Dancing with Eliza - recital and grand "edventure"!

Eliza has worked very hard to stay with dance even after her little cousins quit.  When it was time for her recital we had the night available and got to go and enjoy her performance.  She did an awesome, darling job!  Then a few weeks later I heard about a children's dance performance at a dance company a friend works for.  She had offered me tickets many times before and we jumped on it this time to make for a fun Christmas grand "edventure" date for her!  We added in a happy meal at McDonald's afterwards to make it a total hit!  It was a fun time to spend with our Eliza!

West Canyon bike and Pine Valley

We enjoyed a beautiful May Saturday thoroughly.  We took a morning bike ride up the West Canyon road and then for the afternoon we took Grandma Kurtz and went to Pine Valley for a KFC picnic and then a walk along the trail to enjoy all of the beautiful water flowing high because of the heavy snows this year.  We added more goodness to the day by stopping in at Veyo Pie for a slice on the way home!

SCORPIONS AND BOYS - FUN TIMES!

It was time for another "Christmas grand edventure date" redemption.  I saw that Snow Canyon was offering their Scorpion Search program once again and decided it would be a perfect date for our four 8/9 year olds:  Zade, Koen, Noah and Brenden.  I have always wanted to do it myself and it turned out to be a fun thing to share with them.  Paul and I didn't tell them what we were doing until the last minute.  We picked them all up and enjoyed listening to their fun jabbering in the backseat on the way there.  They are such a cute bunch, we enjoy seeing them grow up having a fun time sharing experiences together...especially now that they are old enough to enjoy each other instead of babies fighting over toys!  When we got to Snow Canyon we ate Klondike bars while we waited for the crowd to gather and the program to start.  After we learned  about scorpions we went out with black light flash lights to search for the little critters.  We were not disappointed and found some! 

Red Canyon, Mossy Cave, etc.

I'm playing catch up as usual and these posts aren't completely in the order they occurred, but hey, no matter.  So one weekend in May Paul and I went over to check out the upcoming Family Camp site and the fun things to do in the area.  It was such a fun trip!  We camped in the "grand hotel" in a real bed thank goodness because it was pretty cold and pretty windy Friday night.  Saturday morning we headed over to Red Canyon and did several little hikes in that beautiful area.  Then we went over to the Mossy Cave trail which is part of, but outside of Bryce Canyon proper.  We hiked the regular trial and then kept going upstream to find some beautiful things we decided would be fun for everyone for Family Camp.  After that we checked out the Arches Trail - another little trail in Red Canyon area.  It was so fun to discover these beautiful, new, never before visited places together!  We had driven up through Zion, so on the way home we went over Cedar Mountain - both of these are beautiful places to revisit!

Rock trip fun

One thing I love about having summer off is the chance to ride with Paul on some of his trips to get stone.  Got to ride over to Fredonia and spend a little time at Sliver Arrow's stone yard the other day.  I guess I have "rocks in my blood" from living with Paul all these years! 

School's out...again!

It's that time again...that happy/sad time when we say our good-byes to our ready for 1st Grad kindergartners.  It was another year of watching them learn so mucy more than, reading, writing and 'rithmatic.  It's a bitter/sweet thing every time.  Good luck tou our little class of 2016-17!  They are ready! 

This is one of my favorite yearly bulletin boards with many sea creatures made from the children's hand prints.  

Above:  OEK (optional extended-day kindergartners) that I help with for lunch, computers and recess.  Below:  the morning and afternoon classes all dressed up and ready to perform their end of year program for their parents.

Arizona travels - Ashfork and Timp Point

We made it over to Arizona a couple of times the during the last little bit.  Once was for a business/fun trip to get stone in Ashfork.  We always love these little get aways!

The next Arizona trip was to camp out at the Timp View Vista Point of the Grand Canyon.  We left as quick as we could on a Friday afternoon and got there in plenty of time for a great Dutch oven dinner, an evening walk and most of a movie (until the lap top went dead again!).  It was perfect weather.  The next morning we hiked over and back to North Timp View and saw so much beautiful forest and grant views!  It was such a beautiful, relaxing trip!  We did have a bit of  "Lillywhite luck" with a flat tire on the way out, but it was in a very good spot and Paul got the crazy spare tire system on the truck figured out. We only saw 3 other people while camping! There's were a couple of logs down in the road that we had to go around on the way to the point.  On the way back Paul tried to cut and drag the smaller one out of the way, but the the strap broke when we tried to pull it with truck.  Just too heavy.  

The picture with the black frame was taken by Paul's phone through the binoculars so we could see the Roaring Thunder waterfall a little better! 

Getting out there - Red Mountain Trail!

We took advantage of the sunny weather on a recent Saturday morning to hike the Red Mountain Trail to see how much water was in the lake on top.  Our sunny morning turned into a very windy afternoon and we made quick work of the beautiful hike!  Loved it, but not so much the wind!  

Birthdays coming thick and fast!

We have had birthdays aplenty of late and I am behind as usual...here they are!

Christie #29 - we celebrated with her at our last family dinner!  Love you Christie!

Next up was Essie!  We were lucky enough to have her drop by on the way home from a CA trip and just in time to celebrate with her!  Such a cutie!  Love you to pieces Essie!  Happy #3!

And then we got to party family style with the Smiths for Kaebri's #17, Trigg's #5 and Zade's #9!  We got to do that for the May family dinner!  Love you each and every one!

Each one of you bless our lives.  We are so grateful to have you as part of our wonderful family!

Helix - 1st camp of spring

We didn't really have time, but we so wanted to get out for a camp out that we did it anyway.  We took off Friday after work to camp out at the Helix (out Motaqua Rd.).  Supe told us a new, less rigorous way to get there, so we were on new ground.  It was still pretty  rugged road, but we got there...and a wilderness therapy group was camped in the spot we were hoping for.  But we were able to go back a little ways and find a great spot.  We had good food and then our movie would not play on the lap top, but we just went to bed early and listened to some podcasts until we were tired.  In the morning we breakfasted in the tent since it was a little chilly and then drove back and hiked to the Helix, a sweet little slot canyon.  It was fun to shimmy our way through and back and see a lot of really beautiful country.  When we got back we got to go to the temple with a young lady in the YSA ward going through her first time and then we heard about another girl we had worked with some getting baptized and got to attend her baptism.  So even though we had to shorten the camp out, it was worth it for the spiritual feast of the rest of the day!