Katie and Suzanne

A day at Lisa Falls

2011-09-03T14:12:00.000-06:00

My brother Bryce came in town for Labor Day weekend and we were able to spend one day climbing with Mark and Tori at Lisa Falls in Little Cottonwood Canyon. I'd never climbed there before and it was pretty fun. The weather was nice and being next to a little waterfall made it extra nice. Some moderate sport routes that were a lot slabbier than they looked kept us entertained most the day. Then we went around the corner to climb a mixed route that was a lot harder than it looked and even got to top rope a ridiculously hard route up a blocky face. The moves Tori's doing in the last few pictures are way harder than they look.

Cooking Class

2011-07-13T13:38:00.000-06:00

For Alicia's birthday I signed us up for a cooking class at Gygi to make French Macaroons! It was so much fun! I haven't taken a cooking class since I was in 7th grade. Even then we were making stuff like lumberjack casserole. Strange though that in that class I won first place for my bread and then failed miserably with my pie. It's been backwards ever since. Anyways, we made French Macaroons, possibly one of my most favorite cookies ever. They are so amazing. They change my life every time I bite into one. Partly because they cost somewhere around 2-3 dollars each from a fancy bakery and partly because they have the most incredibly crunchy crumbly texture with a mouth watering chewy center that you can't find in anything else no matter how hard to try. There's some mystique about making them and little tricks and such to make them turn out just right so the class was fantastic. We got to make the Strawberry Lemon flavored ones and I must say, I think ours were the best. It was fun being in that big kitchen too. I've been dreaming of that oven and Kitchen Aid mixer ever since. We all got to share the results and take them home. Macaroons are so expensive that I think the class paid for itself in the amount of cookies I came home with. Alicia took some better pictures of the finished product and put up the recipes on her food blog here. I devoured them all and left the next morning for a week in the Tetons.

Leading Steort's Ridge with Andy

2011-06-27T14:30:00.003-06:00

I've climbed Steort's Ridge so many times I can't count them all. But I was finally able to go and lead the entire thing. All 3 pitches. That last one had eluded me but I finally did and even ran it out at the top. My brother Andy came with me and made it an interesting day. At least we made it out safe even if we had to leave behind my beloved yellow mastercam I bought just for my Squamish trip last year. The weirdest stuff kept happening. First he dropped the nut tool at the beginning, then the cam got stuck, then he left the whole anchor behind including my ATC so he had to give me a sketchy lowering job so I could try and get the stuff, then the old solo climber came up behind me and gave me some gear of our that the party behind us had. (at first we thought Andy had dropped that too, but it turns out the other people took it out of my pack at the bottom on accident) We never got the cam out, but everything else worked out ok. And I lead it all so I was happy. That's Andy down there working on the stuck cam. I will give him credit for finding and bringing up my headband when it blew off my head. I can't see climbing without one with all my "chicken" hair in my face.

...if I don't invest in a gear sling soon my harness is going to slide right off my hips from all the gear clipped to it. I'm saggin!

A check off the bucket list

2011-06-26T14:21:00.003-06:00

What did you want to be when you grew up?

This is one of my favorite questions ever. I love asking it to people and is one of my standard first date get to know you questions (along with how do you like your steaks cooked.) I love the answers and think it says a lot about someone in what they wanted and how it compares to where they're at now. My answer would have been a science teacher…hey that still is the answer. I never really waivered, I'm fairly reliable when it comes to stuff like that. I know what I want. But that doesn't mean I will say what I want. I had lots of other answers when people asked me that question, just to spice things up. I had some long sprees of Taxi Driver, Heart Surgeon, and Hell's Angel. That's right, I liked to tell people that when I grew up I was going to join a biker gang. I even went so far as to put some Harley Davidson posters up in my room. The funny part of it was that I'd never ridden on a motorcycle. On my 18th birthday Norm took me riding on his scooter (which you have to admit isn't much different when you're riding in the back) but that was as close as I'd come. I think holding out paid off too, because I was finally able to take my first motorcycle ride and it was perfect. We rode David's Harley up Big Cottonwood Canyon on a summery Sunday afternoon. I got to wear a real Harley helmet and leather jacket. If it'd been just a little colder up at the top I could have put on the leather chaps that we'd brought along just in case. That's right chaps, and not the cowboy kind, though they're cool too. Everything looked better without a roof over my head and it reminded me of driving the Fiat with the top down. Plus I was instantly admitted to the coolest club of subtle head nodding and sly two finger waves to all the other Harley riders we passed. That might have been the best part, but it's hard to really choose a best part since it was all so much fun. And what does David want me to do in exchange for this service…take him geocaching. I totally won on that trade. Even better if we take the bike caching.

A snowy spring hike to Donut Falls

2011-06-20T14:40:00.003-06:00

Alicia and I hiked up to Donut Falls with her kids…the snow is really sticking around late this year as you can tell and Alicia and I didn't make the best choice in foot gear either. I baked some donut muffins to eat at the falls, Alicia made sandwiches, Zoe got put in the backpack and we headed up the trail with the boys. Navigating the unexpected snowbanks in our sandals and stopping to examine all the worms in the runoff slowed us down a bit, but it's not like we were trying to get anywhere fast. In the end me and the boys could just barely get close enough to see the falls in the distance. The snowmelt runoff was so high that it was going over the donut hole as well as through it. Still a fun hike and a day out in the mountains with friends. (and sorry Jake, but Alicia's better at this kind of (baby)backpacking that you were)

The buttermilk donut muffins!!!!!!

"See you on the other side Ray" (...Bobby)

2011-06-18T13:41:00.007-06:00

Big Sigh....it's always sad to say goodbye to a really good climbing partner. There's lot of good climbers but once in awhile you find one that is just such a great fit. Style, ability, patience, knowledge, sense of humor... While I'm happy to see Bobby get married and move to Washington with April (who is one of the nicest girls I've ever met) I'm sad to see him leave Salt Lake. He has been a great climbing mentor to me and has helped me improve my climbing by leaps and bounds just by his confidence alone. We had a great road trip to Red Rocks together, some good gym sessions, a day out climbing with Andy, a few days of intensive trad leading lessons to prepare me for Squamish, as well as many other days climbing the local crags after work. And last of all, he managed to find the time for one last day of really great climbing in Little Cottonwood Canyon together just days before he left. We'd tried to go with April the week before but got rained out of the canyon. But not before he convinced me to do my first Little Cottonwood lead climb up Bushwhack Crack! (that was a huge climbing milestone for me in itself. Being the first climb I attempted in the canyon two years ago and having sat down crying at the bottom because I couldn't get my feet off the ground...I've come a long way to say the least) It felt odd to have Bobby clean that route for me instead of the usual way around...For our last day of climbing...it was similar to our first. We met around noon went up to Bushwhack which he lead one last time. We linked over to the base of The Hook which I got to lead...I love that climb.Then we went up the Hook Variation, just like so many times before, it didn't feel like an ending. We both had to get going but just couldn't resist the perfect weather and the solitude up at the top of the rock and convinced ourselves to do two more routes. We went up the second pitch of The Hook which is an odd wide crack, then top roped the slab climb Hook Direct. It didn't hit me till the last rappel down when I said to him his usual line, "See you on the other side Ray..." that it was the end. Such a bittersweet day of perfect climbing. (can you name the movie that quote comes from???)

Alicia's Birthday Desserts

2011-06-17T20:26:00.000-06:00

For Alicia's birthday she wanted a berry themed dessert table. She made a delicious blackberry chocolate cake that had the most fantastic marshmallow chocolate frosting, and some really good mini strawberry shortcakes that we will definitely be putting on our list of wedding options at Sweet Lime. Then she modified our cake balls and instead of using normal cake and frosting in the middles she used fresh raspberries and pound cake (genius!) They were amazing. I brought some marshmallow surprise cookies and foraged around their yard for flowers to put on the table. It was a minimal spread but everything we especially fantastic. She made a cake for my birthday back in May and it was amazing too. I never wrote about it though. You can read about it here and if you want any of her recipes she used read her post here.

Maple Canyon Climbing

2011-06-14T13:30:00.003-06:00

When you start climbing you slowly start to pick up on the names of climbing destinations. Some are across the world in places like Pakistan and Italy, some are closer but just as classic like Squamish B.C. or Joshua Tree and The Gunks. It's really fun to be a climber from Utah because as these world class destination names come up you start to realize that many of them are in our state! We are really spoiled here in Utah with such amazing stuff practically in our backyards. One of these places is Maple Canyon. Maybe not as widely known as Indian Creek and Zion, it's fairly well known and popular. I'd heard about it a lot and finally got a chance to head down there for the day. Mostly it was Spencer and I doing the climbing so we did as many routes as we could fit in. His wife came and played around with their boys and took some pictures. The rock is cobble stone and hard to explain but trust me it's weird. It wasn't my favorite either. It took me a long time to get used to and when I did, it just reminded me of climbing in the gym. Don't get me wrong, it was really fun and pretty and unusual, but there's lots of other places I'd rather climb. Maybe if I ever get really hardcore and like climbing overhanging stuff I'll come back and see if my opinion changes. These pictures below are a series Spencer's wife took of me going up one route. Climbing, clipping the anchors and coming back down. Sort of fun I thought.

Aaron's First Birthday!

2011-06-13T13:36:00.001-06:00

If you know me you know I'm still friends with my former in-laws. We have lunch, I talk to my ex-husband and sometimes go see a movie with him. I sometimes miss all the extra nieces and nephews I had in that family (they have A LOT). So I was excited when Rebekah invited me to her son Aaron's first birthday party. I'd never even met Aaron since he was born after my divorce. He's their 8th child and was born with trisomy 18 so him having a birthday party at all is pretty exciting. I was glad to go, it was sweet to meet him, and it was fun to see so many of his cousins that I hadn't seen in years. They were so grown up I couldn't believe it. What a fun day.

They had a balloon release for all the other kids he's been around that haven't made it has far as him. Prayers to heaven. It was a sweet idea and looked cool too, but I must admit I didn't bring a balloon and when they handed me one to let go I cringed inside thinking and wondering where these balloons were going to end up. Ugh the sea turtles! But I let it go anyway... The funniest part of the evening was when I got a text from Bryan saying hi and asking what I was up to...."Um, I'm at your nephew's birthday party where are YOU?" He showed up shortly after that and we had a good laugh about how, just by looking at our shoes these days you can tell how incompatible we are. His are even more ridiculous than they look in real life believe me. He's still a nice guy though. Glad I could be on good enough terms with them all that I could share Aaron's birthday.

Rebekah keeps a blog on Aaron's life and it's pretty sweet and informative. Follow it here...

Climbing The Egg

2011-05-14T18:54:00.000-06:00

Jake was in town for a few days and we got to spend a whole day climbing!!!! Just like the old days. We went up to a place in Little Cottonwood Canyon called The Egg and climbed all afternoon till dark. The weather was perfect sunny and cool, the climbs were challenging and unique, we had the place almost all to ourselves except for two really nice climbers who we shared a rope with to rappel, the squirrels didn't steal our snacks and I flicked the giant tick on me away before he bored into my skin. All in all, a pretty perfect day of climbing.

