Torin birthday dinner date and golf fun!

 We took Torin out for a birthday dinner and hand golf date!  He's turning 12 next week, but will be with his dad on his birthday.  He already celebrated with his siblings last week when they could come down.  Life's crazy sometimes.  We had good "Taco Tuesday" food at Costa Vida and then headed over to the golf course.  We had a good time playing hand golf.  He had never done it before.  He has a good arm and could send that ball way down the course.  The sprinklers came on to cool it down which is always lovely this time of year.  It was a fun night.  We stopped on the way home for ice cream cones and French fries and then he opened presents back at his house with us and his mom.  Happy #12 Torin!  We love you!

And another August birthday gets celebrated...Bean's #38.  I have another post that tells the whole story, but here are the birthday pics.  Happy #38 Bean!  We love you!

Temple and picnic

 Friday evening Lou and family came down to do some baptisms at the temple and then go to a play at Tuacahn.  Bryan's folks came with them.  It was fun to go to the temple with them and then have dinner.  After the play they spent the night because it ends so late.  We had fun visiting with them for breakfast.  

In the afternoon we wanted to get out, so we took Bean and went for a picnic at Duck Creek and then enjoyed a short hike and a beautiful drive down the mountain.  We listened to an interesting book too!  We got quite a bit of rain this week finally!  It has been wonderful!

Jem starts school...and I don't...Snow Canyon

 Jem started school this week! (8/13/26) He's in kindergarten at Legacy Elementary!  Beacher sent pics and he's looking pretty excited about it!  I hope he has a great teacher and enjoys learning and growing this year! I may do some volunteering if they need any help.   

I did not start back to school this year.  I'm a little sad, but pretty glad too.  After last year I just felt like it was time to retire and let the younger folks have my job.  It was the toughest year of school of all the years I've had and my attitude by the end was pretty done.  Too much testing and pushing and not enough of the joy of learning is what it seemed to be anymore.  I still loved the kids, but not the curriculum.  

We've spent the summer getting Paul recovered from foot surgery and from two cataract surgeries. Glad that's all done!  

Our truck has been broken most of the summer, so camping and getting out in the mountains has been curtailed quite a bit.  We have still gone to the mountains a lot for picnics and drives on paved roads.  Hopefully it will be done soon and we will get to take the trailer out for some camping.  

The day school started I enjoyed sleeping in, taking a bike ride and then going out for a little hike at Snow Canyon to see the rain puddles and the moqui marbles.  Later in the day we went to lunch and then I spent the afternoon working on some genealogy.  It was a nice, relaxing not back to school day for me.  I think it's for the best even though I will miss it in many ways.  

Forsyth trail hike

 I read some details about this hike:  

Distance:  11-11.5 miles round-trip (out-and-back) if heading up to the crest/summit Trail junction.

Elevation Gain:  3,400 to 3,600 feet.

Difficulty:  Strenuous ("butt-kicker") due to the steady, steep incline.

We only did 6 miles of it (out-and-back) because Paul's foot isn't ready for more...and neither am I!  We got plenty of elevation gain in just the little bit we did.  I think it was about 1,400+ feet in that distance.  Paul wanted to turn around because it was hurting his foot quite a bit.  We did two hours in and got back faster than that going downhill.  I think our time was from 9:30 - 12:30.  Afterwards we had a nice picnic at the Pine Valley Heritage Center.  We were so happy to see that only about the first mile of it shows bad scars from the fire.  After that it was greening up and just had patchy spots of fire damage.  After that first mile there was water in the stream and springs all along the way.  We only saw a few other people.  I loved seeing all the different flowers blooming at different elevations along the way. We saw some that we'd never seen before.  It was a good day, but it really drained Paul.  

July Birthdays - Beacher, Jem and Supe, Kai and Ellie

We had Supe and Beacher and kids over the other night to celebrate 3 birthdays.  They are going to Oregon in July and would be gone for their birthdays, so we did them early.  Beacher will be 36, Jem 6 and Supe 40.  Kaia's birthday isn't until December, but we just let her celebrate too so she didn't feel left out.  They opened gifts and then we had dessert with some candles for the kids to blow out.  After that, we played a little mini-cornhole game that we gave to Jem and Kaia.  It was a set of two, so it worked out for it to be for both Kaia and Jem so she could get  something too.  It was a really fun evening.  We were going to celebrate Moss's Kai's birthday too, but he got sick, so we will have to catch him later. Happy Birthday!  We love you all!  

We got to wish Kai a happy birthday at our little 4th of July gathering with his family and Ferf's.  He's been really sick and hasn't been able to get better.  He's been on a few different meds and had a shot for what they thought was strep, but now they think he may have mono.  Feel so bad for the little guy.  He's so tired of being sick and having to just lay around.  Hopefully they get a real diagnosis now and he can start on a path of healing.  But, Happy Birthday Kai!  We love you and hope you enjoy your birthday presents when you're feeling better.

No birthday pics of Ellie, but she turned 20 and celebrated on her mission!  We just got to message her and sent her a card and some fun money!  Happy birthday Ellie!  We love you!  Here's what she wrote about her mission birthday:

 Happy Birthday!! What a better way to celebrate your birthday than doing missionary work??  It was Saturday and we had no luck all week long finding friends.  We didn't know what to do.  We had to take our truck back to the shop so we were biking again.  We ended up having the lesson with the guy we had met in the mountains and he was so interested. Friend number 1. After we headed out on our 30 minute bike ride to get our truck, we decided we would stop by one person on the way, she told us that she had met with missionaries before and would love to do it again!! Friend number 2. Later that day we stopped by this guy but he had a huge gate. We decided we would call him and see what would happen. He was soo Interested!! Friend number 3!! When you  "pray like everything depends on God, then work like everything depends on you" you see miracles!!  Also that day we had dinner at a members house with Napoleon and his super anti wife.  We were really worried how it would go.  It went so well and her heart was somewhat softened.  

