Scenery en route to Lava Point dinner date

The other evening we were both itching to get out for an evening.  We grabbed some sandwiches and drove up to Lava Point to eat dinner and see the scenery.  It was really cold when we got there, so we ended up eating in the car, but it was still just a nice get out of the house evening.  

Fun at the Lillywhite "hotel"

Jay and Brynn getting a house has taken some of the burden off Juge and Lance as the "up north hotel" when we go up that way.  They've been good to provide us with a place to bed down for the night on a very last minute basis recently.  In the process, we have had a chance to enjoy seeing Madi on her own turf...it's been fun!!!  Thanks, Jay and Brynn, for being such accomodating hosts...good company and good food!

Let's take that hike one more time...

The Saturday after our Halloween bash we got to go on a beautiful hike with the Weavers, Ferf and Koen and Dorothy.  It was the perfect day for a hike.  Eden is an amazing little hiker for her age.  She just kept trekking along.  Noah and Koen did fine too, but had to have a little bit of carrying...Koen took a nap on Paul's head on the way back. Sarai was just chill and cute the whole time in the pilfered plig bonnet (she forgot her regular sun hat). We had our lunch at the top and the kids kept me scared running around too near the edge.  They also had fun throwing rocks in the little pond and hiding in a cave.  Eden carried a Halloween bucket full of this and that all the way up...pretty funny.  When we got back to the stream the kids had a grand time catching moss.  I'm glad the Weavers finally got to take this hike with us.  I think everyone in the family may have been there now.  If not, we'd be happy to go again!

Halloween Party Extraordinaire + Tasia #7

Happy #7 Tasia- we love you!

Thanks to Juge and Moss and Christie, this Halloween Scrooge enjoyed a fun evening.  Everyone contributed something to the effort and it was a blast.  Thanks to all of you.  The party included tasty food (thanks to Brynn for sending cookies even when she wasn't in town to enjoy the fun), pumpkin carving by the men, banner making for the women, slime making for the kids, and games - bingo, cake walk, and Minute to Win It.  That was my favorite.  We tried to knock down card targets with rubber bands, stack golf balls, put together puzzles, order cups by how many pennies were in them, balance a marble on specific holes in an ironing board, and toss a bottled water on a table and have it land bottom down...all with a minute time limit to get the job done.  We also did a quick birthday sing/present opening for Tasia.  I feel bad that more of the pictures didn't turn out.  The lighting was difficult to manage.  Sorry that Ryan and Derek missed the fun.  Thanks again to everyone for a Halloween party extraordinaire!

If you aren't in the picture it's not because you weren't cute.  Picture taking is hard in the house. 

Monster fingers, it's hard to eat in a grape costume, a red-eyed ghost helping her dad, candy corns are not just for eating and pumpkin carving results.

Granny and Gramps Smith - these two really go all out.  Derek even shaved off some of his hair to make it realistic...and right before parent teacher conferences too!

Since I didn't get a good picture of "Thor" aka Zade at the party, Derek was good enough to share one with me.  Looks pretty cute, I mean tough, doesn't he?

Grand Canyon Grand 'Edventure'

Last Friday/Saturday Kaebri and Tasia traveled over to the  South Rim of the Grand Canyon on a "workation" with us.  Paul had done another one of the little water filling stations for the park service and it needed to be washed.  We had a good time listening to Where the Red Fern Grows on the way there and back.  We stopped at Jacob's Lake for cookies and then again at Navajo Bridge so we could look down on the Colorado River. We saw a condor flying by. We were up early on Saturday morning and hiked the new (as of last October) "Trail of Time".  It was really fun, and since we were on Utah time, we were there before it got crowded.  We took pictures of the girls at nearly every stone marker and they tried to make different faces/poses at each.  At the end of the trail the girls got Jr. Ranger packets and we worked on them and then they were sworn in as official Jr. Rangers. After that we rode the shuttle back to our car and then shopped and watched a movie about the Grand Canyon.  We got lunch at the last shopping spot and then headed home. (Grandpa and Grandma learned that eating and shopping can't be a hurry up job!)  It's a pretty long drive, but between the story and the Happy Meal toys the girls did just fine.  I think Kaebri had cheeseburgers for dinner/lunch/dinner.  She's a real fan!  It was a fun trip.  We're thinking that we'll have to start training these grand kids up in the stone trip/vacation tradition as part of "Grand Edventuring".