Racking up to climb...

Jake's up there somewhere, can you find him? My shadow giving an excellent belay... My turn. Looking up, getting ready to climb and clean the route... Almost to the top! Both of us safely at the top of the rock... Back at the bottom for a snack before going up another one...

This is Annie. We dodn't know her, but we shared her rope to come down. She was cool and while climbing next to us made a pretty cool climbing photo.

Adventures in Babysitting

2011-05-14T14:55:00.002-06:00

While Jake was in town he agreed to babysit Alicia's kids for an entire weekend...and then asked me to help him out. It was actually pretty fun and I was glad to help out. Granted I hang out with these kids a lot so I was a little more ok with it than I might have been with someone else's kids. There wasn't any serious drama, just some fun field trips.

The first day we went to the coppermine. My grandfather worked at the mine on the trains (before the big yellow trucks) so I'd gone to the visitor center a few times as a kid. They'd recently redone it and it was really cool. For dinner we stopped at McDonald's. I'm not one to judge parents who take their kids to McDonald's, just as long as they don't go all the time. That place was actually pretty easy and fun when you have three kids with you.

Bedtime was uneventful as well as Saturday morning cartoons. Somehow Jake was able to recycle a bowl of cereal and feed it to both the boys. It was impressive. Then we spent the day hiking in Big Cottonwood Canyon along the river. I'd been sending pictures of the boys climbing up boulders to Jake at school and it was fun to show him in person what natural climbers his nephews are. I think he was impressed.

And Jake got to try out the new baby backpack too...

We found a small waterfall where there was a minor breakdown by Quinn. That was our fault though, I think we didn't keep him supplied with adequate snacks. What do I know, I don't have kids... Dinner, baths, and bedtime went off without a hitch the second night in a row and before we knew it the kids were asleep and Alicia and James were home from their relaxing weekend away. It was fun to tag along with Uncle Jake and give him a hand and do Alicia and James a favor too.

First Climbing Trip of 2011

2011-05-03T13:18:00.000-06:00

I haven't been climbing in months, not even in the gym, so when Jennilyn asked me to meet her in St. George for some climbing down south I excitedly accepted her last minute invitation. He husband was climbing a big wall in Zion we we'd spend the weekend at the Woodbury Road Crags and then hike around the Mineral Mountains on Sunday before she met up with him again in Beaver and we all headed home. I love climbing with her. She can somehow push me to do things I think I can't. She's the first one who got me to lead anything in the gym or outside (the first time I met her even) and this trip was the same. I was thinking I'd just top rope both days but she had me leading the second route I climbed. I'd never lead sport routes before, just trad and I was happy to see that it's a lot easier than what I was used to. I was leading 5.9's and even a 5.10 on day two. Jennilyn getting ready to rap down our last route on Kelly's Wall

The Black and Tan Wall

Jennilyn on one of our warmups at the Black and Tan Wall. I later got a nasty rope whip across the neck pulling the rope off this route...

My favorite climb and my last on the trip. A fun 5.8 up this skinny rib then up a little further with some good exposure at the top. Even Indy climbed with us. He made it about 3 clips up this 5.7 route without a problem. He's about 5 and he keeps it up he's going to be pretty awesome when he's older.

Which leads me to some of the other aspects of the weekend trip besides just the climbing...

THE KIDS

If you want to climb with Jennilyn, you should expect to have her two boys along for the ride. The good thing is that they've been going on climbing trips since they were born, even living out of the car for a few months, so they are pretty good at hanging out on cliffs and entertaining themselves. Sometimes is coloring or toys, sometimes it's a movie, and sometimes it's just snacks (except the time the dog stole their suckers and buried them) I love their little race car tracks. Here they had to build a road block so the cars didn't shoot off the cliff. But injuries do happen still. Fisher took a bad fall on a steep part of the trail and insisted he get a bandaid on the gash over his front lip. He was so cute with it on.

CHACO the DOG

She was a new addition to climbing with Jennilyn, but I have to admit I kind of liked her.

The TENT DISASTER

Just setting the huge 6 man tent up was an adventure in the strong winds. We almost lost the fly, and we had to open all the doors and fill the tent with huge rocks and the cooler (which even blew over once filling the tent with milk) before it would stay in place. Somehow we managed to get it done and we had ourselves a great campsite. Then in the middle of the night it finally gave into the wind and Jennilyn and I had to sleep most the night with a cross bar pressing into our legs so it would stay off the boys. This was our tent the next day...

The Desert was in BLOOM!

There's so many different kinds of flowers out in the dessert in the spring. Sometimes they're spread out pretty well (except the yellow ones), but I kept running into new ones everyday and I didn't even get a picture of most of them. They were a nice distraction when we weren't climbing.

(I had to take this picture while driving since it was 30 miles to town mostly on a dirt road and my low fuel light was on so I couldn't stop and waste my momentum)

The MINERAL MOUNTAINS (and happy May Day)

On Sunday after our guest appearance at church looking like homeless people we headed out to the Mineral Mountains to check out what climbing would be like there. First we tried the short direct dirt road but were stopped halfway by some rushing spring runoff. Deeper than it looked, we turned back and took the long way there.

The Mineral Mountains were so cool. There is so much cool rock there in really neat formations and almost no established climbing. We left the boys by this cactus and then explored a little. Unfortunately we couldn't stay long but hopefully I'll be back someday.

It was cold up there but we all still have fun jumping over the full washes full of melting spring snow.

The DRIVE HOME

I stopped at Brianhead on my way home and hiked around in the snow and up in Parowan Canyon where I accidentally but happily hiked up to a hlaf frozen waterfall. It turns out this is the last of three falls out of a small canyon that you can rap down in the summer or ice climb up in the winter. Maybe I'll be back here too.

My dad turned 70

2011-04-02T17:58:00.002-06:00

I kinda felt old when I turned 30. Since I'm the youngest in my family, I always wondered if it made the rest of my family feel old too knowing their baby sister was 30 but who knows. My parents came through town on their way Nauvoo where they'll be on a temple mission for awhile and my dad was at my house to celebrate his 70th birthday. It didn't seem like it affected him too much, but I think it sure made all us kids feel older. We had two of my brothers over and I baked him some of his favorite desserts. He always loves my marshmallow surprise cookies so I made a batch of those. They brought me some of our beloved tangelos from the tree in the backyard so I made him some mini tangelo bundt cakes which are just incredibly good. And of course no table of dad's favorites would be complete without a lemon meringue pie. It was my first try at one and I have to say it was fantastic. I think it was the home grown lemons from their yard at home that gave me the beginners luck.

I think he liked the hugs and kisses from the grandkids the most though...

Deep Snow at the Cabin

2011-03-10T16:27:00.000-07:00

My sister's family was in Utah for a visit and I took them up to the cabin to play around for the day in the deep snow. It was just the girls and Josh but we had a ton of fun. Somehow we managed to get everyone outfitted for the snow. I packed up two backpacks (mine with important supplies and Kjirsten's with cheese and crackers...actually that makes hers the more important backback) Josh got to ride in the sled and laughed the whole time and cross country skiiers we passed on the way would be laughing too by the time they reached the source of our sounds. It's always odd going to the cabin in the winter since everything that used to be so familiar suddenly gets skewed when you realize you're not following the trail you do in the summer...or are you? You're 6 feet off the ground and it's surprising how different things can look from a little change like that.

We made it! The cabin is always such a nice friendly welcoming sight no matter the season.

First Things First....Dig out the door at the top of the stairs (I've never had to dig out this door before, that's over a one story of snow)

Next...dig out the electrical box so we can have some light

Next...melt some snow for hot chocolate (also pop some popcorn and eat the fancy cheese and crackers from Kjirsten's backpack)

Then finally it's time for some fun!

I made the first ascent to the top of the roof using the avalanche shovel as an ice pick and to cut steps behind me. Thankfully it got easier every time we went up because it wasn't easy the first time.

Kjirsten following me. Being the second person through fresh snow is almost as hard as the first.

Me and Kjirsten on the top of the roof. I like this picture and the picture my sister took at the same time from the bottom.

Katrina inched her way up and we made our way to the porch roof...

The jump down to the porch roof is scary. It's a lot shorter than the final jump off but since it's the first thing you do you're not quite sure what to expect.

The first jump! I was so proud of my nieces, they agreed to jump all three of us at the same time. I thought for sure they'd make me go first or after I got to the bottom I'd look up to see at least one of them still at the top chickened out, but they did it!

I never managed to talk any one else into doing a flip though. It'd been a couple years since I'd flipped off anything so I was a little nervous and kept saying "You've done this a dozen times" out loud before I could go. The last time I did a flip was this time. And surprisingly it doesn't appear that my good form has suffered from the break in time....or my outfit or hairstyle either....

After the girls and I had a few more turns (more for the girls than me) we got Jailynn to make a jump. Unfortunately we'd packed down the snow quite a bit by then and I think she got whiplash.

We played around some more behind the cabin rolling down the hills....

...burrying eachother and making half snowman bodies...

...we even did a little backcountry sledding down the snowshoe trails in the trees which was pretty fun.

Then it was time to lock the place back up. Easier said than done since once you open a door all that snow puts a bit of warping pressure on the door frames.

(This is the mighty expedition picture) Josh was happy to get back in the sled for the ride back.

almost there...

...I don't recall there being an exciting follow-up to this picture but it sure looks like there should be.

