Bryce & Kodachrome 51st Anniversary Trip

 What a great trip we had!  We left Thursday afternoon after I got home from work and arrived in time for dinner (at Subway) and had reservations for two nights at Ruby's Inn. Friday morning we drove over to Mossy Cave and hiked around.  We saw only 2 other people there and on their way down from the cave they pointed out a great horned owl that was perched in a big ponderosa tree!  We got some great pictures of it.  It must have been all tired out from a busy night, because it wasn't bothered enough by us to even move a feather.  We loved seeing it.  Then we drove over to the Cannonville BLM Visitor's Center.  It was closed due to a government shut down going on, but we enjoyed the interpretive displays outside.

 

Next we drove over to Kodachrome Basin State Park. The weather was perfect with overcast, but no rain happening.  We drove out to Chimney Rock first thing and then checked out all of the campgrounds and marked our favorites on the park brochure for future reference.  It was so nice there we kind of wished we were camping right then.  We also saw some tiny "huts" they are putting in that you can rent to stay in.  They are pretty cool - no water/bathrooms, but a nice bed/fireplace-heater inside and a patio/grill/fireplace area outside. We also checked out the little cabin/bunkhouses and laundromat place they have.  Next we took a great little hike - Angel's Palace Trail.  Paul has been having some hip trouble, so we didn't want to do anything too strenuous until the shot he had the day we left started kicking in.  This  hike was only 1.5 miles and had only a 150ft. rise, so it was perfect.  It had great views of the whole area.  We loved it!  Then we had a little snack in a picnic area and next enjoyed the Nature Trail - a .5 mile loop that had great info about plants, animals, and park geology. Next we enjoyed the Visitor's Center which has had a great remodel since out last visit.  It it such a unique and beautiful park and it was the perfect day for what we did! 

 Next we headed back to Bryce Canyon and drove the scenic drive stopping at the top to do the Bristle Cone Loop hike to Rainbow Point.  It's about a mile hike with beautiful views of the park and the bristlecone trees along the edge.  We had decided to do the "Hike-the-Hoodoos" challenge where you had to hike 3 trails and find the special medallions and take a picture of yourself there and then report back to the Visitor Center for a reward/sticker.  We had already done one at Mossy Cave and this was our second one.  Then we stopped off on the way down to enjoy the scenic view points.  We did another short hike trying to find our next hike (Queen's Garden Trail), but it got dark before we could do it, so we decided to come back in the morning and do that one.  We had a great buffet dinner at Ruby's Inn...really good and really a lot!  Next morning we had breakfast there and then went and did the hike.  It's 1.8 miles and the least strenuous of the park hikes down into the canyon...and it is so beautiful.  It starts and Sunrise Point and we weren't there quite in time for that, but it was still awesome and pretty cool until we got going.  It's a steep one, but so worth it for the views of the beautiful formations you see everywhere around you!  We stopped in at the Visitor Center to get our reward/stickers and then it was time to head home.

We took a different route home and visited the Quilt Walk Park in Panguitch.  Then it was on to Cedar City with a little nap stop along the way and then we went to lunch with Bean.  It was a great trip and we were glad to get home again after running some errands and then enjoying a yummy dinner with Supe and Beacher and kids!  Such cuties!  Happy 51st Anniversary!!!  Can't wait till next year!  

Anna Lou's funeral and graveside services

Our house is quiet and at peace, the company is all gone and all things for Anna Lou are taken care of.  Friday, Nov. 7th and Saturday the 8th were the funeral in St. George, UT and the graveside in Taylor, AZ.  They both went well.  The were nice gatherings in both places of family and friends, former ward members of Anna Lou and some of the hospice and home health workers that helped her through the ending days.  We are thankful that it all went well and thankful that it's over...for her and for us.  It was long for both.  Here are some pics of these events.

Special thanks go to Bryan Randall, son-in-law and funeral director who took care of all the arrangements from picking Anna Lou up after she passed to making sure she was laid to rest in Taylor. We are so glad he was the one who took care of her for all of this.  It's DONE!

Just before Thanksgiving Kirt Lillywhite shared a photo of Junior and Anna Lou's Wedding that he had been able to use amazing technology to add color to!  It's so nice to see them together in living color!  Hope they are enjoying a beautiful reunion right now!  

Anna Lou Lillywhite Kurtz passes

 S This afternoon, October 29th, 2025, Anna Lou passed away at the rest home where she had been residing (2041 S. Mesa Palms Drive, St. George UT 84790). Ferf called to give us the news around 3:45 pm.  Paul had been there earlier in the day to spend time with her.  Her dear friend, Judy Fisher, was there holding her hand at the time of her passing.  It's a blessing to have it over and for her to leave her tired body behind and go to be with her family on the other side.  Bryan, Lou's husband, is handling the funeral arrangements from here on.  This is the end of her long run of 93 years.  She's had a good, hard, and well-lived life.  She out-lived two husbands and endured long years of being single.  It was very hard on her.  She filled two missions and spent her life serving the Lord in many other church callings as well.  She endured losing nearly all her hearing and vision and was unable to stand being around big groups for many years and was unable to attend church then.  She was ready to go, and we're  thankful the hard times are over for her.  