Jacob's Lake and Navajo Bridge pit stops

Jr. Ranger and shuttle bus fun and making use of some of Grandpa's water filling stations

Random shots here and there.  Below is a shot of the canyon taken through the window of the Desert View Watchtower (also below).  It was our last stop on the way out of the canyon. 

 See next post for our adventures along the Trail of Time.

Trail of Time facts and pictures

The Trail of Time is a 4.56 km (2.83 mile) long geologic timeline. Each meter walked on the timeline trail signifies one million years of Grand Canyon's geologic history. Walking the trail gives you a visceral appreciation for the magnitude of geologic time. Bronze markers mark your location in time; every tenth marker is labeled in millions of year! Along the timeline trail are a series of rocks and exhibits that explain how Grand Canyon and its rock formed.

Portal signs welcome visitors to the exhibit at the entry points to the trail, Yavapai Point and the west end of Grand Canyon Village. The rock column holding up this sign shows Grand Canyon's rock actual layers, brought up from deep in the canyon.

Placed at their "birthdays" along the trail are about 50 samples of Grand Canyon rocks brought to the rim from deep in the canyon. Many show spectacular features, like 1.7-billion-year-old folds, 1.2-billion year-old mud cracks, 800-million-year-old algal reefs, or 270-million-year-old fossils.

Viewing tubes along the trail link times on the timeline to features and rocks down in the canyon. Waysides tied to the timeline explain the key events that lead to formation of Grand Canyon's rocks and the landscape we see today at Grand Canyon.

 Other fun along the trail and the end of the trail markers.  We made it!

Happy #3 Koen

It was fun to get together with the the Borrowman clan to celebrate Koen's birthday last week.  He's now the ripe old age of 3.  He was pretty excited about his new tool set.  I don't think he was too excited about new Sunday clothes (very understandable), but he sure looked cute in them.  He was excited about the 3 packs of Smarties we added to the birthday bag!  Happy birthday Koen - we love you! 

UEA - here & there

We tried and tried to plan something major to do over UEA - my two whole days off from school.  Plan after plan just wouldn't work out. Finally we just decided to have fun doing some everyday things that we enjoy...spending time with people we love...throwing in some outdoor time in the beautiful fallish weather. It turned out to be a great time. We started the fun on Thursday with a Grand 'Edventure' with Brynnli, Tavin, Kennis and Gaige.  We had hoped to include Kaebri and Tasia too, but since we were so last minute in our planning their other grandma had already claimed them.  Our last Grand 'Edventure' to Kolob Arch was a pretty strenuous, so we decided to do several mini-hikes that were pretty tame this time.  

We started at Snow Canyon doing the little hike to Jenny's Canyon.

 Then we trekked over to Pioneer Names.

 After that we did the hike up to White Rocks.

Then it was lunch time.  We had a picnic in a shady glad below Baker Reservoir.  (We got to see the wagon train in route on our way there.)

After lunch we hiked most of the trail between Baker Reservoir and Brookside.  There were a couple of gorgeous waterfalls along the way.

On the way home we stopped for swirl cones from Arctic Circle.  The kids decided that was the perfect way to end a good day of hiking! One day of UEA well enjoyed!

Friday and Saturday we made a trip up to SLC.  While there Bean took us on a tour of the new Central Bishop's Storehouse and Deseret Transport facility.  It is a huge, amazing place.  Two stake centers could fit into one of the walk in freezers.  I don't know why anyone would want to have stake conference in a freezer, do you?  In the evening we got to go to Jay and Brynn's new house - it's the first time for me - and join them and the Weavers for Jay's third birthday get together for the week.  They treated us to a fantastic dinner.  Jay used one of his birthday presents, a stove top smoker, to cook up some soooo tasty pork.  Juge and Brynn finished up the meal with other yummy things.  Then we had a good time visiting and eating birthday pies.  It was so fun to see everyone and to see the beautiful new house too.  Madi and Sarai even liked us after a little while!   (I was too busy enjoying visiting and forgot to take very many pictures.)

The birthday candle blowing pictures are always so flattering!

On Saturday we went for a couple of little hikes - Neff  and Bell's Canyons.  We didn't have time to do all they way on either of them, but it was so pretty with the leaves turning.  There were lots of people out enjoying the beautiful day.  Thanks to all of you for spending time with us on such a last minute trip!