The End

"I realized my participation deserved more than just waving a sign"

2011-03-04T22:16:00.001-07:00

Is it just me or does anyone else find it totally lame and completely irritating that the news story coming out of Utah these days and making into national headlines is the fact that a college basketball player has violated the honor code and NOT that Tim DeChristopher will be going to prison for making a peaceful demonstration of civil disobedience against the Gas and Oil companies buying our wilderness land? Really? REALLY? I find it infuriating.
I went to BYU and I think that story is alright, it's a chance to show the world that people still have morals and that there's a school that treats everyone equally regardless of their elite status or the benefits they bring to the school. I agree with the decision, but I also think, as far as Davies is concerned it's sort of a private matter. He did something wrong, from the seriousness of his punishment possibly very wrong, and if I were him I'd sort of wish everyone would stop talking about it.
DeChristopher however did something right and no one cares. He's making a huge sacrifice. He's willingly giving up years of his freedom to make a statement about something he believes in. A statement that needed to be made and he did it in a perfectly acceptable way. He did not commit some violent crime of anarchy. He did not hurt anyone. He brought something to the attention of the people and I feel like no one is paying attention. He had the opportunity to plead to lesser charges, not go to trial, and maintain his freedom but he chose not to because he didn't want to back down from the statement he believed needed to be made. He didn't want to let the oil and gas companies intimidate him and win. He's not getting kicked off the basketball team for a season, he's going to prison! People complain and complain about the atrocities committed by these big oil corporations and yet when one of us makes an attempt to stand up against them and open a door for protest and change…we instead discuss who was the best dressed at the Oscars, Charlie Sheen, and BYU students breaking the honor code.
America is great and I love it, but I also think there's a lot of things wrong with it. I believe most people would agree with that. There's stuff wrong with every country, but whereas many countries major problems seem to stem from corrupt governments, I'm starting to believe our corrupt government stems from a corrupt people. Corrupt in the fact that we just don't care anymore. We don't care about what matters. Other countries hate us and give us this spoiled brat stereotype and I honestly think we deserve it. What happened to us? When Rosa Parks broke the law by sitting in the front of the bus she was making a much needed statement in the most appropriate way possible. Peaceful civil disobedience. She was breaking the law, but a law that everyone later realized was wrong. Our history is filled with examples of this, they are the Boston Tea Parties that go down in history as heroes that spurred change and gave hope and inspiration to their fellow wronged citizens to also stand up for what they believe in and for what is right. I believe in Tim DeChristopher's actions and I want to say something cliché like he is ahead of his time or something equally lame and unfitting, but I don't believe he is ahead of his time. Sadly I think perhaps he's behind the times. He's acting like our founding fathers would have acted and we have forgotten how to follow people like that. Tim DeChristopher is brave. I believe he is a martyr in many ways. It takes a lot of courage to do something like he is, trying to be the first in the hopes that others will follow behind you. I want him to be the beginning of change, an uprising of the public, the start of a revolution for a better world. I want the people to see the beauty and importance of wilderness and pay attention to what companies are doing to it behind our backs. I want us to stop sitting on our butts complaining about them but never trying to stop them. I want us to recognize a hero when we see one. When I first posted a comment on my facebook page about this my sister replied with this Edward Abbey statement which is just one of hundreds of his that could be used for a story like this.

"At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earth movers, governments and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behavior.”

Unfortunately I believe that whereas Thoreau's behavior was proper and good, ours is just laziness. I want to have hope in the American people, myself included. I want to believe we will continue with what DeChristopher has done. I hope someday I look back at this as the start of something big, but I'm having a hard time maintaining that hope. I don't believe America lacks the right leaders, I believe we lack the right followers.

Cookies with Simon

2011-02-18T17:01:00.001-07:00

Simon came over to my house while Nate and Carrie went on a birthday date and we made her cookies. Simon helped with every step.

A weekend in Grand Junction

2011-02-13T17:25:00.000-07:00

I've never been out to Grand Junction Colorado, but I hear it's nice and it's right there by Colorado National Monument, and Aaron invited me out for the weekend, and the weather was nice, so I went ahead and just drove myself out there. Why not.

It's a pretty boring drive but just around this rest stop near the turn off to Moab it starts to get interesting. I stopped to eat my sandwich and let myself get excited looking at the rocks in the distance. It was a fun weekend, but the only thing I took pictures of was the hike in the Monument. It was so pretty with the snow and tons of animal tracks and hardly anyone out except a few climbers which I watched enviously from the ground. It would have been a perfect day to be climbing red rock cracks.

We walked a leisurely 5 miles to a tower, found a sunny spot to eat a snack, watched the shadows edge down the pinnacles and cliffs and hiked back. I loved the shapes and had a nice creative time making up my own mythical stories about what they each were and how they got there.

In the distance you can see the skinny tower we hiked out to.

The hike back was going too fast and it gave me the random urge to scramble up a steep slope and try to find my way down another way...

Aaron waited at the bottom to conduct a little business on his phone while I went on my own personal adventure... I brought him back souvenirs in the shape of rabbit bones I found in a little alcove at the top.

Sunday after church we drove most of the road along the rim at the top. The viewpoints were awesome and always took you right out to the very edge of a big drop off. We made it out to look down on the hike we'd taken the day before. It's nice from the top, but I prefer the hike along the bottom for sure.

And then I drove back home to Utah. It was a nice little weekend away.

"The only other sound's the sweep - Of easy wind and downy flake."

2011-02-09T17:49:00.007-07:00

I wasn't planning to make a post about my latest snowshoeing because seriously, hearing about someones solo snowshoe hikes just gets old after awhile I imagine. But then Megan wrote a post about deciding which poem she should memorize and one of them was Robert Frost's Stopping By Wood On A Snowy Evening, which reminded me so much of my Saturday afternoon on the trail to Lake Blanche that I thought I'd throw up a few pictures. It was uneventful, and because of that it was wonderful. I turned around after 2 very steep miles, saw almost no one, it snowed the whole time, and I found the most perfect lunch spot ever sitting on a fallen log over the river. It was so incredibly quiet and the wind was doing the prettiest things with the snow on the cliffs above me. Sometimes I wish someone was out there with me to enjoy the day with, but this time I didn't. I really enjoyed having it all to myself, even more than I usually do. (after so many fieldtrips and never spotting any snowshoe hare tracks for the kids I was starting to think I just wasn't recognizing them, but they were unmistakable and all over the place along this trail. They must have had some kind of snowshoe hare party that morning)

(more creative tree graffiti...unless this person's initials are BBQ which would be pretty cool too)

(a lone juniper. It seemed out of place up here)

(The view from my picnic spot. Right by the road too but the river was even louder than the ski bus chugging up the canyon so I didn't even notice)

Duc isn't just for Sundance anymore...we added bobsled watching this year!

2011-01-31T18:46:00.001-07:00

Duc comes to Utah ever year to work at the Sundance Film Festival. Every year I pick him up and shuttle him back and forth to Park City and he takes me to see a few films for free in return. This year was a little different, and not just because there wasn't terrifying blizzard conditions any of the days I had to drive him anywhere either. He met a guy who works at the bobsled run. They were practicing for some world championship...qualifying something or other. Who knows, but teams from all over the world were there and we got to just stand around and watch them. Some had pretty intense secret handshakes before pushing off and all of them have monster quads.

It was cool seeing them push off, but we coudln't appriciate how fast they go so we went down to a lower area and holy cow they go fast! (during that walk down I had the most impressive "slip on the ice and catch myself" moment ever)

It was awesome being the only ones there watching when we knew that during the olympics this place would have been a mosh pit. I love these next two photos. It looks like the bobsled just snook up and surprised Duc while we were chatting.

And we we also waited in a bunch of long lines and saw a few films too, but we do that every year...

Willow Heights - Again

2011-01-25T17:39:00.009-07:00

I was sitting at home on my day off work, still in my pajamas around noon wondering what to do with myself. I had left over guacamole and birthsecond cake (the day before was my 1 billionth birth second and I had a small party) I looked down at my odd lunch and decided it would taste better in the mountains. So I threw it all into a backpack and headed up the canyon. There were no cars at the Willow Heights trail head so even though I'd been there a couple weeks before, I pulled over and headed up. It was warm and sunny and I enjoyed the animal tracks, the stillness, the fresh air, the aspens, and the snow.

(bluebird skies)

(all mine!)

(I hate hats)

I took some pictures at the lake, then after a mildly terrifying close call, I headed back to the meadow where I found a nice spot looking over the snow and down the canyon. I was right, the guacamole and cake tasted way better up there. I wish I'd brought my book, it was so nice, I could have stayed even longer.

(at the lake...two similar pictures just because I want to. And because taking them almost cost me dearly. Tell me you like them even if you don't please)

(connect the trees) (sort of makes me feel huge)

(lunch time)

(dessert time)

(I love aspen bark) (steep decent)

(long evening shadows)

Lessons Learned the Hard (and really scary) Way

2011-01-25T17:29:00.005-07:00

And that's all I'm going to say about that. I don't really want to discuss in detail the heart stopping sounds, the mild terror, or the hasty slushy retreat. I'm sure I will be reliving the experience plenty of times in my future nightmares with worse endings. I've learned my lesson.

Oregon Road Trip

2011-01-15T23:12:00.000-07:00

When I was in third grade my teacher, Mrs. Crane...or was is Ms. Crane... used to show her class slides of her vacation to Hawaii. It was kind of cool to learn about volcanoes but also weird to see my teacher in her vacation clothes. When I got older I thought about those slide shows and the fact that perhaps we were the only people she had to show them to and I felt bad for her. Now here I am with a bunch of pictures of my vacation to Oregon from between Christmas and New Years...and no one to really show them to. So please indulge a poor single girl and look at my slide show like I did for my teacher all those years ago, but don't feel bad for me. It may not have been Hawaii, but it was a really nice break from the cold and snow of Utah in the middle of winter and it was a fun little road trip with my parents. I had a hard time narrowing it down and you'll think I didn't do a good job, but believe me I did, I take a lot of pictures. I didn't include any of myself in weird 80's cabana clothes either.

First driving to Oregon through Northern California...

ghost towns moss and mushrooms were on EVERYTHING

geocaching

taking a break for car sickness...and more geocaching

Klamath And finally Oregon....it was raining

Dad at Kissing Rock. I like how the rock really does look like it's kissing

gortex kept me dry for only so long. If only I'd had a full body suit made from it I might have been ok...maybe

A cool trail I ran down for about a mile but sadly didn't get to see the end of. It was a river, sometimes a lake, sometimes a tunnel, and I discovered too late... contaminated with poison oak :(

there was ocean on both sides of me but the trail kept going forward. I followed it as far as I could before my parents called my phone and said I had to come back

sea stacks and waterfalls. These two pictures are next to each other and if I knew how I'd have taken them better and knitted them into a panoramic or something

the only time we got mom out of the car on the first really rainy day. By this point I was soaked to the skin everywhere I may as well have gone in the ocean.

Trail through the dunes to the sea from our hotel room in Gold Beach, Oregon

view from the room...and my parents out taking a walk below

little lighthouse at the hotel

Battle Rock Park...site of a crazy sailor vs. Indian battle with the sailors all stuck out on the point.

up close of the beach at Battle Rock Park

A big driftwood tree with his huge roots was on the beach and there was a nice view through the middle of them

storms out at sea at Cape Blanco. The most western point on the lower continental 48 states. There's still a working lighthouse out at the end.

It was really windy out there...

I think it kinda looks like Ireland

the sun and clouds looked so awesome as we were driving away I yelled at my dad to stop the car and jumped out to take these pictures...they're some of my favorites from the whole trip.

Hiking at Port Orford Heads State Park...geocaching swag

A little cove they used to launch life boats out of in storms...it was pretty cool

All the rain created waterfall everywhere..some big some little. This was a little one in the parking lot at Humbug Mountain State Park

My mom...I'm not sure where I took this but that's Humbug Mountain in the background so it was somewhere along the way

There was a little spot called The Sisters that I wanted to go see for some reason I can't remember, but it was pretty. It hailed on us at least 3 times so I gave up wanting to go down to the water and we just enjoyed the views from halfway.

End of our two days on the Oregon Coast...right before dad got a speeding ticket.

"I know I was speeding...I was just having such a good time...."

