Monthly Archives: July 2011

Today to celebrate Pioneer Day, we had some friends over and made tinfoil dinners and cooked them up on the grill.  It was a far cry from the way they did things in 1847!  We sure take for granted many of the modern conveniences we have today, that’s for sure!  The food tasted great and we thought it was a fun idea.

Today, the family (minus Kirk who had to go to work) went blueberry picking!  They had a fun time and ended up picking 30 pounds!  Everyone we told couldn’t believe it!

The funny thing is that the farm said you could eat while picking, so Ben ended up eating probably 2 pounds of  blueberries while he was in the field.  I’m not sure why his skin didn’t turn blue by the time he got home!  🙂

The new washer and dryer arrived today!  I got them installed when I got home and they look great!  They’re just like new toys!  Angela loves to do laundry now, and so do the kids!  The machines are SO quiet and you can’t even tell they’re running until you hear the little “laundry’s done” musical chimes.  🙂

Today we went out shopping and found an awesome washer/dryer set for a great deal!  It’s an Electrolux front-load set and we are excited to have them delivered!

On a more fun note, the girls went to a combined Young Women and Young Men activity at the church with the 2 other wards in our building and had a country hoedown tonight.  They had a blast and they looked so cute, dressed up in their western wear!

They had a bunch of cowboy chow, did line dancing, and had all kinds of fun!  YeeeeeHawwww!  🙂

We got up early and went to church in Grand Island Nebraska.  The ward was really small and we added a chunk to the congregation!  It seems like we always to that when we are on the road!  🙂  We decided to stay for 2 of the 3 meetings and although the girls weren’t too excited about that, they really loved the classes they were in.  Everyone treated them really nice.

We drove, and drove, and drove and finally made it home Sunday evening.  What a drive and what a trip!  All-in-all, we drove about 4500 miles round trip!  Crazy, huh?  We are very tired, but we had a great time on the trip.  It was good to see family and re-connect.  We’ll sleep good tonight and have a wonderful, relaxing day tomorrow with NO DRIVING!  🙂

Unfortunately, when we got home, we found that our washer was broken!  😐  Ouch!  It’s about 15 years old and we were hoping it would hold on for a while longer, but looks like we’re out of luck.  We’ll probably have to replace it, which means that we’ll replace both and spend a bunch of cash.  Uggghh.

This morning, we got up early and started on our way back home.  We drove down to Provo and picked up Sarah and Brittany from EFY.  They had a great time and had a lot to talk about.  They really enjoyed it there.  They liked their roommates and their groups of kids they were with.  They had some great spiritual experiences as well which was great for them. Below are some pictures of their groups and counselors:

Zach was pretty excited, because they bought him a BYU hat for his birthday!  🙂

We then started the LONG drive home.  We’re used to the flat Midwest farmland that we have lived in for the past 16 years, but when we come back West, it sure is nice to be in the mountains.  We sure will miss them!

We made it well into Nebraska before we stopped for the night.  We were planning on starting home on Sunday, but now we will get home on Sunday and have all day Monday to relax and get ready for the week.

Today we got up early, packed, and then at a wonderful last breakfast at the Desert Thistle.  We said our good-byes to Maureen and Warner and started on our way.  We really enjoyed our time there, that Maureen and Warner really made us feel at home.  They are such great hosts and we wouldn’t hesitate again to stay there!  🙂

We decided to drive through the southern part of the park on our way home (where they allow cars).  We saw some more stunning views (checkerboard mesa is below):

After leaving the east entrance of the park, we drove north and then back west again to the mountains to Cedar Breaks National Monument.  We had never been there before, but WOW, what views!  The place was like a mini Grand Canyon sprinkled with Bryce Canyon into it!  What a beautiful place!

We listened to a presentation about the animal life from a ranger there, and then enjoyed the views before continuing on.  The interesting thing about the monument is that it is along the main highway.  As you drive up the road, there are turn-outs that you can stop at, hike a little bit and see different views.  It is really breathtaking!

After seeing Cedar Breaks, we drove up over Brianhead and down the canyon to I-15.  At this point, we were ready to be done driving for the day.  🙂  On the way home, we stopped in Spanish Fork and went to see Greg and Lisa.  Greg was still at work, but we had a great chat with Lisa!  After that, we drove as fast as we could up to North Ogden.  It was great to finally see the kids.  They were so excited to finally be with us again!  They had a great time but they did miss us!  🙂

