Summer Vacations part 3: Summer hikes and various other things

We really tried to get out and enjoy the beautiful summer this year. We took a few hikes up near Silver Lake and Twin Lakes, by Brighton Ski Resort.

IT was very hot in the valley, but so perfectly cool at Silver Lake.

We saw a fox about 10 feet from the walkway. It was so cute, and not the least bit scared.

This was on our hike up to Twin Lakes (on a separate occasion.) Looking down on Silver Lake.

 My son took this shot of my hubby and I kissing in the sunlight. Kind of romantic!

 

 Did I marry the right guy or what? And there's no question that poser kid is my child!

Perfect, perfect weather at Twin Lakes. And what a great shot, huh? It seems I can get some great pictures if I'm not actually holding the camera.


I took my son and some friends from school to play at Trafalga fun center and this is them climbing the rock wall. I would never be caught doing that!

 

We also had a fun extended family camping trip at Spruces campground. These are all the cousins. It was rainy, but they still had lots of fun!

                                                      
                                                        My son being goofy, as always!

We got some tickets to go see the Gipsy Kings at Red Butte Gardens. What a fun concert! We got up and danced and danced and danced. My son thought we were crazy at first, but he soon joined in and had a blast! (Don't be fooled by the picture. They really are having fun!)

My mom and Step-Dad invited us to go camping at Hyrum State Park with them in their new trailer. It was such a fun time. This is the kid getting his dirty feet washed in the sink.

In the water at Hyrum State Park. It was a gorgeous day, and he got to fish with his grandpa a lot. We had fresh fish more than once on that 3 day trip!

 

Summer Vacations Part 2: St. George

We took our usual trip to St. George and Zion earlier in October. Due to getting over some pretty nasty colds, and me forgetting my camera, we didn't really spend much time in Zion, and I didn't get a picture of the short time we did spend there. But I got some fun pictures of the rest of the trip.

By the pool. We spend a LOT of time by this gorgeous pool! Loved it all!

 We took a fun hike through Snow Canyon on the petrified dunes.

Grafton is a tiny little ghost town near Rockville, by Zion. This is looking through the wondows of an old school building there. Such history!

Hubby's favorite place in Snow Canyon. Climbs it every year!

Looking through old doorway at old building in Grafton.

The guys found a little cave and thought they'd go exploring.

He couldn't be more thrilled at finding the cave!

 Hmmm... this is tighter than we thought! But kinda cool!

Got a perfect shot on the petrified dune! Thanks, flat rock, for letting my camera sit on you while taking our self-portrait! This may just be on the Christmas card this year.

Summer Vacations Part 1: Yellowstone (warning: This has LOTS of pictures!)

I hate uploading pictures, so when I do, you get like a whole year's worth!

This is a post about all our Summer fun this last summer.

First, a fun trip to Yellowstone.

This was at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. What a gorgeous view!

We met up with some friends for a fun, but very windy picnic by Yellowstone Lake.

Yes! We finally saw some Bison!

Gotta pose by the falls.

 We found this cool mineshaft looking thing from the road and decided to hike to it. Turns out it was an old abandoned railroad tunnel. What a fun hike, and a cool find!

Inside the shaft. The smell of old oil was so strong, and awesome!

Old Faithful!

We went to a drive-in movie in Driggs, Idaho called The Spud. This is us in our car before the movie started. Fun, fun night!

Outside our quaint but cute motel room in West Yellowstone

                                     Beautiful view of river from outside the old railroad tunnel.

Stuck like glue! Good, name-brand, lasting glue!

Let me just say one thing.

No. Never mind. I can't say just "one" thing.

Let me say two things. Three things.

1) Our Wedding Anniversary is on Monday. Monday's are the worst days to have birthdays and wedding anniversaries.

2) My hubby and I are PATHETIC at planning anything!!!!! (example: "We need to plan our anniversary. What have we done in the past?" "Uh, dinner and a movie. Except that one year we actually went to a bed and breakfast." "Really? In 13 years we've only gone to dinner and a movie every time?" "Yep. Pretty much.")