Some random beach on the way to the hotel. I took off my shoes and finally went in. It was good

another one of my favorite pictures

Before leaving to drive home dad and I went down to the beach in the morning to find a geocache and collect some rocks

I really love this picture and I'm not sure why

The wreck of the Mary D

Back at Kissing Rock on our way out of town looking for a cache...I got really intimate with that rock with the use of my climbing skills but never found the cache

Like I said, mushrooms were on EVERYTHING. I saw hundreds and never the same kind twice. They even had local wild mushroom in the grocery stores. This one was on top of a fence post along the Oregon Coastal Trail...which by the way I plan to return to someday. It goes from the California border to the Colombia River and just the little bit I saw had me spell bound.

these were in the parking lot

These were in the Redwoods..on some redwoods. (back in California)

We stopped and walked on a few short trails off the road in Redwood National Park where the trails were so soggy it felt like walking through mushy raisin bran. Later drove the entired length of the Avenue of the Giants which I highly reccomend to anyone driving that way.

Well...that's the end of the vacation slide show. Thanks for paying attention. Oregon is great. Thanks mom and dad for taking me. The poison oak on my face wasn't so great, but that wild mushroom napoleon I ate at the fancy restaurant and the cheese we picked up on the way home made up for it as well as all the pretty views and trails. If someone wants to backpack the Oregon Trail with me or anything else like that, just let me know.

Willow Heights - Winter Version

2011-01-08T09:58:00.003-07:00

I snowshoed up to the Willow Heights trail on Saturday. That mile seemed a lot shorter and not as steep in the snow for some reason, though the trail was hard to follow. For one there were about 17 trails from previous snowshoers/snowboarder/sledders and secondly you can't just follow the tree carvings since the snow was deep enough to cover them all up...which was actually really nice too. I practiced my track identification skills and saw lots of coyotes...and a man in the distance that appeared to be a trapper from the 1800's which was pretty cool.

The snow was covered in a really pretty layer of surface hoar frost that tinkled as you pushed through it.

I swear it's impossible to walk in a strait line in show shoes...

Home for the Holidays

2011-01-04T19:18:00.004-07:00

I went home to see my parents for Christmas and New Years. No one else in my family went so the three of us spent the time doing whatever we wanted to without having to worry about kids and other complications that come along with large groups.

We walked around in San Francisco and I melted with envy at the year round farmers market with produce and artisan cheese. My dad was nice and bought some.

We stopped at Golden Gate Park so dad could throw some frisbees and we found some geocaches there as well and then found some more over on Treasure Island.

(I miss the big trees)

We did the usual Christmas Eve dinner on the pier in Santa Cruz and I went down and put my feet in the water and watched the surfers and metal detectors out doing their daily routine.

There was also the usual(unusual) quirky stuff that makes Santa Cruz fun and I think I found my official dream house. The white one, not the one with the lights. It was mostly the porch and the location.

On Christmas Day I opened my requested presents of socks and underwear...Santa brought mom a bike. I think it's the third or fourth time I've seen her get a bike under the Christmas Tree. Then we ate some of our fancy cheese and went out for the best Chinese food dinner I've had since I moved out of California. Duck, lobster, soup, dessert, noodles....it was so good! Then, because we had nothing better to do and the idea sounded good, we took a road trip up to Oregon and puttered around in the rain on the coast up there for a few days. Then we drove back home just in time for me to finish up my last New Year's resolutions from 2010 by making some dutch oven food with my dad and finishing reading The Bible cover to cover. Then it was off to celebrate New Years with Steysi. My uncle Jim and Debbie paid a visit on their usual family visiting trek around the country. They came with us for a mini crab/cheese/chocolate feast in San Francisco before I flew back home to find the cats still alive, slightly feral and shedding like crazy.

All in all...a great trip home.

P.S. I just want to say how awesome cats are as pets. I left them both home alone for 12 days and no one checked on them the whole time. They just fend for themselves and it's great!

2011 Goals

2011-01-02T16:21:00.001-07:00

They're not too complicated. I don't think they really need explaining. It's not like we haven't all made new years resolutions and goals before right? Here are a couple random pictures from my vacation to Victoria B.C. that I went on 5 or 6 years ago to go with them.

1. Sell my house or get a roommate
2. Make donations every season. Time/Used Stuff/Money
3. Try paddle boarding or hike Mt. Timpanogos
4. Use my gym pass a minimum of 60 times before it expires
5. Climb with 3 new people
6. Take a car trip alone and/or camp alone once
7. Read D&C
8. Go through 4 temples I've never been through before
9. Get paid for baking something with Alicia
10. Use all my kitchen gadgets/pots/pans/appliances once (anything too big to fit in a drawer)
11. Try one new cheese a month
12. Visit/attentd a new museum, national or state park, symphony or ballet, opera or play
13. Read a book by John Muir, Steinbeck, Tolstoy, Vonnegut, and one full book of poetry

2010 - How did I do?

2011-01-01T18:16:00.001-07:00

Last year I claimed to have accomplished 8 1/2 of my 13 goals, I think this year I did better with 10 and only 2 total fails (two were halfway met so they equal one together). But I think if you actually reach all your goals, maybe you didn't make them high enough...so I'm ok with a few failures. I tried.
I had good intentions while writing this post to put links and photos in but I'm not going to. I think posts without photos are lame and I don't read them too often, but here I am posting one myself...

1. Read the Bible
This took me the entire year. I finally finished up on New Years Eve. I was so excited I did this. I didn't cheat and listen to any of it on audio book either, I actually read it all. I don't think I'll do it again cover to cover. Not that it's not good....but...you know...it's long.
2. Go to bed before midnight (weekdays only)
Fail. Why do I bother making this goal? I tried harder this time, but I think I forgot it was a goal about halfway through the year. Especially when it snowed and I stayed up to shovel at 1 am and walk around the neighborhood. I'm going to make it a life goal to not ever make this goal again because I always fail and rarely even try very hard to keep it.
3. Be able to do 3 overhand pullups
I have no idea if I came any closer to this and since I hurt my back in December the thought of trying to do a pullup right now makes me want to crawl in bed and not come out. I'm sure I can do one, maybe two now, three? Maybe I could have back in July, but I'm not feeling so great these days. I do remember going to a climbing competition this year and them saying the girl who was currently climbing had a new years goal to do 21 pullups...and I felt instantly weak. I'll call this one halfway and not worry about it. I hate pullups.
4. Lead a 5.11 climb in the gym and a 5.9 climb outside the gym
So close! I was so too ambitious with this goal considering I didn't even lead climb when I made it. I top roped some 5.11 climbs and even a 5.12 outside. I can lead 5.10c in the gym consistently and was onsighting 5.8 outside without a problem. Maybe this year. In the spirit of goals I think I'd call this one a success.
5. Learn to bake bread (good bread)
Successful here for the most part. I learned to make some bread, which I thought was ok, but not great. I even tried out some sourdough bread. I'm confident with kneading bread dough at least. I should have made it a goal to learn to make good pie crust. I did that.
6. Hike to the top Mt. Olympus (or climb I guess...either one)
Double success. In face I did both! Climbed the North Summit and then hiked the regular summit...by myself I might add. I wrote posts on both of these so I'm not going to go into it any more.
7. Cook one recipe from every cookbook I own
Success! I was going to make this into a blog on it's own but never got around to it. This was the goal I was most excited about. I made the last two on New Year Eve at my parents. My dad helped me with the dutch oven for the last one even. 73 cookbooks. Over half of those were in the last few months too. I could not have done this without Alicia's family eating a lot of the finished products for me either, and my family as well. I didn't love serving people dinner from recipes I'd never tried before but for the most part I liked everything I made (I wish I'd eaten less of them...I'm getting chubby) I might write a post of this in more detail, maybe list them all...maybe.
8. Drive Slower (within 5 miles of the speed limit)
Success. This wasn't very fun. In fact I was driving to work this week and thought, oh I need to slow down, can't go over 70. Then I remembered it was January and I could drive faster now! I drove to work at 75 so excited. So I guess it worked since I still didn't drive as fast as I used to. There were more than a few times I passed a cop this year and thought, "Thank you New Years resolutions!" I hope it sticks.
9. Live off the food in my pantry for 1 month
Did it. It was lame. I underestimated my pantry. I should have made this 3 months. I hardly noticed. I wrote about this too.
10. Finish my name change back to Rockwood
Halfway. I got the drivers licence done...which was the biggest thing because now it matches my credit cards and I can get on an airplane without buying a ticket with a different name on it. But I never did my passport, so I'm still Katie Peterson internationally.
11. Get a computer
My parents did this one for me and got me a little tiny laptop for my birthday. It's been helpful. I also got a new Android phone with the Internet so if I combine those two, I totally got this one.
12. Green up my commute to work
I had such high hopes for this one. Carpooling with my brother, riding my bike halfway...nothing ever came of any of it though. Total fail.
13. Visit a beach/state/country/or National Park I've never been to before
Visited a lot of beaches, finally saw enough of Oregon and Montana that I'd count them as states visited, and saw 3 National Parks that I've never seen before. Joshua Tree, Redwoods, and Cascades, though the Cascades I technically didn't enter but drove through the middle of. It's shaped funny. I went further into Canada than I've gone before...if that counts for a country. Who's making the rules? Me? Ok it counts. This goal was met many times over. (thanks to my parents and Jake for the road trips)

If I'd sent out a Christmas Letter...

2010-12-23T14:24:00.003-07:00

I spent one Christmas on my mission and I don't remember very much about it, it was fairly uneventful. But a few weeks before Christmas, we got a Christian Calligraphy Art catalog in the mail and from it I cut out a tiny picture of a framed quote they had for sale. I still have it. I don't know how this tiny little scrap of paper has survived so many years but it's still with me and I like to put it up on my fridge at Christmas time. It's simple, but it's one of my favorite decorations. I don't know who said it, or what the company is that sent the catalog, but I still like the quote as much now as I when I first read it 10 years ago.

"If as Herod we fill our lives with things and again with things, if we consider ourselves so unimportant that we must fill every moment of our lives with action, when will we have time to make the long slow journey across the desert as did the magi? Or sit and watch the stars as did the shepherds? Or brood over the coming of the child as did Mary? For each one of us there is a desert to travel, a star to discover, and a being within ourselves to bring to life. "

I'd like to think that this year I've spent more time traveling the desert, watching the stars, enjoying time with the children around me, figuring out who I am inside, and less time acquiring more things...and I think it's made a difference. Merry Christmas, Katie

My New Phone

2010-12-22T10:08:00.006-07:00

With my Christmas Bonus this year I...paid a big chunk of my mortgage. How boring and responsible, but I still had enough left over to finally upgrade my phone. A more responsible thing there would have been to fix the heater in my car but that's what coats and gloves are for. I was still using Bryan's old Razor phone. It was pathetic and starting to turn itself off when it got cold. Along with my new phone I also got the internet at home! It's been years and it's been oh so nice! It has already come in extremely handy although it's only on my phone so it's just inconvenient enough that it prevents me from wasting too much time on it. So far my favorite thing about the phone is the camera! It has so many cool settings and last night I found even more picture features. I was up way too late playing with them.

