Cascade Springs

Dave's bro., Mark was here with his family last week and we took a hike up to Cascade Springs. Look! Old people still hold hands!

Here's Dave and Spencer looking as some trout in the cascading stream.

Here is the top of the cascades (and Dave). There was a fire here a few years ago and the trees are still trying to grow back. I didn't get a good picture of the lower cascades because my subjects wouldn't hold still long enough for a picture. I'm taking the cubs there in a couple weeks and I will get some good pictures then. They mind better than these guys did.

This is an elk we saw on the way down the canyon. Just before we got to this elk, a huge male moose was standing in the middle of the road with a huge rack. Dave couldn't get the camera out fast enough before he ran into the trees...the moose ran into the trees, not Dave.

See, I can do flowers too!

Carrie's not the only one with pretty flowers! This is the little flower bed I have next to my driveway. The rocks I hauled from Uncle Jack's farm. The big one in front is actually purple. You can't tell so much because the sun was so bright when I took this. Uncle Jack picked the purple rock out just for me. Actually, he took me around the farm a couple years ago and we went rock hunting. If you really pay attention, there are a lot of different kinds of rocks on the farm. They are also different densities so some rocks, although they are smaller, are much heavier than others of a bigger size. The big rock in the back here, when I was picking it up, a mouse jumped out from under it on to my foot and ran off. I screamed and dropped the rock immediately. Uncle Jack got a good laugh. These flowers are trying to hide the ugly green boxes they put in our yards.

Holladay Update

Ok, I'm going to cheat a little on this one. I wrote a letter to my Uncle Phil so I'm going to cut and paste a little from that.

We went up the canyon for a picnic when Dave's brother, Mark was here. At the same canyon, a bear had ripped open a tent and drug a 10 year old boy out of his tent and killed him earlier that morning. What a terrible thing to happen! I felt so bad for that family. We didn’t see any bears while we were up there.

The boys had fun. We had Dutch oven chicken stew and scones. I forgot the honey and butter to put on the scones, so we just dipped them in the stew. Delicious! This is Dave and his brother, Mark at the grill (Dave’s the one in the new green shirt I got him for Father’s Day). I put the food all together and the guys stirred it (this way they feel like they are doing the cooking).

This other picture is Jake and John building a stone walk across a small part of the river running next to our picnic area. John is the one in the white shirt, Jake is kneeling down and Spencer is the short one on the right. John wanted me to tell you that Michael crossed the river and Jake and John hurried and messed up the bridge so he would have to get wet on the way back. They found this very amusing. Michael, on the other hand, did not.

I took my little cub scouts up to Day Camp last week. Accept for how cold it was in the morning, it was pretty fun. This is my little cub group. The other leader is my friend Tammy. She is the one I play racquetball with. The boy on the far right is Spencer’s best friend, Scott and his mother is also one of my very dear friends. It was about 50 degrees when we got there and 90 degrees when we left at 1:00 p.m.

Two weeks ago, my bro.-in-law, Clair (Dave’s sister’s husband), invited my family to go out on the lake in his boat. The twins were the only ones who wanted to go and they invited their friend, Austin. Notice how dry the mountains look behind them. We haven’t had near the rain you guys are getting. In fact, it hasn’t rained the whole month of June and very little in May. Our house is located almost directly behind them in this shot. The shorter part of the mountain is called “Point of the Mountain”. It is the boundary between Salt Lake County and Utah County. All my brothers and sisters live in Salt Lake County (except Shauna). John is on the right, Austin in the middle and Jake on the left. I tried to get up on a water ski, but the ski was too skinny in the back and I didn’t have the arm strength to keep holding on to get up out of the water. I am going to exercise my arms to see if I can make it out of the water next time. I think I can make it if I take my own ski.

Hey, you can see what their faces look like without their hair in their eyes! Can you tell John's hair is starting to grow back to his normal color? They are getting their "man faces"!

The girl I never had!!

Last, this is a picture of my little friend Maddie. She just turned 5. The first time she came to visit me at my house, as she was leaving she said: “I love you Rose!” We have been best “buds” ever since. Her dad has been accepted to medical school in Henderson, Nevada and they are moving soon.