Crazy sunrise!

 

There have been so many terrible fires in the area this year.  There's one going on right now up by Kanosh.  One morning last week Paul and I took an early morning walk down by his yard and the sun rise was effected by all the smoke in the air.  It made the sun look like a red ball!  Ferf was out on a run about that time and she also took a picture of it!  I hope they get the fires out soon.  We are losing so much beautiful forest land to these terrible fires.  We have also lost some firefighters and helicopter pilots.  So very sad.  

Hiking again at last!

 It was just a little hike, about 2.5 miles, but it was great that Paul's foot is now healing enough to start doing some short ones.  We went up to Cedar Breaks because it is so much cooler up there than down in St. George.  We hiked the beautiful Alpine Pond Trail.  It is too late in the year for very many flowers to be left, but the cool green of the plants and trees was beautiful and refreshing.  We also stopped in at the Visitor's Center and then drove over by Duck Creek.  We picked up a paper about things to do in that area and found that there was a cave nearby that we had never heard of.  It wasn't too far in on a good dirt road for our car, so we went and checked out Bowers Cave.  We weren't prepared with headlamps, so we couldn't go in very much with just our phone lights, but it was fun to find this new place.  We will have to revisit when we are more prepared.  Then we drove down through Parowan and stopped in to use our gift card for a fantastic late lunch at Smokin' Joe's BBQ!  Delicious!  It ended up being a great get away from the heat day for us!

Cool treats and hand golf with the Smiths and again with the Lillywhites

We had fun getting together with the Smith kids the other night.  First we went to Digby's and had Pineapple Whips and other cool treats and enjoyed catching up on things happening with them.  Then we headed over to the Red Cliffs Golf Course.  It closes to golfers at 8 pm.  After that they don't care if people come in and take walks.  Paul and I like to go in the summer because it is so much cooler to walk there because of the greens and also because they have giant sprinklers going that you can enjoy walking through the spray of!  We brought some balls we had found on other walks and showed the kids how we play hand golf.  We played a few holes and then just enjoyed walking the greens and getting cooled off in the sprinklers.  They also liked making some  poses on a big rock on one of the greens.  It was a fun evening with Kaebri, Tasia, Zade and Trigg.  

Since we had so much fun with the Smith kids, we decided to do it again this time with Brenden, Eliza and Kai!  We had yummy treats again at Digby's.  It was a Saturday night, and maybe that's why we encountered a lot of after hours golfers on the course.  We kind of had to work around them, but we still had fun in the cool and green and wet of the golf course.  I should have taken more pics.  Another fun grand 'edventure' for the books!  Brenden could  throw so far! Kai amazed us with  how far he could throw too!  And Eliza amazed us all with getting one hole done in only 2 shots!  

Grands, genealogy and getting out!

 It was fun to see some fun things happening with the grands this week!  Brenden and Kai and family went up north for some soccer tournaments where they got Champion and Runner-up medals for the first time medaling in this tournament in 5 years!  Yea boys!  It was fun to get some text pics from Joel (Lou) and Madi and Afton from their Lagoon trip!  I had told them not to go on this one airplane ride that made me turn absolutely green...so they did and reported that there was no green there!  

After that great soccer game, Brenden came home and got his wisdom teeth out!  Not nearly as much fun as playing soccer!  

Also this week I dug into some genealogy papers that I seem to be finding all over the house.  I got a letter a few weeks ago for my birthday.  It was from an high school best friend.  She sent me  some old letters and pictures that I had sent her years ago.  She was cleaning out her basement and found them.  A few years ago she had sent me several others.  I decided they were pretty great history and wondered where to stash them.  I ended up adding them the the Friends section of my Treasures of Truth book that I started putting together long ago when I was in Young Women.  It was something they encouraged back them.  Then I started on lots of things that are stowed all over the house and got many things organized and put into proper places for genealogical saving.  There is still a ton more to do with so many things that my mom sent me over the years, but I will have to take it a bite at a time or this elephant will be too much for me to swallow.  I have enjoyed making progress though.  

By the end of the week I was beginning to feel very cooped up with paperwork, so we took off on Saturday afternoon and drove up to Cedar Breaks where it was 77 degrees instead of 114!  We had a great picnic and visited the little Ranger Station/Visitor's Center at Duck Creek.  It has recently been remodeled and is now a nice picnic spot/bathroom stop/ and little store.  It was fun to go in and to discover the new things there!  We also  sadly saw that a little stream we love is nearly dry this year.  We need rain so badly!  

North Rim/Jacob Lake rain get away!

 We just wanted a quick, beautiful getaway!  We got a one night stay in a little cabin at Jacob Lake and spent a day at the North Rim.  And...it rained!  We got everything we had hoped for!  Beautiful walks at the Grand Canyon and at Jacob Lake, rain falling and beautiful views and fresh, rain washed air, and forests and flowers!  It was GOOD!  The day we got back we had a fun "Pie and beer - Pioneer Day" family dinner at Juge's.  We had great food and fun times playing her Pioneer Cranium game.  No pics.