It has a "depth of field" feature that's cool. (just because I get a new phone doesn't mean the subject mater of my pictures improves any. Still the cats)

I spend a lot of time after I go to bed trying to figure stuff out on the phone which results in pictures of me in bed. I don't know why there's an option to take blue pictures. I was showing the phone to Alicia and James and he thought the pointless feature was the distortion option...but I beg to differ. It kept me entertained for hours. Then after you take the pictures you can edit them with fancy effects. So far my favorites are vintage looking "glimmer" and "bleak"

I can download old photos too and do stuff to them. Check out what I did to these old hiking and climbing pictures of me. Already cool pictures, but now even cooler. They remind me of the old pictures I find stuck into the Rockwood Log up at the cabin, except no one is hiking with curlers in their hair and no one has bottlecaps attached to their shirt.

These pictures make me miss good weather and climbing. This was the only fun winter picture I edited.

The dangers of your own home and graffiti, two things to ponder when snowshoeing

2010-12-07T17:04:00.008-07:00

On Saturday I went snowshoeing up the Butler Fork Trail. I went alone and thoroughly enjoyed myself. But as I climbed the steep hill that follows the creek I couldn't help thinking about the dangers I was putting myself in by being there alone. I never felt scared and I didn't go into any immediately dangerous areas, I didn't go so far I might get lost, and I didn't go anywhere I wouldn't be found by others pretty soon. I was meeting up with some friends that evening so I knew someone would be aware I was missing should something have happened. I almost made it up to Circle All Peak but the sun was going down and I wanted to be safe so I turned back just below the top. Nothing happened, I just had a great time and enjoyed the fresh air and solitude of the mountains in winter.

(I'd never been up this trail in the winter but I went in the fall once with Andy and Kris. Here's the same spot in the above picture without the snow)

(The trail was packed into this nice bowl shape and it made me wish I'd packed a sled up with me so I could ride back down to my car.) Back from my first solo snowshoe outing in the canyon this season, I was feeling pretty good about everything. Then...Sunday night...I fell down the stairs in my own house! It hurts a lot more as an adult than I remember from when I was a kid. Luckily I fell backwards and just bumped my way down instead of tumbling Scarlett O'Hara style and escaped with just rug burns and bruises. (It still hurt A LOT) I laid sprawled out at the bottom for awhile and wondered how long it would have been before someone found me if I was hurt and wondering where my phone was. The next day was my day off from work and I had no plans with anyone. It'd probably be at least Tuesday afternoon before someone would think to look for me, but more likely Wednesday.

So to sum things up:

If I'd have injured myself in the mountains alone in the snow, the skiers I saw on my way down would have seen me within the hour and if not them, at least a dozen people the next day, plus friends would wonder where I was that evening.
If I'd seriously injured myself on the stairs at my house I'd have laid there for 2-3days with only the helpless hungry cats as company.

The whole experience made me agree with John Muir more than ever when he wrote this:

“To the timid traveler, fresh from the sedimentary levels of the lowlands, these highways, however picturesque and grand, seem terribly forbidding—cold, dead, gloomy gashes in the bones of the mountains, and of all Nature's ways the ones to be most cautiously avoided. Yet they are full of the finest and most telling examples of Nature's love; and though hard to travel, none are safer. For they lead through regions that lie far above the ordinary haunts of the devil, and of the pestilence that walks in darkness. True, there are innumerable places where the careless step will be the last step; and a rock falling from the cliffs may crush without warning like lightning from the sky; but what then? Accidents in the mountains are less common than in the lowlands, and these mountain mansions are decent, delightful, even divine, places to die in, compared with the doleful chambers of civilization. Few places in this world are more dangerous than home. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain-passes. They will kill care, save you from deadly apathy, set you free, and call forth every faculty into vigorous, enthusiastic action. Even the sick should try these so-called dangerous passes, because for every unfortunate they kill, they cure a thousand.”

I agree with Muir, I'd rather have died in the canyon with my snowshoes on looking at the stars and the trees than at the bottom of my stairs in my dorky mismatching old pajamas and a pint of melting ice cream in my hand.

Now let's talk about Graffiti. I kinda like Graffiti, but I think it should be limited to train cars, bathroom stalls, and that old abandoned building you pass as you drive to Idaho. Not on trees. If you actually own the tree then I think it's sweet to carve initials inside hearts, but not in wilderness areas. People can not help themselves though, so I guess we should look on the bright side of things.

I do appreciate when people put some thought into it and go beyond just carving their initials... and deep down, I kind of like the way old carvings look on aspens. (A couple of these are from a trail I took along the Alpine Loop a couple springs ago)

But I like the aspens most without any words.

"We had left no mark on the country itself, but the land had left it's mark on us."

Sigurd Olsen

Fisheye Camera

2010-12-03T14:54:00.007-07:00

I got a roll of film developed...yes developed

I found my fisheye camera the other day and noticed there was film in it, so I finished it off and had it processed. The first pictures were over a year old and some had really suffered but funny enough, when I got the pictures back both the old pictures and the new pictures were mostly of the Tolls. I wish the second pictures were also taken eating at Lone Star....mmmmm....Lone Star Taqueria. Kjirsten and I played around the the double exposure abilities of real film and I think they were some of the cooler pictures.

Sidenote: When I was 16 I had my first job ever working with my friend Sarah at a 1hour photo mat, how obsolete that is now. Also from my teenager days, I finally gave in and let Kjirsten have my last pair of Chucks which I bought back when I was 18.

Snowshoe Running

2010-11-30T17:27:00.006-07:00

I hate running. I have no endurance and I have bad knees....and I don't like the look of tennis shoes* worn with shorts. I have long given up the dream that I will ever run for exercise and it's really a shame considering my legs are at tall as redwood trees, but yesterday I tried snowshoe running in the park. As far as the endurance part went, it was so much harder than normal running. As far as my knees went, it felt great! I ran all over the park for almost an hour. I ran around the bases of the baseball diamond, I ran laps between trees, I ran through big drifts, I ran in circles, I ran wherever I wanted to! Then I gobble up icicles off the trees and felt like puking, but my knees felt great! I think I'll do more of this snow shoe running this winter. (I thought I was going strait but whenever I turned around I'd made a weavy trail over the snow...no wonder people wander around in circles in the woods and get lost. I can't even go strait across an empty field.) It totally beat going to the gym that day although I think I could have justified not going after shovelling all the snow out of my driveway.

I should get the stray cat some snowshoes, instead of making the usual tracks to my door he had to plow tunnels to get his food. It appears he has as much trouble going in a strait as I do.

*I spelled tennis shoes "tennishoes" originally and my spell checker suggested I change it to tennis hoes. really.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T17:11:00.004-07:00

It seems that Thanksgiving is good no matter what. Now that I think of it I have a lot of really funny memories surrounding Thanksgiving dinners including me throwing a golf club, and another of watching my dad hose down a flaming turkey on the grill with the garden hose. This year wasn't that eventful but it wasn't perfect either, Jailynn's family got stuck in snowy Idaho and I think only 1 of my 3 pies was really edible, but that was it. We had it at Andy's new house and he smoked some really good turkeys, mom sent chocolates to eat with our dinner, and Sarah made some awesome place cards for those of us that could make it. All that really mattered was that we had that grapejuice-7up drink. As soon as I tasted it, it was Thanksgiving to me. (and there was a puzzle, can't be Thanksgiving without a puzzle)

A walk on the Jordan River Parkway

2010-11-22T19:16:00.006-07:00

This was a nice way to spend my Sunday evening and I was surprised to see that I was the only one who thought so all day since mine were the only footprints in the snow except for something roughly the size of a raccoon.

Snow Trees

2010-11-21T18:28:00.001-07:00

The last big snowstorm was perfectly timed to hit in the middle of the night. I got to do my favorite winter activity of shoveling in my clogs in the middle of the night. It was snowing so hard in fact I had to re-shovel the driveway a few times before I finally gave up. I swapped my clogs for my taller fluffy boots and trudged around the neighborhood looking at the heavy snow on all the various kinds of trees and taking pictures of them imagining I was some kind of nature photographer. They are really bad pictures since I didn't bother with any kind of night exposer, tripod, or lighting. I was just trying not to get snowflakes on the lens.

This is "snow coat hair" very similar to sleeping bag hair and a close cousin of "bed head" and "helmet hair". Sometimes I wonder if having such long hair is worth stuff like this.

Raking Leaves!!!!

2010-11-20T19:23:00.001-07:00

The Gunters came over to help me rake the leaves in the backyard...and then everyone played in them. I know I had a lot of leaves but I've never actually attempted to rake them up all at once before. I couldn't believe how much there was! Just in time too since it snowed almost a foot that night. Who'd have guessed I'd be raking leaves and shoveling snow in the same night.

Thanks Alicia and James!!!!

My Awesome Self-Timer Skills

2010-11-20T09:42:00.005-07:00

I must say, I have pretty good self timer skills with my camera. I'd been meaning to take a picture up at this spot for a long time and I was finally able to get these shots on my last hike before it snowed. It was super windy and I had to run over to the other summit in 30 seconds before my camera took 3 shots. It got me getting to the summit, almost getting blown off by a huge gust of wind, and then finally just sitting there.

The day before I saw these guys up there with tripods and fancy lenses trying to take the same picture. True it'd have looked a little cooler if I could have gotten it from a little bit higher or had their nice camera but they were kind of jerks and for a little camera I can fit in my pocket I think I do ok. Of course this is still the coolest self-timer picture ever.

Red Butte Foothills

2010-11-19T09:15:00.004-07:00

My work is right up against the foothills in Salt Lake. In fact we're almost at the mouth of Red Butte Canyon and I go up and walk along the Bonneville Shoreline Trail all the time on my lunch breaks. Lately though I've gotten a little more adventurous and started exploring the trails going into the foothills. I can't believe I've worked here so long and never gone up there. They are amazing. I'd never have guessed those barren looking hills could be so pretty. The fall leaves were great, the weather is perfect, there's lots of snakes and rabbits and weasels to see, the views and sunsets are fantastic, and I almost never follow the same trail twice. In fact I've started calling them the choose-your-own-adventure hills. I've gone down a trail and had to choose which way to go at a 5 way trail junction and then just around the bend I came to a 4 way junction. It's literally a maze. Sometimes it's hard to pick which way to go. It's almost impossible to not get lost, but with the city so close by, it's also impossible to stay lost. I tried to go to Beacon Hill once and ended up on Red Butte Summit. Usually I get back to my desk and look at google earth trying to figure out where I was. I hope I can still find time to go up there with the snow and the days being so short. Oh yeah, besides snakes, rabbits, and weasels there's the occasional tarantula.

This old homestead is in the boundaries of Red Butte Gardens, at the very back end. When I had a pass to go in there I didn't even know it was there.

Red Butte Summit (Megan should have been in this picture...)

This guy passed me going up the trail as I was hurrying to get back down before I ran out of light. I was wondering if he planned on hiking in the dark and then about 20 minutes later I saw him over my head, paragliding back down.

I don't mind the heat and I don't mind the snow, but I do hate hiking in mud when I have to go back to work after.