Today was an awesome day!  We spent the entire day in the park and it wasn’t nearly as strenuous as two days ago (or I am used to the altitude and am in a little better shape after 2 days).  🙂  We got up early, ate a great breakfast, and then hiked the Emerald Pools.  It was very beautiful up there and although it was hot, when we got to the pools, it was at least 30 degrees cooler.  What is kind of sad is that they have signs posted all over NOT to swim or wade in the water because it will destroy the ecology of the pools.  So what did we see when we got there?  Tons of people splashing around and swimming in the water.  It’s sad that people can’t read and don’t care about the environment.  We rested there for awhile and enjoyed the peace there (after a bunch of the noisy people left).  🙂

We then took the long trail back around and picked up the shuttle to further up the canyon.  The full hike was about 3 miles but today, it didn’t seem like it.  We took some beautiful pictures and just enjoyed the walk.  We didn’t have to hurry and there were no chains to hold onto for fear of falling 1500 feet on either side of you!  🙂

This afternoon we went up to the very end of the scenic route in the park (Temple of Sinawava) where the trails end and hiked the Riverside Walk trail to the end.  We then donned our river shoes and hiked up the main part of “The Narrows.”  This was the highlight of the day.  The Narrows are where there is no trail but the river so you walk in the river with cliffs towering on each side.  The full hike from the bottom to the top is about 16 miles.  There were places as shallow as shin-deep, to as deep as our chests.  Some places were swifter and other places were quite calm.  Before going, you have to check for flash flood warning and weather reports because if there are flash floods in those canyons, there is no where to go you don’t have much of a chance of surviving.

We had a wonderful time and we kept nice and cool in the water.  It would have been fun to go even further, but we were pretty tired (doing that can take a lot out of you because you are walking against the water the entire way up).  Coming back was a little trickier, because the water was pushing you from behind.  🙂  It went pretty fast.  By the time we got out of the water and had walked back to the main parking lot to the shuttles, we were almost dried out (no humidity and warm temp) and ready to eat dinner!  🙂

We went down to Springdale and ate dinner at Oscar’s (recommendation from Maureen and Warner).  They had the best burgers I have ever tasted!  I had the “Murder Burger” because they said it was “to die for” and it was something else!  Coupled with their fries (Angela had the sweet potato fries), we were pretty full by the time we finished.  What a great dinner!

After dinner, we went back into the park and went on a 90 minute ranger-led tour.  We crossed our fingers because we were wait-listed and fortunately, we got the last 2 spots because some others didn’t show.  It was a pretty cool experience.  The ranger took us to places that the shuttles don’t usually stop and gave us all kinds of historical and geological facts about the park.  We had a great time.

Meanwhile, the kids were up in North Ogden swimming and having a great time too!

They had a lot of fun and really enjoyed a break from the heat!  Kirstyn did a great job helping take care of the boys and we sure appreciate her helpfulness!  🙂

We capped off the day with some chocolate Creamies and are now getting ready to go to bed.  We are excited to see the kids, but are not excited that this is our last night down here!  We have thoroughly enjoyed our time here and will miss it.  It has been great being together without any responsibility!  🙂

Today was quite relaxing (physically).  We didn’t hike a bunch of miles and we were able to partake of much more air conditioning than we did yesterday!  🙂  We got up early and after breakfast, went down to St. George.  We did a session at the temple, and then did a little shopping at Deseret Book and the Church Distribution Center.

We then went to Cafe’ Rio (Mexican food) and had lunch!  It was really good!  Angela went there when she visited Vegas last year and loved it.  It was my first time eating there, and I’ll tell you, it was MUCH better than either Qudoba or Chipotle!  I wish that someone would open up some franchises out in the Midwest!

After lunch, we went over to Brigham Young’s home (historical site) and took a tour.  It was fascinating to see some of the things they had there and to hear the history of the place.  They had almond and fig trees planted there, something that you wouldn’t think of growing in St. George!

We then drove over to the old tabernacle and took a tour there.  We arrived just in time and were able to be on the last tour of the day.  The history there was very interesting.  It was at that pulpit that Lorenzo Snow prophesied about tithing.  There were many other historical facts that we found very interesting as well.  The Elder that was there took a picture of Angela and I sitting behind the pulpit.  I think that is one of the favorite things the missionaries like to do with folks who come on the tour.  Every prophet of this dispensation with the exception of Joseph Smith has spoken at this pulpit and has sat in the seats we were in!  🙂

After we took the tour, we went shopping at the outlets there for awhile, grabbed a little something to eat, and then went and saw the new movie 17 Miracles.  It was in early release in select theaters and we thought that since church-related movies don’t come too often in out in our area that we would check it out.  What a powerful movie!  It portrays the struggles of the Martin and Willie Handcart Companies as they came across the plains.  It was VERY well done and the acting was very good.  That is definitely one we’ll have to add to our collection when it comes out on DVD.

After finishing up at the movie late, we drove back home and are pretty tired from the day’s activities!  We’ll sleep good tonight in preparation for another physical day tomorrow!  🙂