Kennis #20 and Anna Lou #92

 For Kennis it just had to be a birthday card since she's up north going to school now.  She's had a hard time figuring out where to go and what to study since high school and concurrent college graduations a few years ago.  At least she already has a head start with her Associate's degree from college already behind her!  Go Kennis!  Hope you find your niche soon!  She's such a smart, hardworking, fun, cute girl!  Paul loved having such a fun, strong, smart helper when she worked for  him for a little while.  Happy #20 Kennis!  She got to celebrate with her mom and sister up north!!!

G'ma Kurtz, Anna Lou - #92!  We had cake with her at Sunday dinner, then took her to see the new Red Cliffs Temple and then to dinner at Panda Garden for dinner on Monday.  Her actual birthday is today, Tuesday, but she wanted to be available to get birthday phone calls or visits on the day of.  Hope she's gabbed it up to her heart's content all day long today!  

Zade's Karate!

Saturday morning we finally made it to one of Zade's karate competitions.  It was a small, pretty local one, but a good way for us to start learning about this sport.  Trigg was supposed to compete as well, but he had sprained and ankle earlier in the week and was out of commission unfortunately.  Zade did really well and took three 1st place medals and one 2nd place medal.  It was really interesting.  We are proud of him for his hard work in the sport and in so very many other ways.  Love you Zade!  Way to go!  Forms, weapons, sparring and kicks . It was pretty cool!  

Weed's #44!

 In Memory from Juge FB:  Celebrating the happy day of Weed’s birth today! From our baby journals I think she had a hard time giving up her baby status 18 months later when I arrived, but luckily she apparently forgave me before too long and we got to be the best of buds. She was a one in a million friend who made you feel great just being around her.

This month I’ve been thinking about ways that she is still “in the game” here with us even though we might not be aware of it and also about the really awesome things she might be experiencing that she didn’t have a chance to experience before.

Thanks to another sister for this beautiful picture of Juge and Weed in our natural habitat.

It was nice to gather with those who could make it (on the 24th) to remember Lenae at a Pizza Factory buffet. Not any from our family could come unfortunately, but Paul and I were able to make it and enjoyed touching base the lots of the Smith family that were there. We love you and miss you Weed! And we are so glad you're up there helping out where you can with the things that need your loving touch. (Derek took this BeReal picture for me with his usual nasal flourish! And my eyes are closed as usual too.) The boss/owner of the Pizza Factory where Weed worked, is always really nice and tries to help us have this chance to gather. He remembers Weed and that's enough for him to want to help.

Some sweet memories that people shared about Weed on Juge's post on FB.

Kali Pollock Baumgartner

I am a firm believer that our closest loved ones are back in our lives often once they go to heaven. I bet she is right along beside you and your kids through most of your adventures.

Nonie Cottam Gay

Happy birthday to the one and only Weed! To the amazing girl who saved this lonely and friendless seventh grader and invited her to join her and her ninth grade friends everyday for lunch and was one of the three people who showed up to my rather pathetic sweet 16th party. I’m super grateful for those two cute girls in that picture for being my friend when it was probably easier not to be. Love you both! 

Capitol Reef - for real this time!

We have been to Capitol Reef NP a few times; some on our own, and once with the University for a geology field trip/class, but we have never really "explored" the park as we would have liked to.  This time we still didn't have lots of time, but we took 5 hikes that totaled up we did about 13 miles in the 2 days we were there.  It was wonderful and oh so beautiful!  We hiked:  Goosenecks, Sunset Point, the Grand Wash (just shy of the end since we had done it before with the University and Paul's foot was hurting), Hickman Bridge, Chimney Rock Loop and Cassidy Arch.  Each one was amazing in it's own way.  It was also wonderful that even though it is President's Day weekend, there were not very many people in the Park.  Some places we didn't even see people for most of the hike (Hickman Bridge).  It was cold, and some places were a bit muddy from the recent rains or from recently melted snow, but we wore our long underwear under our hiking clothes and were really comfortable with jackets/gloves only sometimes. We spent the night in Torrey (Friday) and ate at a very expensive restaurant on Friday evening.  It was good, but no very much for the price.  Lots of things were not yet open.  We had a great time!  On the way home we stopped at Ruby's Inn at Bryce canyon and made up for our bad food experience with a great dinner!  

"...the light seems to flow or shine out of the rock rather than to be reflected from it."  Clarence Dutton, geologist and early explorer of Capitol Reef, 1880s

"Geology knows no such word as forever."  Wallace Stegner  

As we went up the Hickman Bridge trail we came to this little Native American structure up on a ledge  (top left pic). We were able to scramble up close enough to take a good picture of it. Pretty cool! After that, we came to these two little bridges.  At first we thought this was Hickman Bridge and we were just a little disappointed that it wasn't bigger.  Then we decided to keep going up the trail a bit further, and Paul spotted the REAL bridge, which is huge.  Glad we kept on going!  

