Poulsen Family Reunion & Happy Birthday!

I celebrated my birthday this year in Idaho at the Poulsen family reunion.  My mom and sister were going and since we didn't know hardly anyone else that would be there we decided this would be a good time to go (the first time ever) and meet some of the relatives, visit with my mom and sister and see some beautiful country all at the same time.  It ended up being a quick, but delightful trip.  We left on Wednesday, June 22nd, right after I got done with summer school. 

We found a beautiful camp spot up Logan Canyon that night and then drove up the rest of the way to Salmon, via Teton and Yellowstone National Parks.  We stopped for just a little bit a Yellowstone to stretch our legs a little.

We spent Thursday night in Salmon at the same motel as my mom and sister.  Friday morning we headed out to the reunion spot.  Most people weren't arriving until that evening, so Paul and I set up our tent and then we all went back  in to Salmon and visited the Sacajawea Interpretive Center that is on the land where my mom's family lived when she was growing up.  It was very interesting and one of the presenters was so excited to interview one of the actual family members who could tell him a bit about how the place used to be.  The only thing left now is an old chicken coop that they got a grant to refurbish as a "historic outbuilding."  

After a birthday lunch and visiting some of the old landmarks that are still there from when my mom grew up, we went back out and joined the reunion for dinner and visiting.  What a fun group of people and a very well organized reunion.  While visiting with one of the cousins who owns the land where the reunion is held he told us about a placer gold mining operation that they lease out on the land.  The next day the other cousin, hearing about Paul's interest, arranged to take us up to observe the operation at work.  It was really interesting.  We had a good time hanging out, visiting and eating and getting to know some of the Idaho cousins.  Saturday evening we had to say our goodbyes and went back to the motel in Salmon so we could get and early start on the long drive home the next day.

 We took a different route home and enjoyed some more beautiful scenery.  It was a fun trip!

Genghis on peach patrol

In the bottom left picture he's licking his chops just thinking about the birds he might snag!

Genghis is doing a pretty good job of keeping watch over our peaches this year.  If he could just be out all the time I don't think the birds would get much of any chance at them.  He has a little spot just barely big enough where he lays in wait for any feathered snack that might come his way.

Happy June birthdays & Father's Day

What a nice week end!  Jay, Brynn and Madi came down to join the week end fun which started on Friday evening with dinner and visiting with Moss and Christie and Brenden. Jay couldn't wait for Moss to open his birthday present so he did and they had fun playing with min helicopters. Saturday morning we went to the samples sale at the Kelty factory and picked up some good deals and then took a walk up on T-Bone Mesa.  Then Lou and Bryan and family (Afton is getting cuter all the time, but not ready to leave mom's care too much yet) arrived and Moss and Christie rejoined us for more visiting and Moss got to open another present early - pedals for his new bike which they then installed.  He was pretty excited about that.  Then there was a bit more helicoptering until the Borrowmans, Smiths and G'ma Kurtz came over and we had dinner out back and then opened all the rest of the birthday and Father's Day presents.  It was lots of fun!  I think the most loved present would have to be the one the kids put together for Paul, a book of remembrances about time he spent with them growing up, and Weed made a beautiful pencil drawing of Paul for the cover. Thanks to everyone for all the wonderful gifts and especially for that highlight gift.   Later those that could stay a bit longer did and played Phase Ten (which Bryan/Bonnie won - Bonnie may have ignorantly cheated to do it). Sunday we got to have Jay and Brynn and Madi go to church with us - Madi stole the hearts of all the back row ladies in Relief Society.  Then while Bonnie did the typing we chatted with Supe and Paul and Jay, with the able assistance of Brynn, made their own Father's Day dinner.  It was SOOOO good!  Then it was time to say good bye again.  Madi felt good enough during this visit (she has always been under the weather on other visits) that we got to enjoy her cute little personality and even some snugly hugs.  We got to visit with Juge and Bean via phone which finished the goodness.  As usual, the only thing that could have been better would have been if those that couldn't be here could have been here (and if the chili had been more tasty - we'll work on that for next time).  I think that "no empty chairs" thing is something we all will enjoy later - even more than we do now!

(Oops - we goofed and didn't get any pics of Bonnie & Derek doing the birthday thing.)

A week of this and that

Our week started out with going to a free concert in the park for FHE.  It was really fun just sitting in a shady spot and listening as Kerry Christensen, a world class yodeler, put on a nice show.  There were lots of people there.  He did lots of yodeling while playing his accordion, of course, but also played an alpine horn and a zither.  It was really cool hearing those neat instruments.

On Thursday evening we went to the art talk at the St. George Art Museum and listened to Amado Pena talk about his exhibit (top floor) which was quite interesting if a little long, and also enjoyed the Minerva Teichert and Rembrandt works exhibits up there too. The ground level exhibit of southwestern landscapes by Charles Thomas is really nice also.  Afterwards we went for a walk up on the Red Hill and saw a cute little arch and also went up the Narrow slot for a ways until we didn't want to scramble around to go further.

 Friday morning we took Wayne Stucki on the vortex hike up by Sand Cove so he would know where to go when taking the scouts on a hike up there.

