Bryce Canyon National Park

For Labor Day weekend we spent 3 nights at Bryce Canyon with family. My parents and sister, Bridgett came from New Mexico, and my sister, Heidi, and her husband Mark came with their kids, Joshua, Hannah, Rachel and Sara. We had a really great time camping and hiking and checking out the park. Most of us had never been to Bryce before and I was amazed at how unique and amazing it is, so close to Zions, but so different. We had some truely interesting weather while we were there as well. Luckily we were well prepared and able to stay dry and warm for the most part. Of course, we took about a million pictures, so here are a few highlights, followed by a slideshow for anyone with a long enough attention span.

This is a view of the main canyon from Bryce point as one of the storms was rolling in.

Like alot of other National Parks, Bryce has started offering shuttle service from places in and around the park. We stayed in a nice campground just outside the park, with a pool and a great grass tent camping area. We were also able to take the shuttle from there, which was super exciting for all of the kids, especially the Larson kids who had never ridden public transit except when visiting us in Salt Lake a couple of years ago. Gavin tried to pretend that he was an old pro at riding the bus and bragged to his cousins about having ridden one before. Here we are all waiting on the first day... the sunny and warm day.

Heidi and I... the photographers of the last photo.

We all survived on 2.5 mile hike which was beautiful and dropped down into the canyon. The hardest part was climbing back out at the end, since almost everyone was carrying a kid on their backs or shoulders for most of it. They all hiked really well, it was just hard to climb up the steep trail with short legs.

When the storm started to roll in, we realized that our tents had been spread out to be in the shade, but were also all sitting in low areas that would collect water. So we moved them to the highest area and grouped them together to fit under a tarp Mark had packed for just such a storm. The word tarp is kind of an understatement as the thing was about as big as my house and easily covered all 3 tents with walking room in between and a nice sitting area on one side. It was a nice tent city, and we all stayed dry and warm at night.

Then the storm rolled in... This is the view from Rainbow Point at the south end of the park. Usually you can see about 200 miles from this point... all the way to the Grand Canyon. When were were there, you could see about 20 feet, and it was freezing.

Gavin, Joshua, Hannah, Rachel and Nana.

Maybe we would have seen something like this. Caleb and Vatti did a sunset hike, and caught this amazing glimpse.

Rock Climbing

Saturday while I was at working, Caleb and the boys went rock climbing for the first time, with our great friends Tannon and McCall. They were so nice and more than willing to let the boys tag along.

Here is Tannon helping Gavin get into the harness.

All ready to go.
The climb... the sun makes it hard to see, but it looks like he did pretty well. He made it that far by himself and before he even thought about getting scared.Henry giving it a try.
I am glad that I wasn't here to have to clean up all of this dirt, but it looks like they are having a great time. Henry apparently decided it would be fun to throw Dad's shoes in the river while he was climbing. He knows how to make life exciting.

The funny things they say

The other day while sitting on the porch steps Gavin got off his tricycle and came over and said,
"Mom, Can you please teach me how to do the Hokey Pokey? I really need to know how." So, of course I did, and we did the Hokey Pokey for a while before he finally said, "Whew! I am so glad that I learned that."
Saturday was a strangely chilly morning, so I was excited to put the boys in track pants and cute little hoodies to go the playground for a while.
Henry was so excited when we got there and ran over to the stair to go up to the slide then turned around and grinned at Gavin and me.

Gavin smiled and said, "Mom, Thanks for buying a little brother for me."
Of course my reply was, "We didn't buy your brother, Gav."
Gavin- "Where did you get him?"
Since I was thinking on my toes, "We made him."
Gavin's reply- "OOh. Well, thanks for making my brother, Mom. I really like him. He is so cute."

This is an action shot of Henry trying to attack me with some tongs.

Cooler Summer Days

Well, just when I thought there was no hope of getting much more to grow or outlive the aiphids... these sunflowers came up and opened. They are really big and beautiful. It was a nice surprise.

This is my favorite one- it is all weird shaped and deformed, but tall and strong and beautiful looking.

On Monday we went to Family Night at the SL Bees Baseball game with a few friends. The highlight of the game was watching Henry walk around trying to scavenge food off of every person within 20 yards. I think he ate the entire time. He was pretty funny.

Here are the kids chowing down after someone spilled the rest of the bag onto the blanket. They had a great time together, and maybe watched baseball for about 5 total minutes.

Happy Birthday Caleb!

Yesterday was Caleb's birthday! He was such a good sport. His birthday turned out to be mostly about what other people want... for instance... Nathan and I ran the Provo River Trail Half Marathon in the morning. And Gavin was the one that decided that Dad should have a spiderman and batman cake, and that he really wanted to buy Dad a Batman action figure.

You can guess who has spent the most time playing with this so far, and when we ask him to let Dad see it, he says, "Dad, you need to share your new toys." Caleb and I did go to see The Dark Knight last night while the boys stayed with the neighbors. It was pretty entertaining, though kind of long.

Friday night, we stayed at Nathan and Stacy's to shorten the early morning drive to the race, and also had Caleb's birthday cake and ice cream. This was my sad attempt at a Spiderman cake... really it is just a cake with a bad looking spider web. Oh well, it tasted pretty good and Caleb didn't seem to mind.The Provo River Trail Half Marathon turned out to be a really scenic and pretty race, but also really unorganized. We started about 20 minutes later than planned, so that meant that our early rising cheering squad was actually waiting for the slower runners, like us, for a very long time. Here they are being good sports.
This is a funny pose. Henry looks so old.
My goal for this race was not to throw up. And I made it... yea! I still ended up coming closer to puking than I would have hoped, so I guess my plans for the future are to figure out how to avoid getting sick at all on long runs like this. I was also able to shave off a few minutes on my running time and the unofficial time was 2:10. About 9 minutes of improvement. Though the biggest improvement was in the way that I felt while running this. I am certainly stronger that I was before, and that's enough for now.

Gavin and I after the race.

So far this year I have run 397 miles.

Oh the Duplex

Well- it is finally done, or at least as done as it is gonna get. Our new tenants are moving in tomorrow and we finished up last night about 8:30. We have pretty much spent most every early morning, nap time and late night over there that we could find for the last two and a half weeks. I'm pretty impressed with the result, but feeling a bit like if I never have to set foot over there again, it will be too soon. Because of the awesome lifestyle and pets of the previous renters, and the fact that they had lived there for 6 years, the place was previously hideous. We have to red0 everything, floor to ceiling, it was a tall order.

We started advertising a week ago before everything was completely finished and we had it rented in 3 days. The response was more that I expected, even being warned. I got about 30 calls in the first 2 days, and about 20 people came through in 3 days time. Pretty nuts, but somehow we were able to chose someone to be our new neighbors and it was over as fast as it started.
Here are a couple of befores... (if the camera could capture smell, you would all be feeling much more sympathy for us right now.)

One bedroom- this is actually the new carpet covered... I never took pics with the old carpet, we got the smelly stuff out as fast as we could the first day. The camera doesn't even show the level of dirt that the place contained.

And now the afters-
Here is the new door

The living room

Kitchen- with the tile job courtesy of Caryn's awesome help.

And the 2 bedrooms.

So, it looks pretty nice, and I am amazed that we were able to do all of this ourselves. It was a much needed face lift for the property and we now have even more "sweat equity" dumped into this place. I hope that we will both live long enough to see it be worthwhile.

At least we have a nice couple moving in to be our new neighbors.