Horsin' Around

Paige has been itching to ride Doc for a long time. She got this on the calendar with Grandpa last Sunday and has reminded us everyday since.

Her first request when Grandpa asked her where she wanted to go?

"Izzy's house."

So off they went to suburbia, creating quite a stir among the neighborhood children. Paige loved every minute of it.

What kid wouldn't love a horse to pull up on their driveway?

Grandpa and Grandma drove her home, took a peek at the new pigs, and Paige went promptly to the chicken coop to do her chores.

Grandpa went home with 3 fresh eggs.

Horse ride: paid in full.

Flyin'

This is Kite Skiing minus the snow and skis. You can search kite skiing on you tube and see what this sport is all about. Darren loves it. Brady and Justin got hooked this winter too. Usually they only fly the smaller trainer kites at the house.

The trainers are 3.5 and 4.5 meters.

This was the BIG kit - 12 meters. Justin has wanted to try this one when there was very little wind. Very little wind doesn't happen here very often.

I wish I had the camera ready when it launched Justin. On a 20mph wind day he would have been over the canyon. No joke.

I screamed and Justin looked terrified. Later he claimed it was "awesome".

From then on one of us "adults" had a hand on his harness at all times!

Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel

Some of the ladies.

Our new tenants.

We do this because?

A) We like ham and bacon ALOT.

B) We like how the pig pen smells in August.

C) We like to torture our children.

D) We save a TON of money on eggs.

If you guessed C you are pretty close. OK, so we actually really love our children and thus like making them do HARD THINGS! You know, learning work ethic, self-esteem, sense of accomplishment, yada yada yada....

This actually makes us have to do hard things too. Getting kids to do hard things can be HARD!

The truth probably is that we love to play so much that we have to put on the serious parent faces every so often. Our kids have to wonder if we lay awake at night dreaming up more work for them to do (plant 200+ trees, raise pigs, weed, weed and weed). And they would be right!

It's great to be a parent!

Slackin'

I'm just waiting for this to be hooked up over the canyon. If you can't beat them, join them right? I better brush up on my slack line skills.

I think it is easier in Chacos.
Not tight enough.....

......

Tuck and roll Brady, tuck and roll.

Deep Creek

Deep Creek only runs a few days a year. It is an epic run and Darren lives for it. Most of the guys he goes with are half his age. One of them is the son of the guy who taught him to boat.

Deep Creek is just outside of Buhl. It is an unassuming little creek when you look at it from the road.

Each of the guys have different parts of the river that they portage for various reasons. Usually it is where they have swam or taken a long time to roll in the tumultuous water. Darren had to roll the last time he did it. It's always on the last run of the day! No harm done, just a broken/hurt thumb?

Behunin Canyon (or songs in my head)

Chris called months ago having drawn a permit to do a slot canyon in Zion National Park. We have always wanted to do one, and Chris and his wife do them all the time, but getting all the way down there for one weekend has been a challenge. After a little fretting and stewing on my part, we committed.

A cold morning start in front of Angel's Landing.

3.8 miles up a steep incline to get to where we were to drop in to Behunin Canyon.

They call this Walter's Wiggles.

We have a picture of my brother shortly before his death at this very spot. His picture is not in the shadows and his back is to us. I have always wanted to go there.

This is the first rappel. Not too steep, but getting out to it was a little intimidating.

I had two songs in my head throughout this day. The first one came to me here. Do you remember on "Finding Nemo" when Dory was nervous and she sang "Just keep Swimming..." over and over?

This became our mantra.

This is me on the second rappel trying to stay out of the waterfall. I was not successful.



Not a happy spot. We rappelled to this spot about 10 x 20. The next rappel was immediate and about 80 ft right off the edge where Chris is at. There was about 20 minutes when our rope wouldn't come down. I was standing on a tiny little dry spot and hugging the wall. I started formulating a plan for how I would spend the night here. There was a crack and I had a dry suit with me. When the rope came, we all chuckled that nervous chuckle, "I knew all along it was going to come down!" we all said to each other. Hahahaha...hehehehe ...







Darren coming out of that fun little cove.

Over or under?
We never did determine just how deep the water was in the middle, just that it was deep and we didn't want to go in it!

Thank goodness Darren can do the splits!

He then became a Human Anchor. My husband is so talented.

That is dirty snow.

I was able to cross, ALMOST without getting wet!

Jennie is amazing. Just keep swimming!

Chris checking it out. You can see the webbing above him where we will hook in.

The second song of the day came to me about here. See my neoprene boots? Darren originally told me he wasn't going to pack them. My feet were so cold they were starting to feel like stumps!

Then he pulled these out of his pack.

"I am glad for many things, many things, many things. I am glad for many things that are mine today." You know the primary song?

My favorite possessions that day were these boots. Civilized life and comforts of home were worlds away. I couldn't remember ever wanting anything more than neoprene boots! Simple pleasures. I rememeber thinking I wanted to always remember how happy I was just to have warm feet, and just let the rest go.

FYI Heather had neoprene socks that she put on right after this, so she was warm too!

View from the last rappel. We came out on the canyon wall 165 ft. above the floor of Zion.

The little red dot is me on the final rappel. 165 ft. of goodness as Jennie calls it.

It was amazing.

By this time we were all SO ready to be done. The rappel right before this one, 135 ft., had been a tricky hook up, slippery, and not our favorite.

When it came time to go on this one Darren jumped right in and took off first. Very unusual for him. I knew at that point he wanted down too! I was grateful for Heather who offered to let me go before her, I graciously (and immediately!) accepted.

By the time we were all down and packed up it was getting dark. We scrambled all over trying to find the trail. From above, the trail is like a highway, not hard to miss. We had a little trouble finding it. Darren finally scrambled up to it and we were grateful. Note to self, keep Darren around! We went right around the Emerald Pools, but never got to see them in the darkness.

We got to the lodge at 9:15 hoping the shuttles were still running. We heard one and ran like crazy so it wouldn't leave us. It felt like the Amazing Race! You just have to imagine how tired, cold, and hungry we were. It was dark. It was a 20 minute bus ride to our car.

Darren got to it first.

Keep Darren around.

Simple pleasures. A ride out of the Canyon. I was glad for many things. I hope these adventures stay with me and help me brush off the little things.

I HAVE NEOPRENE BOOTS AND WARM FEET!

Eagle Court of Honor

Justin received his Eagle Scout Award on April 28. It was a nice court of honor. We learned about flags and Terry spoke to us about making a difference.

At the end they said I could hug him. He loved it.

He presented Monte with the Mentor Pin. We have amazing scout leaders in our ward.


Brady also received his Tenderfoot, Second Class, and First Class that night!
Grandma and Grandpa Harrison made a whirlwind trip to attend. They arrived at 5:00 and left at 4:45 am the next morning. It was so nice to have them here and to support Justin.