Winter Predictions

looking towards the Oquirrh Mountains (not the Ochre Mountains)

The sunset over The Great Salt Lake looking out to the island.

The last day I was able to hike up there before the real snow came, the kind that probably won't melt away again, and it was so incredibly windy!

Sitting at this spot has the best views, except that the highest rock point is covered in hawk poop.

This was the best sunset ever except it was the one day I didn't have my camera with me so I had to settle for a phone picture. My phone stinks at taking pictures.

Random Trivia: Did you know the Salt Lake Temple was originally going to be built out of the red sandstone from Red Butte Canyon? They decided the granite would last longer and started over and the sandstone they brought down was used to build the foundations of some of the older homes and a few churches downtown.

Sometimes there are horses in horse pastures

2010-11-15T15:23:00.000-07:00

I really like looking out over the horse pasture towards the distant mountains. The clouds always look cool and unique each day and you may have noticed more and more pictures on my other blog are of the clouds over the pasture. Well, I also like feeding carrots and apples to the horses besides taking pictures of their field. Today I went to take a picture and one of the horses thought it was a feeding visit. He wouldn't stop and I couldn't stop laughing.

Donavon Frankenreiter

2010-11-12T17:28:00.005-07:00

Candi and I went to see Donavon Frankenreiter. Currently the most frequently playing music at my house and in my car. It was so good. Small venue, not very crowded (read not very hot), they passed out fake mustaches so all the guys there were looking especially attractive (my opinion), and the music was even better than I expected. Sadly I didn't bring my camera though so unless Candi sends me one from her phone, here's a random one to accompany the post. Also, he didn't sing my favorite song, but I can't complain. I love concerts. *Candi sent me the pictures, but I still like this one. I took it way back on my river trip with Bryce down the Colorado. I think I'll leave it.

a big blue ocean to the right of me mountain peaks to the left open road in front of me And the past behind me that I left But I can't go back, it won't do any good I gotta live my life the way I said I would I'm gonna find myself in those song filled trees Gonna live my life on every ocean breeze cause it’s the only thing I know to do It’s the one thing in my life that keeps me true So why don't you come with me

Mt. Olympus is finally off my To-Do List

2010-11-08T20:13:00.002-07:00

It was on my New Years Resolutions list to hike or climb Mt. Olympus this year. I climbed the North side in the spring and this fall I finally hiked the main trail. I've hiked on it a few times to the creek crossing, but never tried to go to the top. The other day I was walking along it intending to do the same thing and then decided to just go to the top. I'd skipped breakfast and didn't have any food with me and only half a bottle of water since I wasn't planning on a long hike, but the weather was perfect and snow was in the forecast for the rest of the week...and probably the year so I went for it. I thought of turning around near the saddle but I'd managed to make the hike so miserable for myself without food and water I knew if I didn't go to the top now I'd never want to hike it again. I got off a bit, making the hard scramble at the end more like a climb, but the view at the top was worth it and I'm glad I did it. I'm especially glad I did it on my own. It was nice to be up on that summit all by myself. Maybe that's why I have that funny smirk on my face...

The Summit Register

Views in each direction-

West:East:SouthEast:

South North:

The Lego Cake

2010-11-08T17:12:00.001-07:00

Alicia and I made a Lego Cake for her son's birthday party. It was not very fun. We ran out of red food coloring and decided to not use the pinkish red legos, not that the other colors were totally accurate but they were less girly. The fondant was a little soft making it hard to keep the blocks strait and the dots seemed like they would never be finished. After all that, looking at these pictures I just noticed one yellow dot missing. Alicia finished it off the next day with a logo. The good news is that Alicia and I still managed to work really well together making it even though we were tired and not really enjoying ourselves. Maybe we really can go into business together. The week before that we made these fun cake balls for Halloween. They were a thousand times more fun to make.

At the cabin in the fall (or Katie and Kjirsten go hiking)

2010-11-01T15:39:00.001-06:00

I never got around to loading up any pictures from all the weekends I spent up at the cabin with my family in the fall. No, this isn't the cabin. But it's for sale down the canyon aways and I wouldn't mind selling my house and moving into this one. Honestly I really don't think I'd mind so much. There's a woodburning stove, a loft, and it's right on the creek. Driving to and from work would be the worst part...but on to pictures from the Rockwood cabin visit. Here's my parents and some grandkids. Looking through my pictures I realize that except for a few leaf photos, almost all my pictures are from the 3 hikes Kjirsten and I went on together. So, here are our 3 hikes

#1- Between conference sessions I told Kjirsten we were going hiking so have her shoes on and be ready as soon as the morning session was over. They said Amen and we were out the door saying we'd be back in 2 hours. I had high hopes of running up to Twin Lakes and maybe getting to the top of Millicent. We made good time but once we got to Twin Lakes we changed our plans to follow the connecting trail to Lake Mary for a big loop. I got distracted by rock cliffs along the way imagining developing them as climbing routes. Other than that, the weather was perfect and even hiking uphill fast we didn't break a sweat. We wandered around Lake Mary taking a few pictures and climbing on the exposed boulders before heading back. I underestimated our time. I knew if we were late getting back I'd be tagged as being a bad influence Aunt making us miss conference instead of a fun hiking Aunt (plus I actually didn't want to miss conference) so we had to hurry...hurry as in run. I hate running. No more stopping to take pictures either, though I did get a few as we were going. We ran all the way from the trail head to Silver Lake and then all the way to the cabin. We walked in the door at the end of the opening song for the afternoon session. I couldn't believe we'd made it. So much for not breaking a sweat. #2- I can't remember where everyone else was, but the cabin was sort of empty so Kjirsten and I decided to go hiking again, this time just a quick one over to Lake Solitude. We were heading for the trail when Katrina ran up behind us and wanted to come. I told her the rule of no whining and she agreed so the three of us were off to Lake Solitude...and once we were there we thought we may as well walk over to the mine...and then around the lake...and then how about we follow the old road up for awhile...how about a little further...hey I think we're almost to Twin Lakes! A short hike turned long...and no whining, not even from me! This mine only goes in a little ways. I didn't realize when I told them if they went inside and I'd follow them, how much harder it is for someone my size to go in that hole. They made it look so easy.

After we left Lake Solitude we followed the old road up and over Evergreen (?) We kept saying we'd just go a little further and then turn around...then a little further...till I started to recognize things again and said I thought we were above Twin Lakes...sure enough we were! I'd never made that loop before but it won't be the last time I do it. The light was extra sparkly on the lake. The pictures doesn't really do it justice.We considered following the trail Kjirsten and I had taken before to Lake Mary and see all three of the lakes in one loop but it was cold and we'd only planned one one lake and we'd already seen two. Plus who knew what the weather would do and we were already seeing patches of snow on the trail, so we headed back. You wouldn't believe the coaxing it took to get Kjirsten to go down and sit with Katrina at the edge... it was easier to get her inside a dark abandoned mine.

#3- Just as my sister's family was packing up to go, someone mentioned how Jailynn hadn't gone on any hikes except a walk or two around Silver Lake since she was always with Josh, so Kjirsten and I laced up our shoes one more time and went up to the overlook again with Jailynn before they left. We had Kjirsten take this pictures of us at the overlook. For some reason it's rare to get a picture of just my sister and me, usually we're the two people taking all the pictures. I had it as my background on my work computer for awhile and I noticed people hesitate and stare at it as they passed by and I didn't know why till someone said, "Hey, there's two of you in that picture!"

Besides hiking with Kjirsten, there were the usual cabin luxuries. Sleeping out on the porch, reading, playing with the all the nieces and nephews, and tending the fire. Josh and Simon started getting trained early on helping with the fire, while Kris split wood they brought it inside to the woodboxes.

And that's the end of another season at the cabin. Now it's already covered in snow. (This is the picture we set as the wallpaper for my mom's new phone...that's what she get's for needing help putting numbers in her phonebook.)

Halloween Thoughts

2010-10-31T16:28:00.003-06:00

I have an aversion to embalming, I don't believe in it and I do not want to be embalmed. I don't even want to have an autopsy if it can be helped. I recently read a short story by David Sedaris for Halloween about him visiting an undertaker and it reminded me of this feeling of mine. It's not just the embalming either, I don't want to be cremated. I don't want a fancy casket or an urn. I don't like the idea of an open casket or anything that makes it look like I'm alive when I'm not. People don't need to look at my dead body and be comforted by the appearance of me being still alive. The idea of it is ridiculous if you ask me. I used to be afraid of the idea of burial and wanted to be put in one of those above ground crypt things you see in places like New Orleans and old European cemeteries, but even that idea I don't like anymore. Why try and prolong or isolate a process that is inevitable and unavoidable, why not make the best of it? I just want to be buried. Maybe wrapped in a sheet or an old blanket, maybe a sleeping bag like Edward Abbey was. Just put me in the ground to return my nutrients to the earth, death as nature intended. Just like autumn leaves composting over the winter to feed the spring flowers. This poem by Thomas Hardy makes is sound better than my ramblings do. Other things I don't believe in: Mayonnaise, Flu Shots, body cleanses, morning people, and expiration dates
For things I do believe in see this older post.

Transformations by Thomas Hardy

Portion of this yew
Is a man my grandsire knew,
Bosomed here at its foot
This branch may be his wife,
A ruddy human life
Now turned to a green shoot.

These grasses must be made
Of her who often prayed,
Last century, for repose;
And the fair girl long ago
Whom I often tried to know
May be entering this rose.

So, they are not underground,
But as nerves and veins abound
In the growths of upper air,
And they feel the sun and rain,
And the energy again
That made them what they were!

English Muffins

2010-10-25T09:44:00.001-06:00

I cook and bake a lot but for some reason I don't really like making things that have to rise, so basically anything with yeast in it. With my resolution to make one recipe from all my cookbooks I knew I'd have to make some bread eventually, unless I totally chickened out and just made the banana bread recipe in the back of all my bread baking books. I've been doing great making white bread, yam bread, and cinnamon rolls, and even sourdough bread. Out of everything though, I think making these sourdough english muffins was the most fun. They didn't have the best nooks and crannies like real english muffins do, but I was surprised by how much they looked like the real thing.

Farewell and Fun in Idaho

2010-10-20T20:28:00.004-06:00

The whole family headed up to Idaho for a nice farewell weekend for Kris. (we were only missing 3 people) We picked apples, gleaned potatoes, collected eggs, found a few geocaches, played with all the animals, helped cook a big meal, ate at Big Jud's, I got to spend the day with all my siblings, went swimming, saw waterfalls, and listened to Kris's farewell talk.

There were a few family pictures we took and a rare one all my siblings together. (Bryce is missing so often) but I didn't have my camera with me then and those that did are pretty unreliable as far as sharing pictures go so I'm sure I'll never see it. Here's the stuff I got pictures of. (mostly animals and random stuff we did)

The 3 year olds in the playhouse. They were really into it. They were cooking and setting the table, vacuuming, taking naps, and Kris even knocked on the door and they let him in for some pie and ice cream.