Her 80th birthday party at Aspen Grove Camp on Cedar Mountain.

    

Outings on Cedar Mountain.

Family pic at Blanco Basin

Family Picture before Paul and Ross went on missions.

Junior and Anna Lou - "living the life of Briley"

Wedding picture of Junior and Anna Lou

  Here's the obituary:

Anna Lou Lillywhite Kurtz was born to Paul Moroni Rogers and Vera Shumway on February 27, 1932, in Mesa, Arizona. She passed away on October 29, 2025.  Anna Lou spent her life serving her family and served the Lord in many callings in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including serving missions to Birmingham, England and Auckland, New Zealand. 

Anna Lou grew up in Taylor, AZ, with her parents and sisters, Ione, Sheree, Judy and brother "Shum" and lots of extended family. She married Leland Junior Lillywhite on March 6, 1950, in the Mesa, AZ Temple. They made their home in Farmington, NM, where they raised their family.  Leland passed away December 10, 1982.  After serving a mission she became acquainted with Russell Wayne Kurtz at a grief counseling group they were both attending. They married September 29, 1987, and eventually moved to West Jordan.  He passed away on January 3, 1998. She then moved to St. George, UT, where she lived until she passed away.

Anna Lou lived alone for 27 years after she moved to St. George.   She made many dear friends that blessed her life.  Together they went to lunch, traveled, played volleyball, took college classes, worked at the temple, and one that was still living, sat with her as she passed away. 

Anna Lou is survived by her sister, Judith Ramsey, Snowflake, AZ, her brother, Paul Shumway Rogers (Kathy), Taylor, AZ, and her children Ross Lillywhite (Lerlyn) Aztec, NM, Paul Lillywhite (Bonnie) St. George, UT, James Lillywhite, Magna, UT, Julianne Madison (Roy), Hurricane, UT, and Sheryl Wardell (Douglas), Vernal, UT.  She was so proud to have 21 grandchildren, and 66 great grandchildren, and 1 great, great grandchild. 

Funeral service will be held Friday, Nov. 7, at 10 am at the St. George Stake Center, 591 West 500 North, St. George, UT.  A visitation gathering will be held there from 9-9:45 am.  Graveside services will be at Reed Hatch Memorial Cemetery, 401 Center St., Taylor AZ 85939.

We appreciate Jennifer (Ferf) and her team from Dixie Home Rehab and Hospice and Oasis Senior Living staff for their loving care of Anna Lou.  We also express our appreciation to Peter Hill, Anna Lou's home health nurse.  He went way and above his duties to become a faithful friend to her.  We also appreciate the 3rd Ward Relief Society for their compassionate service in providing a meal after the funeral.  Funeral arrangement are being handled by our son-in-law, Bryan and his team at Cedar Valley Funeral & Cremation.  Many thanks to them for their assistance.  

A surprise proposal! (Brynnli & Ryan)

 We were lucky enough to be there when Ryan Howell proposed to Brynnli on Saturday, October 25th at a picnic with Ferf, Torin, Koen and Kennis.  Kennis came in as part of the surprise bringing the ring and roses for Ryan to give to Brynnli.  It's not like Brynnli didn't know it was coming sometime because they had looked at rings and she had told him what she liked.  He had it made though, so this was the first time she had seen the finished product.  She didn't know he was proposing that day and Kennis being down was a surprise too.  So, we were lucky to be there.  We had told Brynnli that we hoped we could see them while they were down and she suggested that they invite us to the picnic!  We are so happy to see this happen.  We already know Ryan from when he's come down with Brynnli before and when they have joined us at family camp. They been together for a couple of years now. He's been a real blessing to Brynnli since her first marriage ended as such a fiasco.  We like Ryan SO much better than that one.  So happy for both of them to be taking this step towards something lasting.  Oh, the picnic was close to home...over at Brooks Park.  It was a nice Fall afternoon.  

October Birthdays

 October birthdays started with Jared who turned an amazing 49!  I asked what he wanted and he was specific about a game that I don't know what is, but Amazon does.  They sent it to him for me too!  They sent us pics of the opening up!  Happy #49 Jay!  Hard to believe my second born it that old!

Happy #17 Koen! Divorce has made things touchy with Koen.  We didn't get to celebrate with him at all.  But we hope he had a really nice birthday.  Here's a pic of another birthday with Koen a long time ago!  We love you Koen.  

Tasia - she turned 21 up at BYU!  We texted and sent her a present that she was happy to receive, but no pics happened unfortunately.  Love you Tasia!  Happy #21.  We did see her the day after her birthday because unfortunately she had to come down for Uncle Kade Smith's very sad funeral.  He was only 45.  Here's the oldest birthday picture I could find of Tasia!  Looks like one candle to me!  Guess this will have to do for this year too.

