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.

"Freakin' Crap"

So, lately I have been having an ongoing conversation with Gavin regarding an expletive that I sometimes use (Caleb uses it too, but not as often as I do). While this is not the worst thing that I could say in times of annoyance, it has somehow become much worse in my mind after hearing it come out of the mouth of my 3 year old. And after all we aren't New Yorkers so we don't have a lot of harsh language in our current vocabulary. The first time that Gavin said it, I think he just repeated it after hearing me say it. At the time Caleb and I both downplayed it in an attempt not to laugh and thinking that he wouldn't probably say it again, didn't feel the need to draw attention to the phrase.

Well, last week while riding in the car, we were stopped at a stoplight and Gavin and I had the following conversation:

Gavin: big sigh "Freakin' Crap."

Mom: reproachfully "Gav, you don't need to say that."

Gavin: "I do need to say freakin crap, Mom."

Mom: "No, you don't. Do you even know what that means?" wrong question to ask a preschooler

Gavin: "Yeah Mom. Freakin crap means when the other car will not stop blocking our way. So I need to say freakin crap."

Mom: "Well, that is not what it means, so you don't need to say it anymore. It is not nice."

Gavin: "Mooom, it is nice. I do have to say freakin crap."

Seeing no point in arguing further, I let it drop so that he wouldn't keep finding a way to fit it into every sentence.

Later that night he says to me "Mom, are you going to say freakin crap anymore?"

Mom: "No Gavin. I will try not to say it and you shouldn't either."

Gavin: "Well, I am still going to say freakin crap, even if you don't say it anymore."

Great, that is exactly what I wanted to hear... And in keeping with his word he has found times to say it whenever he seems to think it necessary. Each time with Caleb and I telling him to stop, and that it isn't a nice word.

Finally, yesterday we have this argument while I am painting and he is hanging out just talking my ear off.

Gavin: "So, Mom, Do you think freakin crap is not a nice word?"

Mom: "That's right. It isn't nice and we shouldn't say it."

Gavin: "But freakin crap is a nice word Mom."

Mom: "No, Gavin. It isn't."

Gavin: "But Mooom, I already told yeh. It is a nice word. You need to listen when I tell you somethin about saying freakin crap."

At this point I could hardly argue for having to hold my breathe so that I didn't laugh out loud, which would only make him think that I agree with him. All of these conversations just make me look forward to the much worse phrases that he will probably come home and try out on us in the future. I guess it is a good thing that I have now been put in check to watch what I say.

Geesch.

Let the Remodeling Begin... or Continue

Well, we have officially spent the last week working on the other side of our duplex getting it ready to welcome new tenants. So far it feels like we have made good progress, all of the floors are done. We are now now ready to cover and tape them off so that we can start the priming and paint and other messy things without marking up the now quite nice floors. It should be an interesting week, and I hope in a few more days to at least be able to start showing the place to prospective neighbors.

Pictures to come soon (I know you are all dieing to see them). ;-)

Blisters... Ouch

We had a rough start to our week when first thing Monday morning Henry was tormenting Gavin in the usual way by pretending like he is going to put his hand in the toilet while Gavin goes to the bathroom. Then between screams about his brother, Gavin yells out "Henry is going to touch the hot thing!" (Also known as the curling iron) By the time I ran in from the kitchen Henry had already grabbed the heated lever handle of the curling iron, the end result being second degree burns on several parts of his hand. Ouch, I know. Poor guy. I was torn between being really sad that he was hurt and also annoyed that he insists on being so defiant and doing everything we tell him not to do.

The super fun part is also that he wouldn't keep a bandage on it, so we had to get creative, and I finally busted out the athletic tape. He looks like a little boxer running around, with his poor tiny little hand all taped up. He hasn't spent as much time complaining about the hand as I would have thought either. He is so tough. (The unbandaged pictures are a bit too gruesome for online viewing.)

