Thanksgiving 2024

Thanksgiving this year was at a stake center that Moss was able to reserve out in his area.  It was a great building and we had a good turn out.  We only missed Brady (he was working) and Gaige (he's on a mission in CA, and Bean was sick.  We ended up with 43 family/friends of family. Tavin and Kennis brought friends that they know from college and Brynnli's boyfriend, Ryan also came.  Grandma Kurtz came.  (I wish we could have gotten a group pic, but by the time everyone got there, we were ready to eat!!!  I just took table pictures instead.) Jay and Brynn and girls were able to come down and stayed with us which was really fun.  They helped us set up and decorate.  Brynn had some really cute things to make it look nice. Jay and Juge brought delicious turkeys, smoked and baked, and everyone else brought other wonderful food.  We had PLENTY to eat.  We used half of the big gym for eating and closed the door in the middle most of the way and had pickleball set up in the other half of the gym.  We ate and visited and played some games.  Lance tricked us all in Pit by keeping one of everything for a long while and then I finally got a corner with the bull anyway!  It was pretty funny!  

Other activities for the weekend included a fun morning walk over the the Desert Garden for me and Paul with Madi and Clara.  Essie and Tahlia had spent the night with Eliza.  We also went on a fun hike with Moss and Christie and kids to Glitter Mountain where we collected cool selenite rocks (Utah Ice/ gypsum).  We also went over and hiked around to see the petroglyphs at Black Rocks.  More fun was some family getting together at Moss and Christie's for Donuts and hot chocolate and another time we went out to the Alumni Creamery for ice cream...BRRR!  On Saturday morning some family went to the Farmer's Market with Supe, Beacher and kids and played at the park playground. Afterwards people came to our house for visiting/eating left overs and cousin time.  It was beautiful weather and we could even visit outside.  It was a full, fun weekend!  

 

Dead Horse Point & Canyonlands NP

We celebrated our 50th anniversary yet again with a quick trip to Canyonlands NP.   In route we also stopped at Dead Horse Point State Park.  They were both wonderful!  In Canyonlands we went to two districts:  first, the Island in the Sky and then The Needles.  We left Thursday afternoon after I got home from work and got to Moab around 8:30ish.  We ate dinner along the way with a stop at Arby's in Salina.  Friday morning we headed to Island in the Sky with the stop along the way at Dead Horse Point and some other overlooks.  We took the little nature hike at the visitor's center at Dead Horse while we waited for it to open at 9 am.  After checking out the displays (old cowboy camp) and the other things there, we drove out to the actual point that has a dramatic overlook of the Colorado River and Canyonlands. So beautiful! We took another little hike up there and then decided to get on our way. 

 

At the Island in the Sky we decided to do the scenic drive and catch all of the stops along the way.  We went to the visitor's center first and checked it out and watched the film.  Then we took off on the drive. At one stop/hike (we met up with a geologist who hiked part of the trail with us pointing out things that he thought were dinosaur footprints/skeletons and grand views.  He had some interesting opinions and we enjoyed talking with him, his wife and another couple that hiked with him as well). We stopped at a picnic area for a snack late afternoon and were joined by a couple of chattering ravens. We spent all day at this district of the park and our last stop was to take a picture of the beautiful sunset.  We went to Wendy's for dinner and enjoyed a great night's sleep again at our motel that was both economical and really nice. With the time we had decided to do the scenic drives and the hikes at the stops along the way rather than doing one long hike.  In this district we did:  Mesa Arch, White Rim Overlook, Grand View Point, Murphy Point and Upheaval Dome first and second overlook. All total we did 8.8 miles at these stops.  

Washer Woman and Mesa Arch

The next morning we headed to the Needles District of the park.  It was a little further to drive to, but not much.  The scenery before the park was great as well as inside the boundaries.  The first thing we stopped by was the Newspaper rock!   Next stop was at the visitor's center and then took the scenic drive and did the stops and hikes along it.  We enjoyed so many amazing views of the Needles as well as all of the other awesome formations in this district.  We left the park about 2 pm, stopped at a park in Moab for a snack, and then hit the road for home.  We stopped off for dinner at Arby's (they have this great fried turkey club sandwich right now) and made it home about  8:30 pm.  At Needles District we again did the scenic drive and hiked to the Stone Storehouse, Cave Spring, Pothole Point, Slickrock for a total of 7.8 miles.  

What a wonderful trip!!! It was so wonderful to spend time together at these beautiful places.  

Happy November birthdays and Noah's amazing play and Single Adult fun!

 November birthdays are getting a quick start with Eliza's on the 1st.  She turns 12 this year and it's hard to believe little Eliza is entering that growing up age group.  I'm always kind of sad to see it happen...and happy too, I guess.  I just like them to stay young and uncomplicated before all of that teenage stuff hits.  Oh well, nothing can be done to stop it!  Happy Birthday Eliza!  We love you!  Sorry for the bad picture.  It's the only one I got unfortunately.  