It was 64 degrees and overcast - perfect hiking weather.  We ate our breakfasts at the top and met up with some people from the Biggest Loser place who came up just shortly after we got there.  Its been a fun week of this and that.

Kaibab camping and Grand Canyon hiking...and Jacob's Lake cookies!

Our camp spot

We are pretty spoiled I guess, but we just have to take advantage of the chance to get out during camping season.  After our nice camp out last weekend, we decided we would do it again.  Friday after getting things done, we took off to find a camp spot over in the Kaibab on one of the many dirt roads that filter through it.  There are so many that it's kind of hard to pick. We found a nice spot among the aspen, fir and spruce.  We didn't see anyone else the whole time we were there.  Paul cooked up a nice dinner and we went for a long evening walk and then came back and watched True Grit sitting out in the cool forest air.  After a great night's sleep and tasty breakfast we decided to use our new park pass again and went the few more miles over to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  We had only the day, so we picked a hike we could do and then drive home in time to get to bed.  The Widforss trail is a 10 miler that goes out to Widforss Point which is a very nice overlook.  There's a little interpretive guide for the first half of the trail that was informative and there is a picnic table at the point, so we lunched there.  It was a really nice hike on a good trail.  There weren't many people there compared to the rest of the canyon.  

Widforss Trail and water stations at South Kaibab trail head and North Rim Administration Office

We also went over to the main lodge and Kaibab trail head area and checked out a few of the water stations that we put in last winter to see how the looked all finished up.  They turned out well and people are making good use of them.  I even washed my feet at one of them.  They were pretty dirty after the hike and I wanted to wear my flip flops without that black ankle line of dirt showing!  We stopped in at Jacob's Lake and had some good food and cookies for dinner. After that it was time to head for the hogan. Only wish we would have had one more night to camp out. 

Desert, alpine & family fun!

It was another enjoyable weekend.  We decided to just load up and go camping on Friday night.  We went out to the old stone quarry between St. George and Leeds on that very rough road between the two.  It was a perfect night, so we just slept under the stars.  We ate dinner before we left and just came home for breakfast in the morning, so it was quick packing up and setting up.  We had a little time to hike around before dark and were able to harvest a few yucca poles to make some walking sticks.  They are hard to find, especially ones that aren't bug eaten, so we counted that a bonus.  We took the laptop and watched Rabbit Hole which is a sad/good drama (some laughs too) movie that we both enjoyed and then piled into our comfy sleeping bag for a good starlit and fresh air to breath night's sleep.  In the morning we weren't really interested in heading home for breakfast until we had gone down and hiked for a while in Cottonwood Canyon (we had looked down on it the evening before and knew we couldn't leave without some time there).  The stream was full and sounded so nice from up above and in the canyon.  We did lots of back and forth across it during our stroll and loved it all!  

After coming home for a quick breakfast, we loaded up lunch and our coats and took off for the high country on Cedar Mountain with a stop by at Lou and Bryan's to drop of some stuff and say "Hi" to them.  We wanted to go and check out the site for G'ma's b-day bash.  The road got bad after a bit and we left the car and hiked (we had planned on this) off to find the place.  There is still snow and water everywhere and lots of mudslides/trees down from the big snow of the winter. We saw lots of crazy snow sculptures. In a few places lower down we saw just touches of aspen leaves coming out.  We sort of walked past the place we should have turned off to head to the campsite (no sign on the main road about it) and had a nice hike and then back tracked and found it, explored it and sloshed back to the car.  Then we drove home through Zion - thanks for the pass everybody!   

Oh, one evening earlier in the week we took another evening walk in Snow Canyon (found out the pass was actually good for another month) and did the unthinkable and went off trail in the canyon behind the sand dunes.  It's really cool!  We were lucky that the ranger we ran in to on the way back to our car didn't see us out there!

Genghis didn't get to go, be he got some relaxation in before we left. 

To finish off the week end, we had our "feast of the fast over family dinner" at Moss and Christie's house.  I am so glad we decided to do this and thanks to everyone for taking turns hosting.  It is a blast hanging out and visiting and the food is always so good.  The kids are great - forgot to take a picture of the older ones because they just played together so well we didn't even know they were there! One other thing that was great was that we got to chat with Supe (in Africa) and hear more about his adventures there.  It was fun to get more details about everything he's doing and what its like over there.   It was another one of those hard to beat it weeks. :O)

State Parks pass...good to the very last!

We played so much last week that we needed to do some business catching up on Memorial Day and get ready to head back to work on Tuesday.  After a full day of bookwork, laundry, yard watering, etc. we were ready to take a break, so for our evening walk we decided to use the parks pass that we inherited from Supe and take our evening walk in Snow Canyon.  The pass expires today!  We went on a trail we had never done before.  It's called Whiterocks Trail.  It's not the one that starts on Hwy. 18, but takes off of the Lava Flow Overlook trail and goes over the top and back down to join the Hwy. 18 trail.  It was so pretty with it just about dusk and flowers blooming and perfuming the air, green everywhere and not one other person to be seen on the whole trail. Since is was pretty near dark by the time we got over the top, we just walked along the highway and down the road back to our car.  It's a really nice (a little sandy in a few spots) trail with fantastic views.  As we were leaving, we had our moon roof and windows open and could smell all the camper's fires...mmm.  It really made me wish that I was camping out. Glad we got every bit of good we could out of that pass and really enjoyed ourselves in the process!  Today it was back to work/school for me and Paul. 