Isn’t she adorable! She is wearing a special necklace of mine that I got in Hawaii and gave her. We are going to have lunch tomorrow so her mom can get some cleaning done on their old house before they have to leave. I took these pictures so I could remember her. She has a special place in my heart!

Isn't this sweet! Maddie wrote this while I was talking to her mother. Her mom said she learned how to write my name, even before she could write mom or dad...awe!!!

Stuart Falls

We hiked to Stuart Falls today. It is always a lot further than I think it is. It was a little hot, but the water fall was pretty spectacular!

Lehi Trails Day

We had our Trails Day last weekend. The weather was perfect and the event turned out awesome! Here is a link to the newspaper article printed in the Lehi Free Press today.
Article Link

Precious!!

We were visiting my bro.-in-law's church for a baby blessing today. A ten y.o. boy got up to bear is testimony and related the following story: About a year ago, when I was 9 I was wishing for a brother. I only had sisters so I really wanted a brother. So I started praying to Heavenly Father for a brother. About a month later, my mom told us that she was going to have another baby. I prayed and prayed that it would be a brother. My mom had the ultrasound a few weeks later to see if it was a boy or a girl and it was a boy! I know Heavenly Father makes miracles!
In the name of....

Aahh!

This brought tears to my eyes...from laughing.

Funny Fish Story

This is the picture he took.

Ok, this is a funny story that happened a couple weeks ago. We had a Pack Meeting with my scouts in May and we had a picnic at a nearby park that has a nice fish pond in it. They stock it and you can fish there without a license. Some of the trout are pretty decent size. So I was finishing up the picnic/program part of our evening and the boys (Mike and Spencer) were excited to go fishing so they took off to get started. Dave wasn’t there, so they were pretty much on their own. By the time I got down to where they were, Michael had his pole just about ready to go and Spencer was trying to find a hook. Instead of casting his line out, Michael just sat his pole down while he was messing with stuff in the tackle box, so I picked up his pole (actually it was my pole) and cast it out for him. There were other people sitting there on the dock and said that they had not seen anyone pull any fish out all evening and they we packing up to go. A few minutes later, I saw the pole bouncing and I started reeling in the first fish (of course, I had to let Michael bring it in the rest of the way so he could say he caught it). We had some guy take it of the hook for us (because I can’t stand to touch those slimy things!) and baited the hook and cast it out again. A few minutes later, another fish on the hook. This time we were able to get the hook out successfully and we let that fish go. A man came hurrying over towards us with his camera and wanted to take a picture of the boy’s silhouette fishing as the sun was going down. Mike tossed his empty hook out into the water so it looked like he was fishing, so the man could get their picture. When he pulled his line out of the water, there was another fish on it with the hook in its lip. It was just a tiny fish, but I was laughing because no matter what Michael did, he got a fish on his hook, where no one else could catch anything.

Family Update

We finally got the fence fixed on the South side of the house. The dog would jump over the fence so we put tomato cages on top and boards to prevent her from doing that. Then she found out that she could dig under the fence so we had all sorts of brick piled up so she wouldn’t get out that way either. Jake, John, Dave and I got this new fence up. My neighbor donated the sod you can see. I could just kick myself because they offered enough sod to cover both sides, but I forgot that I would need it so I said no. The sod I ended up with was all the end pieces that Zack pieced together for me to cover the one side. This used to be where my garden was. It was way too much work to keep it weeded, so we decided to put grass in. I’m thinking about putting some box planters over on the right side so I can grow a few tomatoes and cucumbers. It was all I could do to get my dog (Molly) to sit still long enough for me to take her picture. She gets so excited when she sees me, she won’t sit still for very long. That’s her “happy my mom’s taking me for a walk”, look. The fence we put up is at the end of the walk way. I put that walk way and the picket fence and the arbor by myself (well, Dave helped with cementing the posts in straight). I wish I would have taken a before picture so you could see how much better it looks. Dave got most of the sprinklers fixed. We had a cold, cold winter and two of our sprinkler pipes burst and some of the drains froze open. Dave has been spending all his weekends fixing them.

the Graduate

Here he is, all graduated!

Zack Graduates!

Here's our handsome young graduate!

Commencement exercises will be held at the McKay Events Center at UVSC
May 31, 2007
12:30 p.m.

All are welcome to come!