Brynn had a birthday too, but sadly we were not there to enjoy it with her and we have no pictures.  She turned 40!  We did get to visit with her on the phone.  

Zion turned 11! We were getting gas in Green River on our way to Canyonlands for our anniversary when Juge facetimed us for him to open his present - a sloth that you warm in the microwave and other fun things.  Zion likes all things sloth at this time.

We really enjoyed going up to Canyon View High to see the play that Noah was in - Bright Star.  It was an unusual play, but so good.  Noah did a great job in the singing/dancing ensembles cast for it.  Paul and I and quite a few of the Sheffield family were in attendance to support Noah! (And a total stranger photo bombed our group shat after the play.  He's the big guy in the back.)

Another fun thing we did this month was go to the temple with the Single Adult Ward that we serve in and afterwards we went out for ice cream.  I didn't get a great picture, but here it is!  They are some really wonderful people and we love serving in the ward.  Paul is in the bishopric and I'm on the Linger Longer committee.  Serving in the Young Single Adult Ward for 4.5 years a few years ago and now serving with this older group have been wonderful experiences for us.  They have been a kind of mission experience since we can't really leave Bean and Anna Lou to serve an out of town type mission.  We are grateful to have these opportunities to serve.  

The Giving Machines come to St. George!

 It was fun to finally donate at the Giving Machines that the church puts out at Christmas time to help good causes all over the world receive donations.  100% of what you donate goes to very well vetted good causes.  This time we were able to give to some causes that have been personally wonderful to us and Bean.  We gave meals for the homeless to Switchpoint Community Resource Center and mental health help to the Doctor's Free Clinic here in St. George.  They are both really wonderful places!  It was great to see a long line of people excited to give there when we arrived!  

Ellie goes to the temple!!! - and more fun with family!

It was a wonderful day last Thursday, November 14th, 2024, because Ellie went to the temple to take out her endowments.  She's just 18, but wanted to do this now.  We are happy that she wants this wonderful blessing in her life and was ready and worthy to do it.  It's a "SHOUT FOR JOY" day for her and her parents and us as well.  Juge and Ferf and Paul and I were there as well as her Randall grandparents.  She went to the Cedar City Temple.  It was dark after we got out, so we couldn't take any pictures of the whole group unfortunately.  Ferf, Juge, Paul and I went to Park Place for some yummy eats and visiting afterwards.  So nice.

We spent more time in Cedar that week enjoying family time.  We went up Saturday and took Bean to The Best Christmas Pageant movie and dinner.  Afterwards we went to Afton's Silks recital.  It was pretty amazing and kind of scary with those girls up so high!  She and a friend did a really cute routine.  

"Oh say, can you see..."

 I really enjoyed our school's great Veteran's Day program this year.  In conjunction with Veteran's Day Snow Canyon State Park again displayed a giant American flag suspended across the canyon.  I have never made it out to see it before, but did this year.  It was so beautiful!!!  So glad I made it out there this time!  The canyon was a great showcase for it with its' red and white rock and blue skies!  

 

Lehman Caves & Zion Plein Air

 We had a great Friday and Saturday!  On Friday we made the long drive up to Great Basin NP where we had a reservation to go on a tour of Lehman Caves.  We got there in time to enjoy a little hike before our tour time.  There was a skiff of snow on the ground at the Baker Creek hike.  We didn't have time to do the whole thing, but what we did do was beautiful.  After that we did the cave tour which is always delightful.  This is a really nice cave.  Then we made the long drive home and stopped by to see Bean in Cedar City and take him to dinner.  It was a wonderful day.  

On Saturday we got up early and went up to Zion Park to see the Plein Air paint off at the lodge.  We had time to do some hiking while we waited for that to happen and it was so beautiful.  The sun was just coming over the top of the mountains shining on the Zion cliffs.  We enjoyed a beautiful day there and some of the paintings were really nice.  We especially liked Roland Lee's painting and one next to him of the lodge and the mountains behind it.  There were watercolor, oil and pastel paintings happening all around the lawn in front of the lodge.  It was pretty cold in the early morning when we arrived, but turned into a beautiful Fall day.  

Between Zion and Lehman caves, I like this quote about nature's way of making art out of stone:

The finest workers of stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time. 

Henry David Thoreau

October birthdays

Jared's birthday was kind of non-existent because he was out of the country on vacation.  I don't even know if he's home yet...but he turned 48 and we sent him a card and a gift card we hope he will enjoy.  Next came Koen's #16 birthday.  It was kind of a bust.  He has moved in almost exclusively with  his dad now and isn't too available.  We were able to set up a time to take him to dinner and what he ordered wasn't good to him so it was pretty crappy for him.  We got to visit some with him at least and then took him to DQ for ice cream that was more to his liking. He opened his present in the car. Tasia's #20 birthday was this week and she came down from school at BYU for the weekend.  She and Kaebri came over for a couple of hours of visiting.  It was so nice to see both of them.  They are both on good life paths and I'm so grateful for that.  She seemed to like her presents and I'm glad we got to see them for a bit.  The grand kids are so busy with their lives as they get older that it's pretty hard to stay connected it feels like.  We are trying.  

