Saturday afternoon outing

I had lots of paperwork to catch up on in the morning, but after that it was so nice to get out enjoy some blue sky and sun for a while.  It was sort of a random outing, but we saw some things we hadn't seen before and enjoyed it all. First we went on a park search to check out some possible picnic sites.  We had a list of several that we wanted to check and and got to all of them and found some really nice ones that we didn't even know were there.  One of them had a sweet pond that was covered in ducks and geese and a couple of swans that I didn't get a picture of.  

After we got done with our park hunting, we made a stop at Costco and enjoyed the samples without spending a fortune.  We only got the two items we went for. Then it was off to check out the Church Rocks bike trail.  We didn't have time to see much of it, but we did enjoy the beginning of it.  We decided we probably would not ride it, but we would enjoy hiking it.  The long tunnel under the freeway was cool and the views of Pine Valley Mountain and the red cliffs below were spectacular!  I love the amazing scenery we have here!  It was a great "staycation" Saturday! 

January birthdays...more and more!

Started off the fun this week with a belated/early/combined birthday celebration for Bryan, Afton #3 and Brady #9. It is always fun to join the Randalls and enjoy the party with the good cooking and fancy cakes to add to it. I have to say that Afton was not her usual smiley self.  Lou said she had been sick.  She was still pretty excited to get her pretty new bike and helmet and enjoy her pink lady bug cake.  Actually, it was no one's real birthday that day, but it was a day that worked for everyone to be there.  Thanks for letting us join the fun!  We love every one of you!  

On Friday I got to join the fun for part of Brenden's cousins' birthday party.  They started at "Yesta Fun" and then went over to the park   I came and went to the park with them for the pizza and presents.What a cute bunch of kids to celebrate with.  Brenden was pretty excited to see the cool presents that everyone brought for him and for his Star Wars birthday cake!  Happy Birthday Brenden!  You are one great kid and we love you!  

Noah, Zade and Koen came from our side of the family, but I mostly got pictures of the backs of their heads! So fun that all of these cousins are close enough to join the fun on these special days! 

It's official...they are engaged!

Saturday was a really big day...Supe and Beacher (Kalehua Harward is her real name) got engaged! They have been sort of engaged, but with ring in hand the real proposal took place some place on top of Island in the Sky at Snow Canyon State Park.  We are so happy for these two!  They are a perfect match and we can hardly wait until May 10th when they will tie the knot in the St. George Temple.  Right now he lives in Logan and she lives here, so time together is hard to come by.  They make the most of it when they do get together filling every minute with some kind of live action fun!  Supe sent the family the ring picture (below) and this text - "Yo fam, engaged, May 10".  The other two pictures I took on Sunday evening with my crummy phone since the camera lens was sticking about that time.  Another one of those "Shout for joy!" times.  

Here's some of their kind of fun with Leo and Crystal - riding the Rainbow Rim Trail.

Northgate Peaks 'Grand Edventure'

Saturday afternoon we grabbed those who could go and did the Northgate Peaks Trail.  Here's the description:  The Northgate Peaks Trail is a fairly short and easy family hike to an interesting viewpoint in the Kolob Terrace section of Zion. This lesser-traveled trail was created in the 1980s, making it a fairly recent addition to the park's canon of official trails and it offers a good escape from the crowds of the main canyon. It is 4 miles round trip.  We were surprised by some snow and icy patches of trail in the shady spots, but they could be avoided and we had a very nice hike with beautiful views for our reward.  The kids did well and worked hard for their ice cream cone reward which we got at Burger King in Hurricane.  I would like to do it again at a prettier time of year when it is a little warmer and we have a little more daylight. We always forget that it is still winter in the upper elevations even tho' we are ready for it to be spring!  Our hiking crew consisted of Weed and kids and Kennis, Gaige and Koen.  Love spending time with all of these wonderful folks!  

L to R - Trailhead, along the trail, we made it to the end (2), heading back.  Below - the view reward! 

Snow Canyon was smashing...

Yesterday we did a beautiful, perfect weather morning ride on West Canyon Road in Snow Canyon.  Everything went great except for a quick crash on the way back down.  It is so nice to be able to pick up some speed coming down after all of the huffing and puffing on the way up.  I was looking ahead down the road and noticed a bit of a wash out on my side and decided to switch to the other side to avoid it...smash! Down I went.  As near as I can tell I hit a very dry, hard rut ridge and just laid it down sliding a little way, some of it on my face.  I can't believe how blessed it am.  My helmet, layers of clothes and gloves saved lots of damage.  Got a little scrape on my left shoulder, a more painful one on my right knee, a little one my right elbow, a scrape on my chin and upper lip and a fat lip.  The worst part is probably that I must have landed on my left hand that is still sore from when I took a crash in the big snowstorm last month.  Now to go along with my healing, but still swollen and sore hyper-extended thumb, I have a swollen, very jammed and bruised middle finger.  Again, tho' I feel blessed that nothing is broken and it is the left hand, so I am only partially lamed. Another thing to be really thankful for is that no one saw it happen.  My pride is intact and the bike is fine.  I had to lay in the road for a minute and then realized that, yes, I could ride out.  We stopped off and did a little hike along the way out too.  I did feel the need to slow it down on the rest of the ride.  So glad I didn't break a tooth either.  Going to be stiff for a day or two, but should be fine soon.  Feel pretty stupid that it wasn't even anything technical...just a nice dirt road other than one very badly placed rut. 