Our get out of school get away!

We decided it would be fun to do something with the grand kids to celebrate the end of the school year.  Some of them couldn't make it being otherwise engaged, but we did get to take some of them with us up to some friend's cabin in Pine Valley (they gave us the key while they are out of town celebrating).  We started by just getting together with the Borrowman gang for dinner at our house.  Then we packed up the kids and headed for the hills.  We got unpacked and went out for a walk to enjoy the cool air and beautiful scenery.  We got to see Moss and Christie and Brenden up at Christie's family cabin.  They let us ride their hand made 3 wheeler.  That was pretty scary!  Then we went up to see the new, maybe not so improved, campground areas.  When we came back it was pretty late, but we opted to stay up and eat popcorn and watch a movie anyway.  In the morning after breakfast we went up to hike around and look at the beautiful waterfalls.  There is so much water this year that waterfalls are gushing everywhere.  When we were all tired out and hungry we headed back to the cabin stopping in at the Pine Valley chapel for the tour. Then Ferf came up, bringing a very tasty blueberry pie from Veyo Pies with her.  It had ginger crystals on the top crust.  That inspired everyone to eat all of their lunch so they could have dessert.  Then it was time for the tired out kids to head home with their mom and Koen.  It was a good time!  After that Paul had a project he wanted to do at the cabin.  To turn on the water you have to go down through the floor to the crawl space.  It's several feet down and the way down is to step onto a  tall, somewhat teetering stool on the uneven ground of the crawl space.   He's been wanting to build a little ladder to use instead, so we got to work on that.  We took a little break when Anna Lou and Janet came by to visit for a little while.  We got it finished up in time to cook up some dinner, go for another little hike, watch a movie and hit the sack.  We attended church at the Pine Valley branch, along with a capacity crowd in town for the Memorial Day weekend.  It was wall to wall people and with TVs in every available room to broadcast the meeting.  We ended up in the kitchen area.  It was too cold, but they did have chairs set up out on the lawn too.  People came in whatever they had on smelling like campfires, suits and Sunday shoes with no socks, ladies in jeans, etc.  One lady apologized in Sunday School for being in pants confessing that she had forgotten her skirt.  It was a great meeting very focused on Memorial Day topics and we heard from a 3 star admiral and Korean and Iraqi war veterans.  After lunch and cleaning up the cabin, it was back to St. George.  It was fun to camp out in the mountains - easy style.  Now it's back to work!

Another year of school is over!

I have lived through and loved through another year of school.  Living through it...some days you think  you will go crazy with all the band aids, shoe tying, unhooking kids from their mom's legs, telling bus kids over and over to sit down on their seats, don't hang out the windows, don't eat, hold on to that ball, etc., etc.  Other days, they are the most darling, fun kids you can imagine.  As an example, one girl on the bus this year was absolutely the most irritating person...wouldn't sit down, wouldn't be quiet, sang incessantly some days, was irritating to everyone around her, just a real pain in the neck.  And she thought I was the most irritating person in the world always nagging her.  The last few days, she suddenly had a change of heart and just loved everyone on the bus. She wrote me this funny note:  "Mileena ________ is beautiful and loveably.  Ms. Lillywhite is nice, lovely and beautful.  She deserves everything."  So funny! Amazing how the end of the year changes your perspective.  So, yes it was another great year! You are glad to see it end, but also sad to see it go. 

My church calling...hiking with the Webelos

There are some things about my church calling that make me crazy, but I have to say that this part of it is pretty fun. I was on the staff of the District Webelos Day Hike and since I was the first volunteer and the only one to show up to the first planning meeting, I got the sweet job of being the hike leader for the activity.  One of the things that made it the most fun is that lots of the boys that were there were former kindergarten students, or siblings of former students, in the class that I aide in.  It was fun to hang out with a bunch of fun kids and adults in the beautiful out of doors for most of the day.  We hiked, tied knots, learned about Leave No Trace and fire building and made ropes and fished for crawdads.  The Order of the Arrow came and entertained us and the boys got to participate in their feather dance.   One of the kids said, "Wow, this is the best hike I've ever been on!" At the end, one little guy, a very energetic one, told me that he guessed that he probably wouldn't feel like riding his bike after he got home after all.  Knowing him and his activity level, I think we did a good job of wearing these little guys out having a great time and learning a lot in the process.  I think I can say that we reached our objectives.  The adult leaders were absolutely great.  One young couple in our stake that are Webelos leaders came, brought their boys and to do it had to bring their one year old in a back pack too.  The little guy had a great time eating rocks and playing in the dirt and wasn't any problem.  The leaders of the different classes were great too.  So, all together, it made for a great day.