Fall Break - Kings Canyon, Sequoia, Pinnacles and Lassen

 Fall Break was a wonderful dash to four National Parks - Kings Canyon/Sequoia, Pinnacles and Lassen Volcanic.  We had been to all of these places before, but wanted to see some parts we hadn't seen or wanted to see again this time.  We had been to and seen pretty much all of Sequoia before.  Kings Canyon we had barely seen any of.  We had been to the west side of Pinnacles when it was actually closed and we had never been to the north side of Lassen because the road had always been closed due to snow.  It was a wonderful, quick trip.  

We left on Thursday morning and arrived at Sequoia late afternoon. We came in at the south entrance - Foothills Visitor's Center. We had time to enjoy several stops and almost the whole Generals Highway drive that day. We saw Tunnel Rock, Hospital Rock, the Big Trees Trail and General Sherman Tree which we hiked to in a small rainstorm.  We couldn't hike to Moro Rock because it completely shrouded in rain clouds.  We stayed at the John Muir Lodge in Kings Canyon/Grant Grove Village that night.  I was quite disappointed in the lodge.  It wasn't very much of a lodge and certainly not a very quaint lodge type room.  But it was very expensive and inside the park. Being in the park made it easy to access the area early in the morning before the crowds arrived.  Overall, it wasn't really very crowded anyway.  

On Friday we went early to see the General Grant Tree and it was a great hike among the giant trees.  Then we drove the rest of the Generals Highway and then the Kings Canyon Scenic Byway road.  We stopped at many overlooks along the way.  The forest and canyon were beautiful where fire hadn't burned them up.  We stopped by and hiked to Roaring River Falls which was beautiful.  On the way back we stopped off at Knapps Cabin, Grizzly Falls and went on a tour of Boyden Cave.  They were all really great.  Unfortunately Crystal Cave in Sequoia was closed for some work.  Another time!  Then we headed on to the illusive town of Firebaugh for the night.  Google took us to the town, but our hotel was actually another 20 or so miles away.  It was still the "city of Firebaugh", but no where near it with nothing of the city in between.  Crazy and quite frustrating.  It was a good room though, thank goodness.  We were ready for it!  

We got up early Saturday morning to drive to Pinnacles.  It has very limited parking and we did find a spot because we got there early.  It was cold, but warmed up nicely while we were there.  Our main thing to see there was to hike the Balconies Cave Trail to the Talus Cave.  It was a nice hike up to it and through it.  Really interesting.  We also saw lots of work by the CCC at the Bear Gulch Resevoir.  We saw the amazing Pinnacles formations all around as well.  Then it was time to head to Red Bluff for the night.  It was the longest drive to the next destination of the trip.  We made it in time for dinner and a hotel that was good, but too close to the Freeway unfortunately.  We did some shopping for our next day's Sunday dinner that we would cook ourselves.  It was a nice enough town and the church was close to our motel and the ward was nice the next morning.  

Sunday after attending 9 am sacrament meeting we drove on to Lassen Volcanic NP.  It was a couple of hours.  We got there early enough to enjoy most of the day there.  We finally made it to some of the geothermal features of the park on the north side and also the Visitor's Center there.  We saw Sulpher Springs and then hiked the 3 miles to Bumpass Hell hot pots and steam vents.  It was a beautiful and sometimes steep hike and the hot stuff was really interesting.  We drove the Lassen Volcanic National Park Highway and stopped off at lots of overlooks.  We ate our picnic snack at Helen Lake at the base of Mt. Lassen.  We hiked the 3 steep miles to King Creek Falls and Cascades.  It was worth the hike.  We had downloaded the park narration for the highway and enjoyed learning about the many things along the way and stopped to see them.  Then it was on to Sparks, Nevada for the night.  This turned out to be a great extended stay hotel.  It had a kitchen with a big microwave, full sized fridge/freezer and a countertop stove.  It worked out to be the perfect place to cook our microwave Sunday dinners!  It was in a nice location with a beautiful park loop walk around a lake for in the morning.  It was certainly a case of saving the best for last and it was the cheapest place we stayed as well!  

Monday we hit the road and drove the long trip home on the backroads of Nevada.  We didn't stop except for gas and pit stops.  We had a great book we were listening to that kept us awake.  The road wasn't crowded like the freeways, so it was nice.  We got home in time for dinner.  We drove around 2,000 miles and it was worth the trip!  We have pretty much seen all of the western national parks now, so next trip we may be starting on some in the Midwest.  

Halloween Fun with Jem and Kaia

 Had a fun time with Jem and Kaia this morning going to the Scarecrow Walk at the Desert Garden.  There were lots of creepy and cute things to see there.  After that we had a little donut picnic and played Halloween Bingo and decorated little pumpkins.  Then we took a little hike over to the Scout Cave.  After that we came back to our house and read the Halloween books and played with toys until Supe came to pic them up.  It was a fun time with these littles.  

Here they are all dressed up to go Trick-or-Treating!