3) There are always problems when one person loves to get presents and give them, and the other person views gift giving as an example of consumerism gone awry and abhors the very idea of having to spend money on meaningless tokens of material idolatry.

Good thing my marriage is based on much more than a yearly celebration of our love and we've weathered 13 years pretty darn well!!!!

I adore you, sweetie!!!! Thanks for bringing me cold medicine all those years ago as an excuse to get closer to me! And thanks for never leaving my side since then!!!!

Plentiful Bounty of Mountains of Blessings

Have I told you what an abundance of tomatoes my garden produced this year?  Well, to give you an idea, I weighed the tomatoes every time harvested a lot for canning.

Total: 265lbs. (well, more if you count all the green ones.)

Yes, you read that correctly. 265 lbs of red, ripe tomatoes. That I canned.  I even took a bunch up to my moms so she could enjoy in the bounteous harvest.

I made red salsa, more red salsa, even more red salsa, spaghetti sauce, more spaghetti sauce, and delicious garden tomato soup with veggies and pasta spirals.

Then yesterday my hubby helped me pull out the plants and I harvested a bunch of green tomatoes. So, today I've been making the best ever green tomato and chili enchilada sauce!!!! (It really is the best ever. I promise.)

I am sooo grateful for the HUGE amount of tomatoes my garden blessed me with this year. I didn't want to let any of it go to waste, even if it meant canning until I can't stand it any longer.

And I can't stand it any longer.

So after today, I am DONE!!!!! (Until next year, anyway.)

Thanks Cleon!

I love to read. I mean, I REALLY love to read.

However, the books I usually read are complete fiction- usually historical fiction. I like something that takes me out of all reality where I can completely forget the dishes and laundry and home renovations and church callings and kid's homework.

Last week I picked up something completely different, though. I don't know what exactly prompted me to do it. I was at my mom's house canning tomatoes and needed something to do while I waited for the cans to process.  I walked over to her bookcase and pulled out "The First 2000 Years" by Cleon Skousen.

Cleon Skousen was my best friend's grandpa. I sang to him at one of his birthday parties. He was a funny, cute old man with a big nose. I figured, guess I might as well find out what he wrote about, so I began reading it.

I have not been able to put it down this whole week. It is deep. It has some intense stuff in it. But I absolutely devoured it! I finished it last night and was so sad that was the end! I will be borrowing the next book tonight.

Without going in to huge detail, it talks about the first 2000 years of the world from creation, through
Adam and Eve, Noah, and Abraham and Isaac.  It explains ALOT about things that are unclear to the average bible reader, such as myself.

All I can say is, my testimony has been further strengthened this week while reading it. I highly recommend it! I was surprised how much I loved it, but not surprised at how much better I understand Heavenly Father's plan for his children here on earth. And I definitely feel- more than ever- that every person has an important part to play on this earth, and we have a right to divine help and inspiration!

Thanks, Cleon! I'll sing to you again next time I see you!

 

Should and shouldn't....

What I *should* do here is write a lengthy blog post about what we did this summer, complete with pictures and cute little captions.

I've been thinking I should do it for a few weeks now.

But, you see, my camera with the SD card is all the way in the living room. That's like... 10 steps, at least.  And my laptop is clear over on the other side of my bed, which is a good 5 steps. That's 15 steps right there! Then I have to take the card out of the camera, insert it into the laptop, upload it all, think of a folder name to save it in, log on here and decide which pictures to put on...

Well, you see why I haven't done it yet?

Actually, I am blogging today for a very important reason.

See- I cleaned my kitchen the other day. Like... totally, spotlessly cleaned, as in scrubbed-the-toaster-and-soap-dispenser clean!

And I want to keep it that way.

So I am concentrating REALLLY hard on not messing up my clean shiny kitchen.

Except that I really *should* go out and pick all the ripe tomatoes and make salsa today before they go bad.

And if I do that my kitchen will be messy again.

And my pictures won't get posted for yet another day.

But, I had already decided this post wasn't going to be about my summer vacations.

So I guess it will be about making salsa while trying not to mess up my clean kitchen.

Or.... it should be.