Bryce Canyon

We enjoyed one last fling this summer over Labor Day Weekend visiting Bryce Canyon. We stayed in a cabin nearby that just barely fit all of us, but it came with a pool at the campground, so the kids were happy.

We set out each day doing a bunch of hikes, then we'd cruise back to the cabin, cook dinner on the fire pit, do some swimming, and crash before the next day's adventures doing the same thing.

Here's a glimpse of our fun:

That's Natalie who can't bear to look away from her Junior Ranger workbook she was working on.

All four of the girls received their Junior Ranger badges after completing all of their age appropriate assignments, including one very fascinating ranger program - that is, for John and I. The girls were utterly bored as we learned about the Lodge's history. It was fascinating! Did you know it was designed by the same guy who designed the lodge at the Grand Canyon?

 



 

We encountered a sleeping rattlesnake underneath one of the benches along a trail:

 

As we were hiking along, we came around a bend, and saw this:

 A log filled with stacked rocks. It was really a sight to behold, including these crazy ones:

 

Of course we had to add a few of our own:

 

Our girls were real troopers and hiked up a storm without too much complaint.

Actually, they only complained when it was their turn to wear the backpacks filled with our water.

 

Megan got a ride - and seriously, it was only one time for a teeny part of the trail, only because she asked John in that ever so cute 4-year-old voice of hers.

 

 

Natalie loved taking our camera and had me pose a gazillion different times along each trail.

This was one of the better shots:

 

Natalie wasn't the only one who liked to play with the camera.

Alicia took a ton of selfies. It was funny to look through all of them as I picked out the photos for this blog post.

 

 

Bryce is one of our favorite canyons, with John and I having visited it a couple of times, but we had yet to take our younger girls, so it was decided by the girls earlier in the year that's where they wanted us to take our family vacation when Disneyland got postponed to next year. 

 

 

 

 

It really was a blast. I adore family vacations.



Summer Wrap Up

I have been terrible about posting this summer - so I will do one big blog posting wrapping up our summer fun.

Alicia turned 12, which means pierced ears at our house. She has been waiting impatiently for the last several years.

 We like to have it done at a piercing shop down in Salt Lake, if you are wondering why the guy is loaded up on tattoos.

 

To celebrate her birthday, we had cake, presents,

 

 

and a party with all of her friends.

 

Natalie had a lemonade stand, and spent her money on a mask-making kit.

 

 

We went up to Pineview, a local reservoir. Our friends brought kayaks, which we all thoroughly enjoyed.  

 

 Kim and Megan

 

 Natalie

 

Megan learned how to ride her bike without training wheels this year. John spent weeks working on it with her. She was a little fearful, to say the least, but she conquered it.

 

We still have to get her started, but then she is off and going...

 

 

 

Speaking of bikes, the week before school, they had an open house at the elementary, so Natalie and I rode our bikes, slightly over 3 miles round trip with 4 whopper hills - and I am not kidding when I say they are doozies. Natalie was a trooper, though I may not be able to talk her into doing that again.

 

 

The Friday before school, Kim and Alicia went with their friends Kylee and Jessica, who are sisters, to the mall and spent some of their hard-earned babysitting money from tending several neighbor kids.

 

 

 We have been having a ton of rain and lightning storms, so the girls just put on their shoes, and head out to play in the rain. 

 

 

 

 We had some fun times with John's family. One of them was our annual Bear Lake trip - no pictures though.

 

We had a reunion at Keith and Delores's new place where we made covered wagons with Grandpa.  

 

 

 

 

 

Now the kids are back in school, Megan included in preschool, and I get to enjoy several hours of blissfully peaceful quiet several times a week. ....aaaaahhhhh....

Our Gals

 

 We decided to use our own camera and do our own photos of the girls before school. Our neighbors let us borrow their incredible yard, and here's what we came up with:

 

Kim - age 14

 



 

 Alicia - age 12

 

 

 

Natalie - age 7

 

 

 

Megan - age 4

 We managed to get a shot of us in there too.



Up

 

A few months ago, I was asked by the bishop in my church ward to accept a new calling, that of serving with our youth group, specifically the 12 and 13-year-old young women. To say that I was not excited was an understatement. I have never been one who has desired to serve with the youth. I have been happily serving away in primary (the young children), and in Relief Society (the women in the ward). Well, with four girls, I knew my time would probably come to serve with the youth, and the time has come.

I have been teaching Sunday lessons hear and there to these girls, and have slowly been warming up to the opportunity, however, three weeks ago was the week-long girls camp, and guess what that meant? I was asked to participate. Not that I don't mind camping, because I actually enjoy camping. I  just wasn't necessarily looking forward to the week with a group of young women.

I actually was trying to think of ways to get out of it, up until about two days before hand when the three of us - Kim, Alicia, and me, set off to buy our camp supplies. We actually had a lot of fun together, and I slowly began looking forward to the adventure.

I was not disappointed. I had a wonderful time with these gals -

 

So much fun, that I sure as heck didn't take a lot of pictures.


Thanks to these pictures taken by the other leaders.
Here I am with a couple of the leaders on a hike we checked out for the girls, which sadly we weren't able to do because we got rained out.

Oh, I just realized I have a treat for your eyes - us leaders and the bishopric rocking it to Shania Twain's "Up!" during the evening skit program.

 

Uh, if you couldn't tell, that's me in the middle with one of Natalie's dress-ups I found the day before camp. I was a tad envious of Hope's cat suit there to the right. As the story goes, she bought it when she was 13-years -old for her sister's bridal lingerie shower, thinking cat pajamas would work out perfectly for her sister. She wasn't surprised when her sister gave them right back to her.

 

I digress.

The best part about camp?

Spending time with these lovelies: 

 

 

 

It dawned on me mid-week that I have been placed in this calling for several reasons, one of them being the opportunity to be with my girls in a setting away from the typical ones we experience at home. I will forever cherish these memories, and as John predicted, I have come to like this calling (not yet at the love stage, but at least I'm past the complete dislike - progress folks).

 

 

Lava Hot Springs, Tubes Included

  We made our annual trip up to Lava Hot Springs in Idaho, which I learned us Utahns pronounce Lahva, and Idahoans pronounce it Laava. Interesting.

 

We rented enough tubes so that all of us could go down the river.

We made it down no less than eight times. What a blast.

 

Kimberly fell out once, but after a few rock scrapings, she made it back in.

 

 

 Um, sliding down the grassy hill on a tube?

 

We went with our friends, the Oylers, and enjoyed a new campground a few miles north of town in a beautiful mountain canyon.

 

 

The only problem we ran into was on the way out, the railroad was under construction and impassable. They neglected to tell us campers it would be closed all day long.

 

 

I think they finally felt bad for us while we waited, so they created a narrow path of rocks for us to cross over the tracks a few hours later. 

We Had a Problem.

The largest portion of our sectional couch needed to get from here, sitting in our back craft room that leads out to the backyard through French doors, to here:

 

 

Our newly finished family room.

 

Many attempts to get it through our narrow hallways from the backroom to the family room failed, so the only option was tearing a hole into the storage room wall, as seen here:

 

 

 Once the wall was opened up and all of our storage room stuff and shelves moved out, we were able to maneuver the couch through the storage room seen below...

 

 

...and Wa-La! It is firmly in place now, never to be moved again. 

We can now watch movies as a family with a section of couch for everyone without half the family being relegated to the floor. 

 

and now the wall awaits patching :)