Halloween via family GroupMe site

 Everyone posted their Halloween pics on the site so we all got to see them!  It was fun!  Our only little trick-or-treaters were Jem and Kaia.  They were so cute! We missed any from the Randall family this year. Happy Halloween 2025!  (We were right in the middle of trying to get everything in place for Anna Lou's funeral.  I didn't go to school to do my regular Halloween stuff and it just kind of got lost in the shuffle.)

Brookside to Baker and more Fall fun

 This week was full of Fall fun.  At school we went to Staheli Family Farm for a fieldtrip.  Despite some trepidations about some children's behaviors, it all went well and was lots of fun.  Other fun was taking walks at the Desert Garden's Halloween Scarecrow walk.  We went one morning and then again in the evening with our SA Ward for FHE.  It was fun both times.  Then on Friday we went up and took the Brookside to Baker Dam hike for our morning walk.  It was so beautiful, like always, in it's Fall mode.  This year, because of the fire upstream at Pine Valley and a recent flooding event, there was lots of dirty water coming down along with some debris which seemed to be causing lots of "Indian soap" in the water.  There was so much of it, but it was all still so beautiful and a refreshing way to start our day in the cool, clear air.  Happy Fall!  

T-bone Mesa - a restful day

 We've been kind of chilling and recovering from our quick Fall break trip and then immediate company and all the stress of Anna Lou's struggles.  We just slept in on Friday and Saturday and hung out around the house doing home chores.  We took a nice 4.5 mile hike around T-Bone Mesa on Saturday morning.  The sand was still packed from the recent rains, so it was a good time to do it.  There were lovely views to enjoy as well as the cool morning air and clear blue skies.  Happy Day!  That night BYU played and I actually watched and they even won!  Paul made us very delicious steaks on the smoker and I made good baked potatoes and veggies.  Relaxing day.

Fall Break - Going to see the Brooks

We talked and talked about things to do for Fall break, but just couldn't decide. We decided it would be a good thing to go and visit Janet and Tony.  Janet has beginning stage Alzheimer's and we want to enjoy her wonderful self as long as possible.  She really doesn't seem too bad...Tony was retelling the same story more often than she was!  But, it was good to see them both. They are wonderful people and made us very welcome.  It was a long drive and a short trip.  We left Thursday morning and made it to Boise, ID, to spend the night.  Then we had a pretty short drive (4 hrs.) to get to their house on Friday.   Kriston, Rebecca and Katy came over that night to visit which was fun.  Evan, a son, stopped by to pick up the cabin key so he could go up and hunt for deer there. Late that night a grandson, Ian came to spend the night and see his girlfriend the next day.  Saturday we drove up to their cabin to see if Evan had gotten a deer.  Ian came along.  We did more visiting on the drive up.  Evan was not able to get a deer.  We left the cabin to head home about noonish.  We wanted to drive over to see Hell's Canyon Overlook on our way home.  The map showed it a little out of the way, but not too much.  It ended up being a much longer mountainous, curvy, slow drive than expected.  We finally got back to Boise at 11 pm that night with a stop for dinner along the way.  But, it was a beautiful, if very long, drive. We nearly ran out of gas and were in the red zone for way too long  before we got to a gas station along the way.  It was rainy too.  Sunday we drove home the way we had come on the back roads of NV.  We once again ended up in the red zone and had about a quarter gallon of gas when we finally got to the only gas station in a very small town.  I hope we learned a lesson about running on the top of the tank, instead of the bottom.  We got home Sunday evening about 6 pm.  Between this  quick trip and our last quick trip with Bean and our not very great last campout, it seems like we haven't relaxed in quite a while.  

Company was coming in on Monday - Ross, Lerlyn and James.  After they got here Paul, Ross, James and Roy gave Anna Lou a blessing of release.  She's been in the hanging on more gone than here zone for the last several weeks.  It's very wearing on everyone.  We hope she can get on her way soon and stop having to suffer along anymore.  This is the second trip down that James and Sheryl have made thinking it was her time.  

Colorful campout

We wanted to enjoy the leaves up close, so we went camping up by Cedar Breaks.  It got a little crazy when the electrical parts of our camper weren't in working order, but we got by and had a great dinner with the help of the propane stove.  We had our lanterns to see by.   We took a nice evening walk. It got cold and windy, so we were glad to be snug inside even without the heater being in working order.  It wasn't the best night's sleep, but still, we were warm and out there.  On the way down we drove up to Brian Head Peak to see the progress on the restoration of the CCC building up there.  They are doing a great job and have all the stonework portion done.  Sorry, no pictures.  I didn't actually get out to see it up close because the winds up there on the peak must have been blowing about 50 miles per hour.  Stuff was flying everywhere.  On the way down the mountain the truck started having problems shifting and it was pretty slow going on the way home.  We had to take the truck into the shop.  So, despite lots of things not being in good working order, we did enjoy the leaves and a great dinner!  Ended up having to get a new gas pump.  Very expensive.  Found out we had read the charged gauge wrong on the battery, and it was NOT charged as we thought it was.