Kris and Sugar

One of my favorite cats

An ultra creepy blue eyed horse that I'm sure will eventually show up in some nightmare of mine speaking Russian and walking backwards or something

Geocaching, Dad with one at an old abandoned ski lift

On the way there through a tunnel

A geocache that had a bunch of sunglasses inside to take your picture with

Shrunken Apple Heads

Gleaning Potatoes: After rejecting all the frozen ones and the green ones all you can really find are small ones or something you'd have to classify simply as D) other. Maybe it had something to do with the power station being so close by.

Mesa Falls (I wish I had pictures of the guys seeing who could jump up the most steps)

Big Jud's (Bryce ate a whole one, Kjirsten and I each ate half of one) As a family we polished off 8 but didn't finish the sodas or fries

We took most the fries home which led to a classic dad misunderstanding

Katie: The car stinks
Jerry: Because there's 5 boxes of fries in the back.
Katie: Not just fries though, like fries and B.O.
Dad: French Fries To Go!?!

We reconvened a couple days later at my house for Kris's last family dinner and sent him on his way to the MTC and eventually Louisiana.

Samantha - another future climber

2010-10-10T19:43:00.000-06:00

After the post I wrote about Quinn being a future climber, I figured he might need a climbing partner eventually. So here we have my niece Samantha, another future climber. We were actually going geocaching but the cache was behind this big rock so I had her practice climbing it.Impressive huh? (just ignore the angle of the trees in the background and she's a prodigy)

Ok, for real now, but still pretty good for only 3 years old.

And here's a couple of rare Samantha smiles, she must like climbing! (...and a random Christmas Tree in the middle of the woods.) That hard work deserves a ride on my shoulders back to the car.

Autumn Leaves Up Close

2010-10-04T15:34:00.000-06:00

It wasn't the most fantastic fall season up in the canyon, but even if the landscape as a whole doesn't put on a show, the leaves themselves still do a nice job up close. These are just a few leaves I found on the cabin deck. I think I might have even been wearing my slippers when I took these, which means I didn't have to go very far.

Except they weren't plums, they were peaches

2010-10-02T14:58:00.003-06:00

The me from 11pm last night would like to dedicate this poem to the me at 8am this morning. The idea of them with cream was just too much for me and I couldn't resist. I hope the me of Saturday morning can find peaches at the farmers market enough for us all. Again, I'm sorry.
Love,
Me

This is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

And which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Some of the peaches at the farmers market are considerably larger than others, but all of them are so delicious. I don't want peach season to ever end.

Willow Heights

2010-09-27T18:50:00.010-06:00

Although mowing my lawn and taking kids to the park are great things to do on a perfectly beautiful autumn day, they didn't give the sense of satisfaction that I was looking for on one of the last good weekends of the year. I wanted to get into the canyon. I wanted to hike. I didn't leave Alicia's till almost 5 so I didn't have time to go anywhere far but I did have time for Willow Heights. I had the place to myself. I didn't see anything bigger than a duck till I was almost back to my car and passed 7 hikers on their way up. Though, the ducks were friendlier than any of the hikers I passed. I took my time and took lots of pictures and enjoyed the weather and the peaceful scenery. It was perfect. Willow Heights is such a pretty trail. It's a little less than a mile each way but steep. You hike most of the way through the most ideal and picturesque aspen forest I've ever seen. It's not just a pretty grove of aspens or a hillside, it's a forest of aspens that goes on forever in every direction. I love it, and they were just turning gold.

Suddenly the trail flattens out and the aspen forest ends. Abruptly. You step out into a wide open field. It's like the meadow in Bambi, although I hope this meadow doesn't experience such tragic horrible things as the one in Bambi does. The meadow isn't the prettiest thing in the fall, but I still like the sudden openness of it.

I'm getting good at taking my own picture. A useful skill when hiking alone.

Briefly you enter another grove of aspens and then...poof. You're at the lake. It's not a very glamorous lake with dramatic shorelines, but the reflections are serene and beautiful, especially in autumn.

Then the ducks came. I don't know what was up with these ducks. They were like little puppies that follow you to the bus stop. As soon as they saw me, they got in and swam over. I couldn't imagine that they get fed so much up here that they expected me to give them anything but they came over just the same. I decided to take pictures of them till they got scared...but they never got scared. They didn't expect food, they got out of the water and just stood by me like my cats do when I'm in the kitchen. They started eating by me and didn't run away when I stuck my camera right in their face to get a picture. I didn't ever have to zoom in, in fact I had to set the macro on my camera to focus as such a close distance. Sometimes I even had to snap my fingers to get them to look at me. They followed me around the lake and watched me go back down the trail when I left. I think they were just lonely and wanted someone to hang out with.

I started to walk around the lake, but about halfway I hit a wall of death. Something was rotting. The smell was so powerful I couldn't keep going. If I took one more step I'd vomit. I didn't even want to open my mouth to breath afraid I'd taste it. I don't know what was dead further up the trail but it smelled like about 5 moose and maybe a herd of elk. I was kind of curious to find out, maybe it was a person and I'd have to call the police, that would be exciting, but did I really want to be the one to find a dead body in the woods? What if it was a baby moose, I'd be so sad. I couldn't stand the smell anyway so I left and now I'll always wonder.

I was hoping these trees would be yellow so I could get the reflection, but they weren't yet.

A perfectly wonderful hike in Big Cottonwood Canyon and a great way to end my weekend.

Swings!!!!!

2010-09-27T14:00:00.008-06:00

I love taking pictures of kids in swings. I babysat Quinn and Zoe for Alicia on Monday and we went to Liberty Park. Quinn wanted to be pushed on the swing forever, so I took pictures of him. Doesn't it make you want to go to the park and go on the swings???

He got me on this one

One more weekend of summer in the canyon

2010-09-21T18:40:00.001-06:00

I spent the last weekend of the summer up at the cabin in Brighton. The fall colors were just starting to come out and the weather couldn't have been more perfect. Alicia and James came up with their family on Saturday and Nate and Carrie spent the night and Sunday morning there as well. I've always been scared to sleep up there alone, but I finally managed to do it on Sunday night and it wasn't so bad at all. Of course the highlight of the weekend was hiking everyday I was there. Saturday it took awhile just getting up the canyon because I was driving behind this car. Cool for the first mile or two and then just...incredibly...slow.I brought up some of the bounty I bought at the farmers market that morning and we ate some with our dinner and breakfast. I also brought up some of the stuff I've been making with the apples I picked in Idaho. An apple pie flavored with maple pumpkin butter and a deliciously moist apple cake. For the Saturday hike, Alicia, Quinn, Zoe and I hiked toward Solitude and came back around on the loop down to the Twin Lakes Trail. Alicia get's most the credit for carrying Zoe the whole way, Quinn climbed all the boulders, and I moseyed along taking pictures. I took so many of Quinn climbing I had to put them in a separate post. In a week or two all the hillsides in the background of this picture will be gold.

Sunday after church I decided I hadn't had enough. I hadn't unpacked the car yet, so I just got back in and drove back to the cabin, this time not behind an ancient car. I got there in time to take a hike up to Twin Lakes. It was so pretty in the evening. I took the picture at the beginning of this post on the way up and I love it. I swung by the overlook and sat down and enjoyed it for awhile while I let some other people on the trail pass me.

I loved sitting there looking at these peaks knowing I'd been on the tops of each of them.

I came back at twilight and just barely made it back to the cabin before I had to take out my headlamp.

I built myself a big fire, got out my books, and for the first time made it through the night alone. Like I said, usually I chicken out and go home just after it gets dark when I'm there alone.

On Monday, after sleeping on the porch till noon, eating a nice breakfast outside of some gigantic farmers market peaches and apple pie, then taking a nap till 3, I finally got out and took a hike to Lake Mary.

The trail to Lake Mary used to be my favorite when it weaved back and forth across the stream, but they changed it to go up the ugly ski slope to prevent erosion. I can understand that, but I still miss the old trail. I still like to go up there because I think of all the Brighton Lakes, Lake Mary, sitting in it's bowl of tall peaks with it's big granite boulder shoreline is by far the prettiest of all the lakes...

Don't you think it's gorgeous......??!?!?!!

This is all there was of Lake Mary, a mud puddle. Even the edge along the damn was dry. I've seen it really low before, but never empty. yuck.

Normally if you do swim up here (illegally) you can swim out from the top of the big granite boulder on the left or cliff jump off out of the trees on the shore opposite me. It's kind of nice to see that the cliff jumping area is plenty deep enough in normal conditions and even has water below it now.

But when Mary is gone, Lake Phoebe comes back. There used to be two lakes but when the damn was built it became one and is just called Lake Mary now. All the water can't be emptied from both of them through the damn so the original Lake Phoebe always remains when Mary gets emptied. This is what is used to look like...almost the same, except for all the trees. I'm always impressed to see the old stumps still rooted so firmly even though they're under water and ice most the year. These stumps were right in the middle of what was obviously the original division between the lakes. I wonder if they're in the old picture.

I walked out to one of the islands you normally have to swim to and took a nap in the sun.

I took off my shoes and soaked my feet in the water and made pictures out of the clouds.I thought this one looked like a mermaid but with kind of a long pointy head. Maybe like a broom handle head...like homestarrunner's girlfriend. (What's her name?) I think because I thought the other one looked like a mermaid, it made me think this one looked like a merman...only without a hand...

I climbed up a lot of the big boulders along the shore that are usually covered. I was halfway up this one, to a spot I knew I wouldn't be able to get back down if I needed to and looking at a possible nasty fall when the idea of me being there alone finally got to me and I came back down and found something just a little bit safer to climb on by myself.

A family showed up with 6 kids who, I'm guessing, wanted to find out if anywhere around the lake would give off a good echo and went around yelling freakish noises as loud as they could from every direction. Sounds like a fun thing to do for a kid, but I took off.

I swung by Dog Lake on my way down. Every few years I forget how unexciting it is and walk over there only to remember that it's not really worth it.

And of course, I enjoyed the last of the wildflowers

Future Climber

2010-09-18T18:05:00.000-06:00

On Alicia and my hike around the Solitude/Twin Lakes Loop, Quinn found some boulders to climb on and it turns out he's a natural. He was complaining about being tired but we knew he was faking it when we couldn't get him to stop climbing the rocks. He must have gone up and down each one a dozen times on each side. I took these pictures (while still spotting him of course) so that someday when he's a pro-climber, sponsored by all the coolest outdoor/gear brands and they're making cool videos of him climbing famous routes all over the world, he can show them off as proof and say he's been climbing since he was four. Seriously, I think he has better technique than I do. Someone get this kid some climbing shoes! (...and his brother too, but sadly he wasn't there that day.)

Quinn wanted to jump off but the boulder was taller than me so he asked me, "If I jump off and get hurt, then will you catch me?"

The next boulder we found was better because he could get down himself.

What to do with all those crappy phone pictures

2010-09-17T15:11:00.000-06:00

I don't have a fancy phone. I have an old second hand flip phone that takes crappy pictures. The quality of the pictures is only getting worse these days... along with the subject matter, which 7 out of 10 times is a cat. In my spare time today I made these lame little collages of some pictures from the past 3 years. Because really what else is there to do with crappy phone pictures?

