenny's Canyon at Snow Canyon.  We also visited Grandma Kurtz to meet her new puppy, Bandit. Visiting the Smith and Borrowman cousins was lots of fun for them too. 

Happy Birthday Afton LaRae

Brady and Ellie are the proud new silbings of Afton LaRae.  She was born on Monday, January 17th at 7:13 am in Cedar City.  She was 19.5" long and weighed 8.1 lbs.  Mom and Dad are also pretty proud! Actually, the whole family is pretty happy about this new addition to the tribe!  (The girls are now in the lead with 8 girls and 7 boys.)

Deer Valley & Bryce Canyon in the snow

This morning we hurried our way up to try out the groomed trails we spotted last week at the Deer Valley Recreation Area up Cedar Canyon.  We were on the trail by a little after 9:00.  It was really pretty and we didn't see anyone while we were out.  There were some pretty steep down hills, and we were glad no one saw us when we crashed a few times.  After a couple of hours we were pretty pooped and decided we would head over to Bryce Canyon to check out the skiing opportunities there for future reference. We stopped at a scenic view point in Red Canyon and ate lunch in the car. Then we went over to Mossy Cave and the waterfall there before going into Bryce proper.  (If you ever go to Bryce, don't miss these two little gems.  They are part of the park, but are actually to be found on the road to Tropic.)  The cave was wearing beautiful "winterbeards" and the waterfall was frozen except for a little bit that was running down a hole in the middle.  It was beautiful.  

We stopped in at Ruby's Inn to see what information they might have.  They have some groomed trails outside the park, but some snowmobiles had kind of messed them up and since it was a sunny day they said the snow was getting pretty mushy for skiing.  We continued on to Bryce and found to our delight that this weekend is a freebie - no entrance fee for the MLK holiday.  Since the skiing was not good, we just drove to all the viewpoints.  It wasn't crowded at all and so beautiful with all the snow on the red rocks.  If they get another snow over that way, we may have to try it out. 

"Winterbeards" and Snow

We jumped out of bed early Saturday, got ready, and headed up Cedar Canyon to take in some snow.  It was beautiful weather and since we got there early, there weren't many people there yet.  On the way up and down the canyon we took pictures of amazing "winterbeards".  We had a great time skiing for a few hours, ate lunch in the car overlooking Navajo Lake and headed on down. In route we found a place where they actually have some groomed trails that we are anxious to try out another day. We met up with Lou and kids in Cedar and dropped off Bryan's birthday present.  It was a really nice day out in some beautiful scenery.

Some random shots

We took a walk a few days ago during all that rain and spotted  a really big rainbow.  Unfortunately we didn't have a camera, just a phone.  We also saw these beautiful leaves on the sidewalk - again a phone camera.  The hats are just funny.  Paul is always teaching the grand kids to wear our sofa pillows for hats.  Brenden couldn't be content until we all had a hat.