At Cassidy Arch we saw a grandfather, son, daughter and 4 very small kids doing a rappel down from the arch and then they were going on down the canyon with 6 more rappels to go.  The first rappel was 180 feet and looked really scary. I looked it up after we got home and it is really a neat place with several more arches/bridges that you rappel down through to get to the bottom of the canyon.  Not something I would want to do with little kids.  The older ones were pretty excited to go, but some of the very little ones were howling about for a while.  

We love Bean!

 Bean has been going through hell with his mental illness since his birthday in August.  He's been in and out of the hospital several times and life is just so hard for him.  The other day he showed up at Juge and Lance's in between hospital and homeless shelter stays.  She got a picture with him and I love seeing him smiling since I haven't seen him that way in months and have hardly seen him at all during that time.  Oh how I wish I could take away all of this pain from him some way.  We just keep praying and putting it in Heavenly Father's hands and waiting upon the Lord.  

They said he looked and sounded so much like Jay.  He's lost so much weight not being on meds and having so many other problems.  

 Paul and I took a beautiful after the rains hike up to "Supe's pond" on the Red Hill.  I was wonderfully refreshing to see how vibrant everything was after the rains!  It made our day!

Sun and snow...love them both

Saturday dawned a bright, gloriously sunny day after a week of wonderful rain.  Don't get me wrong; I'm so grateful for that rain, but I do notice that I get a little bit downish when it goes on for very long.  Paul and I had lots of chores to do that morning, but both of us were so excited to see the sun that we both came up with ideas of how to get out and enjoy it.  In the end we decided we would go to Pine Valley first to see if there was snow and take  walk if it wasn't too deep while it was still the warm part of the day and then if there was still time when we got back we'd take a red hill hike as well.  When we got up there the snow was beautiful and not too deep, so we decided to walk the Santa Clara River Trail that goes through the picnic/campground/forest area.  There were people by the lake sledding down the hill.  It looked like so much fun!  We had such a beautiful walk.  It was a very wet snowfall and it was sticking in all the trees and decorating them!  It was just above freezing - too warm to X-country ski, but perfect for walking.  It was peaceful and so pretty.  We went to end of the trail and then as we started back it started to snow just a little and then more and more and by the time we got back  to the car it was really going at it.  It was a good thing we got back so we could get on the road home.  It kept snowing until we got down to Snow Canyon and then it was sun and rain washed red and white rocks.  Everything is so beautiful with the air pure and clean from the recent rains.  I just felt like smiling all day long!  Love this place we live with so much variety in such a small area!  I feel so blessed when I'm out enjoying Heavenly Father's beautiful creations. 

January birthdays

 Eden had the first birthday of the year and turned 17!  I can't believe little Eden is really that old!  She had a pretty exciting day before/day of getting a broken wrist while skiing with friends, getting off the mountain in snowy conditions and not being able to get in to the doctor until the day after.  Thankfully it was not a really bad break - no surgery or pinning.  We didn't get to see her other than on Facetime a week later when her present arrived in the mail.  

We got the Randall gang in one evening after putting it off for Bryan's grandmother's funeral. It was Bryan's 48th, Afton's 13th and Brady's 19th all in one celebration!  Actually got to see Brenden on the day of #15!  He's taking his permit test in a few days! 

Valley of Fire and other fun!

Friday we decided to get out of town to someplace in the sun (it has been raining a lot lately), and we decided to head down to Valley of Fire in Nevada.  It was a great decision.  The place is too hot to even think about going to later in the year, but it was perfect weather for our little trip.  We had been there  once long ago when it must have been too hot and didn't think much of it.  We just did a quick drive through then, but this time we saw nearly the whole place and did every little hike!  It was beautiful and so interesting.  So many kinds of rock and such beautiful formations, petroglyphs and historical things as well. (Sorry - got some picture repeats.)

Another so fun thing was going to a play by the St. George Musical Theater - Sound of Music.  At first I thought that I had seen this a lot of times before, but it was so well done and so fun that Paul and I both were really glad we saw it.  The acting, singing and dancing were all superb!  

Zade ordains Trigg!

 Sunday was a busy,  but wonderful day!  Derek let us know about Zade and Trigg's priesthood ordinations and we were able to attend.  Zade was ordained a priest by Grandpa Smith and then Trigg was ordained a deacon by Zade.  I think Zade was pretty nervous, but he did just great.  Wow, the grand kids are all growing up way too fast! So happy for both of these boys.  Also ordained that day that we didn't know about to attend was Koen - he was ordained a priest by older brother Gaige!  Too bad, no pictures of that one.