Happy #7 Eden!

Had such a nice Monday evening visiting the Weavers for Eden's happy #7!  We sort of invited ourselves (Paul, me and Grandma) for dinner too.  Juge is such a great cook.  It was yummy - Eden's favorite of enchiladas and corn (and salad for those who like it).  She was so pleased with her fun presents - light up tennis shoes and Hello Kitty Legos playhouse.  It is so nice to have them close enough to enjoy these special days!  Happy Birthday Eden!  We love you!  (Too bad I forgot the camera and only got this not so great phone picture.)

Yea!  Juge rescued me with her pictures!  Another good thing about the evening was getting to see how big and cute Zion is getting.  Loved holding him and having him fall asleep on me so nice and snugly for a while. 

We also dropped by the Randalls so Grandma could meet Joel.  He is getting big and cute too...no pictures. there unfortunately.  So good to see these babies here and doing so well.  Afton was in her usual good humor and did a little tap dance performance for us. What a great Family Home Evening activity!  

A great day for Gaige!

It was so great to join lots of family and friends on Saturday, January 4th, to attend Gaige's baptism.  We are so happy that he made the choice to be baptized and become a member of the Church.  Nothing makes us happier than to see our family making good choices.  Congratulations Gaige!  We love you.

Happy 2014!

We spent New Year's Eve putting away Christmas...not too exciting.  For New Year's Day we did better.  We decided to go and see Water Canyon in its' winter dress.  We had heard that it has some beautiful icicles then.  We should have gone a few weeks earlier, but there were a few left and it didn't matter because everything else was so beautiful we were perfectly happy.  We didn't plan to go clear to the top, so we spent more time checking out some of the areas along the trail that we don't usually take time for.  It was a beautiful day and we totally enjoyed it!  

These are pictures of some of the cold spots.  There were a few icicles left and we even heard one fall as we were walking up. When the trail started getting really iced over, we decided that was a good stopping spot and came back down and explored a bit.  We stopped on a sunny beach and ate lunch.

The arch, a canyon we shinnied down into, and the beautiful grotto.

On the way over we drove the Cane Beds Road and saw the Coral Pink Sand Dunes with a little snow.  We drove home through Zion and no one was in the tunnel, so we stopped for a quick shot out the window there and at a few other spots.  It felt a little gruesome, but we stopped in Springdale to look at the smashed house.  It was completely smashed.  I can see why the two people inside were killed. So very sad.  Other than that, it was a wonderful way to start the new year!  

Last Rock Trip of 2013

We had been needing rock for quite a while but with so much going on we hadn't been able to go and get it. After Christmas and the new grand baby we decided it was time to just go and get it.  I love making these trips.  It is so fun to just leave it all behind and spend time together seeing beautiful scenery, relaxing and at the same time getting some work done.  We made our cookie stop at Jacob Lake as usual on the way there. Had quite a bit of trouble finding a motel.  Gobs of people where over there for winter break going to the Grand Canyon and riding the "Polar Express" train over to the canyon.  We finally found one just before they filled up.  The next morning we got our load and headed back home via Jacob Lake for a late lunch.  We got lucky on that one.  They had a lot more people there than usual too and ran out of food and had to close the counter just after we finished.  I'm so glad we ordered dessert (a cookie and hot chocolate) first while we waited for our food or we would have missed that treat!  It was a great time and I am so thankful that the U-joint that went out on our truck the other day didn't happen while we were on our trip!  

These wonderful Vermillion Cliffs are one of the most beautiful things to see on this drive.  I love them with the sun shining on them in the late afternoon.

This was our destination.  The really nice guy that always comes in on Saturday to load us is named "Boy". He had another name as a kid, but worked for someone who couldn't say it and just called him "Boy".  It stuck and he has used it as his name ever since.  Dunbar Stone is not what you would call a place of great neatness - I have seen some very neat stone yards - but I love just wandering around looking at all the beautiful rock that is just laying everywhere.  

Petroglyph discoveries

A few weeks ago a friend told me about some petroglyphs pretty close to some others that we have seen.   She gave me directions that were as good as directions can be to a pretty boonies type place.  Paul and I had a few hours and decided to go and see if we could find them...and amazingly, we did.  It is a cool panel.  The area around it is really carved and beautiful too.  There is a very deep wash nearby and we wanted to get down into it and walk it.  We did get into it, but then came to a chokestone that we just couldn't manage to get up and over safely and it was getting dark, so we headed home.  I was a little disappointed that we couldn't see the rest of the wash.  

The other day a guy Paul works with told him about some more glyphs out in the same general area...with a similar, sort of vague description as to how to find them.  My friend also told me that there were more out there too.  So today, we had a few hours when our planned bike ride didn't work out due to a flat tire, so we decided to go and see if we could find these other glyphs.  We were having no luck and wandered back over to the area where the others were and decided to try going down the wash above the chokestone and see it from that end.  When we were checking out the best way down I saw that there were glyphs down in the wash on a wall.  That settled it. Even though it was a bit of a stretch going down, we made it.  Pretty cool glyphs down there...and we got to finish the wash!  

Some of the cool stuff we saw while wandering around hunting glyphs.

Glyphs down in the wash

As we headed back to the car we went over the guy from work's description of where the other glyphs were and tried one more time and found them!  Fun stuff!  They may also be the other ones my friend was telling me about.  Now we just need to take some of the family out to see them.