To go along with Henry's blistered hand, is another fun photo. This is my foot following the 6 mile run that I did on Wednesday morning in training for the Provo River half marathon that is coming up in a few weeks. 11 miles on Saturday got the thing started, but this long week of running has done nothing to help. Pretty gruesome shot, I know, but I couldn't resist showing off this battle scar that had me limping around for two days. I am now trying several suggestions to keep from getting more of these while continuing to train for the race. Yuck.

Oh... Accessories

I was recently going on to a few of my friends about how I can't seem to bribe Gavin into choosing what he wants to wear, or making many decisions about his appearance. When I ask him what he wants to wear in the morning he says... "A shirt and short pants." Or "jeans, and a shirt." And when I try to open the drawer and just have him pick one, he basically just grabs something without even glancing over. I have mostly noticed this in comparison to the opinions and the flare that I see in the wardrobe of the cousins his age and his friends his age... all of which are girls. I had pretty much given up trying to get him to take an interest...
Then this weekend, our friend Jessi picked up a set of goggles for Gavin at the store. When I gave them to him he could not have been more excited, and has been wearing them almost constantly since.

You might look at this photo and think, "No problem, he must be headed out for a swim." Nope. This is us on the way to the zoo...

This is him after being at the zoo for about 15 minutes and getting sweaty enough to fog up his goggles, but not wanting to take them off, just moving them up to his forehead. In his defense he did say that he needed to wear them in case the elephants decided to spray water on us, and was pretty peeved when Dad declined the request to wear the matching green pair.
He can also be found jumping on the bed or just playing around the house or yard at any given moment with these goggles on. The only time we have persuaded him to keep them off is when he wears his helmet to ride his scooter, and then they got straight in the scooter pouch to be put on as soon as the helmet comes off.

I have to respect even the smallest amount of self expression in a kid so easy going and carefree about appearance... though he swears that these have to be worn "to protect mine eyes." I should just be grateful for such a safety guru.

Mount Olympus- Happy July 4th

Caleb and a couple of his friends, Nick and Randy, got up super early on the 4th to climb Mount Olympus. It is a steep and tough hike, so I think they were glad not to have the wives and children along. I was also glad to still be in bed when they left. Here are a couple of great shots of the Salt Lake Valley. All of the moisture that we had into May and June has made this really beautiful and green this year.

I am not sure what faces he is making in these photos... Though if you climb that high, you can make whatever face you want.

A New Room for The Boys

Well, in preparation for all of the work that we will have to do to remodel the other side of our duplex this month, we decided to also buy a carpet remnant for the boys room and replace their carpet as well. Once we had all of the furniture out of the room, I realized how much the place needed a new coat of paint. It seemed logical to get it painted while there was no carpet, so I set to work and finished it in a morning. We then spent parts of the next day and a half learning to lay carpet, and actually doing it.

Our great friend Kelly, was nice enough to hook us up with some great carpet for the other side of the duplex and give us a lesson on carpet laying. Luckily he owns all the tools and has lent them to us for a few weeks before he moves to NM. :-(

Here is Kelly showing the boys what to do. You can't tell from the angle of this picture, but Henry is actually pick-pocketing Kelly while he is working. Nice, I know.

Gavin loved to be the helper and of course talk Kelly's ear off.
Finally, Henry is modeling in the new and improved room. I did a blue accent wall that looks great with the brown carpet. The room looks really nice with the furniture back in as well, it was a nice quick face lift.

New Haircuts etc

On Saturday, the boys got haircuts for summer. They were just getting too hot with all that hair. Henry now looks quite old and handsome. Since he has about 5 cowlicks, he had to get a short buzz to avoid the super messy hair look.

He is handsome and he knows it.

As always, Gavin suffered a bit of a panic attack once a single hair got on his neck, so his cut is a little more rough, but oh well, it grows fast.We have been spending plenty of time in our little pool. What fun.
This is what Henry insists on doing whenever I have the hose. Usually he comes over and pulls it down to a level with his head and the plunges his face in with his tongue out to try and drink.