Idaho in September

2010-09-12T17:25:00.000-06:00

I spent the weekend in Idaho visiting my sister and her family. It was a gorgeous weekend up north in Eastern Idaho and we got to do a lot in just a few days. One of the things we did was Apple Picking and Cider Pressing! I go up a lot for berry picking but always seem to miss out on the apple season. I was a little early this year but there were a few trees ready to be picked.

The school orchards have over 200 varieties of apples in them, I can't remember the exact number.

The trees are pruned perfectly for easily climbing up and reaching all the apples and obviously Kjirsten and I had fun climbing them and taking pictures.

Just as I took this picture Kris hit Kjirsten in the head with an apple...

After we picked all the apples we wanted, Jerry let us eat some of the strawberries in the gardens. We were going to pick them and throw them in with the apples to make strawberry-apple juice, but we just ended up eating them all.

Then we rode the Gator back through the orchards to the apple press.

But something happened to the Gator...

...Josh notices it... ...gets out to inspect...

...and finds we have a flat tire

Time to make cider- First we wash all the apples

Load them into the cannon

Watch morbidly as they get chopped to bits

Then hit the button and press all the juice out of them

Siphon it off into pitchers and jugs and you're done.

We kept the apples varieties separate for the most part so we could taste (and see) the difference in the juice.

Harrison really loves his apple juice...

Then after you're all done you can play with all the dry pressed apple pulp like it's play-doh and make creepy looking snowmen and shrunken heads and gross stuff like that.

Idaho this weekend also meant celebrating Kris's birthday.

I made him 2 cheesecakes. M&M and Key Lime (with the juice Jailynn brought home from their trip to the Florida Keys this summer.)

Grandma sent him a box of something, so while the cheesecakes baked and his parents took him shopping, Kjirsten and Katrina and I decorated the box for him. I don't know how to draw an airplane so it got modified into a flying fish at the last minute.

Then for the rest of the day we hung out in the backyard. We picked a few more apples in the yard and Kjirsten drove me and Josh around with the riding mower.

When no one wants to watch Josh while we pick apples, we just put him in the chicken coop with the bunny...

I couldn't tell if he liked it or hated it.

The time Alicia and I made an entire wedding dessert buffet

2010-09-01T16:51:00.012-06:00

I like to bake. Alicia likes to bake. We like to bake together. After I got home from my climbing trip in Squamish I was thinking I had a wide open month of August with no big plans, then Alicia suggested we bake her brother Stew's wedding cake, or make a dessert buffet for their wedding as a gift...and so started a million test recipes for pie crusts and countless hours on the internet researching wedding dessert buffets and recipes. We did tons of prep work and in the end baked for 2 days strait. The little raspberry pies took the longest. Even with her sister Melissa helping us it took half a day. Aren't they cute though with their little lattices?

This was my kitchen table around noon the day before the wedding. Pies, cake balls, shortbread, and loads of empty tart shells...

Marshmallow Wedding Cookie assembly line... Alicia's sister Melissa helped us both days and made everything so much faster.

Filling the Lemon Tarts...

Dark Chocolate Truffle Tarts...

Jake was one of our worker bees. He was especially helpful stamping out all the fondant tops and taking pictures of himself.

We made molasses cookies and Snickerdoodles especially for Stew. Leicha requested cream puffs and even though Alicia and I had made those before, we bought them. It was our only shortcut but probably a good move. Thanks to Melissa and Jake's help we finished up around 9:30 instead of baking through the night like we'd expected to. We were all so sick of sugar though that we went down the street for some McDonald's fries and cheeseburgers. They were soooooo gooooood!

Wedding Day!!!!

It was perfect!! We didn't forget anything, there was plenty of everything, nothing tipped over, and it was all delicious! Plus we got tons of compliments. I'd definitely consider doing this again. (but not for free again) Anyone want to hire us???

Alicia made super cute unique labels

The buffet was especially popular with the kids...

Thank you to everyone who helped us including lending us pans and platters, eating and giving feedback on our trial desserts, watching kids, assembling the desserts, and for eating them because I didn't want to take tons home. And for Jake taking me climbing the day before the baking began. It was so nice to get out and get my mind off everything before all the craziness started, he even took a few pictures of me climbing. Just a few though, it was crazy windy!

We Took To The Woods

2010-08-26T18:39:00.000-06:00

Getting out of the house for adventures is nice and all, but I spend a lot of time at my desk at work listening to audio books and on my couch at home reading. If you like reading then it can be an adventure too. I just finished "We Took To The Woods" by Louise Dickenson Rich and I loved it. She writes about how her and her husband live in a little house in Maine away from pretty much everything except the river, the trees, and a handful of far away neighbors and logging camps. It's funny and sweet and mesmerizing. It gives me wanderlust to go back to Maine and stay there. I wonder what my life would be like if I'd actually gone to college in Maine like I'd wanted to and almost did. Anyways, this is one of my favorite passages from the book. Not one of the winter chores parts or the funny stories about loggers or fisherman, but a little something about raising her kids in the woods and making sure they have the things they need. Enjoy.

"What can we give our children, then, that won't be outmoded, that won't, under some eventuality that we can't foresee, prove to be a handicap to them?...

We can give him a happy childhood to remember, a way of life that he will be willing to die to protect, if the need arises. That sounds like a grim and Spartan gift to a little boy, but it's not as dangerous a gift as the belief in pacifism and universal well-wishing to which my generation was exposed. I don't want to raise my son to be a soldier—but if he has to be one, I want him to be a good and capable one. I want him to know what he's fighting for—and Freedom and Democracy won't mean a thing to him unless they are all tied up with memories of things he has loved ever since he can remember: things like the sound of the river, and the way Kyak lies and dreams in front of the open fire on a crisp autumn evening, and the picnics we've held at Smooth Ledge. The name of his country won't be worth fighting for unless he can remember from experience that his country is the place, not of equal opportunity, not of universal suffrage, not of any of those lofty conceptions so far above a little boy's ability to comprehend, but the place where he walked with his father down a woods road one evening and saw a doe and twin fawns; or the place where he came in from playing in the snow and found the kitchen warm and fragrant and his mother making popcorn balls. That's all that I can give him; that's all that I dare to try to give him—something that he will love enough to want to preserve it for himself and others against whatever danger may threaten from whatever quarter, and the toughness and courage with which to fight for it."

When Babies Turn One

2010-08-17T15:50:00.001-06:00

It's no secret that I'm not the biggest baby fan, but when they can start holding their head up and laugh, I start getting interested. Around the time they turn one, something happens and I like them finally. It could have something to do with the fact that I love watching one year olds tear apart their first birthday cake... (or second birthday cake) This is Alec, my brother Andy's most recent kid. My parents were in town so they came down to my house to celebrate Alec's birthday. I made a cake and charged the camera battery because I am ridiculous when it comes to taking pictures of kids and cake.

Around this time he lost interest, I think it was the fact that he had frosting and sprinkles stuck to his eye lashes. The before and after cake pictures:

We didn't bother eating any of his cake. We ate one of these... my current favorite cake to bake. Brown sugar cake with coconut cream frosting...

After cake we opened presents and played Twister. I said it before and I'll say it again, Sarah's got the Twister skills!!! They're getting even better. I think she should stay in ballet and I'm pretty vocal about it to her parents whenever I see them. How could you not keep this girl in ballet class?!?! (or maybe classes at this place) I'm considering starting a facebook group. 1 million people to keep Sarah in Ballet

???????????!!

Alec is considering joining the facebook group

Cloud Drawings

2010-08-10T18:42:00.000-06:00

This is the new hobby I invented for myself to fill the time at work when there's no work to do. Usually I listen to audio books, browse recipes online, update my blog, read other people's blogs, and go for walks on the trails in the foothills, but I needed something new. I mentioned before that I've become obsessed with taking pictures of the clouds over the horse pasture in my backyard. Everyday I come home from work, and sometimes when I wake up I'm taken in by how pretty the clouds always seem to look over this field and since I always have my camera in my purse I usually take a picture. It started one day when I was scrolling through them on my computer looking for a new desktop background and thought, that looks like my grandpa playing pool, and I outlined it. It's a sad substitute for laying outside in the sun and watching the clouds go by in person, but it's the best I can do in my cubicle these days. (Some are hard to see unless you blow them up)

Dolphins

Grandpa playing pool Jellyfish

Osprey catching a fish

I have bad luck with cars

2010-08-08T15:19:00.003-06:00

While I was at the cabin I woke up on the screened in back porch which is normally so peaceful and tranquil, to the sound of an excavator backing up on the dirt road out front and it crossed my mind that I could back into my car. I sat up and looked out the screen window and saw my dad standing and looking at the back of my car. It was too late. I have back luck with cars, or maybe I have good luck since the insurance companies always pay for it. The really bad part was that unfortunately most my climbing gear was in back and got covered in broken glass. My rope has to be retired and I don't look forward to wearing any of my climbing shoes anytime soon. Would you? The scene of the crime including the perpetrator (in blue) and the victim.

The visit to the cabin wasn't all bad though. I did get a chance to brush out Simon's hair.

Roadtripping back home

2010-08-01T17:13:00.000-06:00

Driving to Canada was nice. We walked through the woods eating wild raspberries for breakfast, we stopped to eat and take a walk in Bellingham Washington and when we crossed the border there were bald eagles flying next to the road... but driving home from Canada was even better. For one, we took small highways and scenic roads almost the entire way. We got to drive through The Cascades in Washington at dusk following the cold Skagit River into amazing towering mountains. We ate dinner under the mountains and froze our feet in the river. We drove through acres and acres of ripe ready to harvest wheat fields as far as you could see where I made Jake sing "America The Beautiful" for me. We passed through small towns full of little diners and antique shops we would have loved to stopped at if we'd had the time. We camped next to a lake where I was so tired from driving I filled out the campsite register with a date in November and paid with Canadian money. We drove through cloud covered mountains in Wallace Idaho and along the train tracks to Coeur d'Alene while listening to Josh Ritter sing about where we were in his song "Wings". We passed through the thick forested hills of Montana and saw lonely log cabins next to beautiful rivers as well as a sampling of their many various license plates. We followed the Salmon River back in Idaho where we saw osprey calling from their nests and passed Borah Peak, the tallest mountain in the state. We saw thunderstorms gather over the distant buttes and drove through the rain with the windows down. After we watched the sunset someplace around Blackfoot we got on a real freeway for the first time in 2 days. All this was accompanied by good conversation, music and storytelling. Usually driving home from a good vacation is depressing, but this was nice. Good company, good scenery, and good snacks. The depressing part didn't even hit me till we reached Salt Lake.

Nice leg tan Jake...

Jake was beside himself with excitement to be in these mountains and wanted a picture in each direction. I suspect he'll be back to climb them soon. Another one of Jake and my random candid looking self portraits where we appear to have caught ourselves unaware that we are taking our own picture. (Ignore Pat's lunch box hanging from the sign)