McKay/Steph Open House

This is what the photos should have looked like--beautiful couple in beautiful yard. But the truth of the matter is that it was raining cats and dogs! An hour before the open house we decided to "call it" and we quickly set up the Relief Society room at the church and held the reception there instead of outside in our lovely yard. It actually looked quite nice--considering--and we had a great reception.

We put up a sign in our driveway telling our guests to go to the church, and then we had these sandwich boards set up along the route, guiding people who didn't know where our church was.

Here's the beautiful couple.

A couple of views of the line. The one on the left shows Kiera, who was a helper, and guests Jody Barney & son and Annie Gamez, as well as McKay, Steph, Ramona & Ken. The one on the right shows the same people, adding in Randy & Ken Jr. (Payne), the back of Mikela Ouimette (also a helper) and Rob.

This is a cute view of Kiera, with Wendy and Emma and Megan Greenwood in the background, Rachel (fairly hidden), Kimball and Rob. On the right is Delene Leonard (who helped with refreshments), Wade Greenwood and Ken Payne. This one also has a nice view of one of their engagement photos.

Photos of some of our favorite people. On the left is the Allgoods, who surprised us by coming. Jared & Kim live here, but Dave & Stephanie live in Redmond, Washington. In the center is Rachel and her dear friends, Peter Hyatt and Andrew Palmer (brother and best friend of Greg). Peter and Andrew stayed and helped us clean up. It was so helpful!!!! Finally, the background of the right picture shows Uncle Bob, Matthew Bailey (big surprise!), Grandma Smith, Katie & Conner McKeown. Matt and Charlotte coming was a big surprise, too. They live in Oregon.

Dark Canyon

Here I am at the trailhead. Notice I am wearing my Hostinella shirt from Cathy. Always a dangerous/scary decision. :) Just kidding--sort of.

After 2-3 miles of flat desert, we came to a couple of areas where we down-climbed a bit. Then we came to the serious downhill! One vertical mile down. An ancient rock slide took away the sheer canyon wall and made it possible to pick your way down through the boulders. There's a trail of sorts. Cairns show the "easiest" way down. On the left here (above) is a pic looking down. And on the right is Jody down quite a ways towards the bottom.

This is one of my favorite pics. It is taken from the top and shows where we camped. If you look in the center of the pic you can see where a stream is flowing (you can't actually see the stream, but you can see the curve where the stream goes). That's Dark Canyon. Almost smack in the middle of the picture, in that river bed, you can see tiny, tiny trees. That's where we camped!

Pics of our camp. Definitely desert! Sheer canyon wall behind us. Stream in front of us. It was absolutely gorgeous!

OK, here's a couple of fun pictures. On the left you see me pumping water. Notice how hard I'm working. NOT! It's my new Platypus water purification system. You scoop up water into the "dirty" bag and using gravity it drains into the "clean" bag. You then use the clean bag as your bladder. Or you can just hold a Nalgene under the short hose attached to the "dirty" bag and let the water pour into your bottles that way. There's a little clamp to stop the flow when you don't want the water to come out. So whenever you want water you just have to pop the clamp and purified water pours out. No more pumping! On the right are sprouts. I took 2 sprouters with me and sprouted as I backpacked. It takes a lot of water, but with my new system that doesn't matter. It's easy--just a few minutes of care in the morning and in the evening. And then fresh greens for lunch every day! I mixed my sprouts with soy nuts, dried cherries and a few almonds and then tossed them with a little pouch of Italian dressing. Yum!

Just a couple of beautiful views taken of the area from our campsite. I love canyons, and I love desserts. The out- of-doors and camping and hiking recharge my aura!

Here are some photos of our day hike. Obviously me on the left. A pic of the stream we followed down to the Colorado River (we didn't go all the way) in the middle. Sometimes we were walking along the stream and other times we were way up above it. This is a way up photo, obviously. And then on the right is a fossil. Cool, huh? By the way--for those of you who aren't technological, you can click on these smaller pictures and a big one will pop up so you can see more details.

The left photo shows Jody and me heading out on our last day. The one on the right shows a scout troop coming down just as we were heading up. They look far away because they were way above us. If you can't see the boys, try clicking on the pic.

A sight for sore eyes. Way in the background you can see our car. Yeah! But then we still had the "treacherous" trip out that difficult dirt road! We were sure happy when we turned onto the asphalt highway!

Natural Bridges

This trip actually had 2 parts--camping and day hiking in Natural Bridges National Monument and then Backpacking down into Dark Canyon. Natural Bridges was first.



Here I am at our camp--just open BLM land. No "facilities." I'm wearing my new hiking skirt. I wasn't sure how practical it would end up being, but I loved it! It's a winner. I'm still loving my little Big Agnes tent and my Big Agnes integrated sleeping system. Equipment these days is unbelievable! I took this trip with my neighbor, Jody Barney. We were "alone together", meaning that we each had our own tents and food and pretty much took care of ourselves. We hiked together, but I also spent a fair amount of "alone" time reading and meditating and wandering. Camping and hiking simply infuses me with life!





















This was my first trip with my Kindle. It worked Great! No worries about reading too much and running out of what I brought. I finished "Outliers" which I had been half done with and then I started "The Magician" (and got 3/4 way through) .





















Here I am starting the descent into the canyon which has Sipapu Natural Bridge. My backpack is pretty cool in that I can take it apart and have a small backpack with a water bladder and also a fanny pack for 10 essentials and lunch.





















Here I am at Sipapu Natural Bridge. I love natural bridges. This was a neat hike because we got to walk under 3 of them. It was a 8 1/2 mile loop.
















Here I am at the second bridge, Kachina. All these bridges have Native American names, if you hadn't noticed. :) Originally "white men" named them President, Senator and Congressman, in order of height. then they were renamed Agusta, Caroline and Edwin by explorer groups. Finally the General Land Office assigned Hopi names (inspired by nearby Puebloan structures).


























Kacina has some cool petroglyphs. Here's an animal.






















And here's a human.





























Owachomo is the oldest of the three bridges. This view shows how narrow and thin it's getting. Remember last year one of the bridges at Arches collapsed? :( Owachomo is headed for that, but likely not in our lifetimes. You can see Jody in the corner of this pic--she's taking a picture.















Here I am at Owachomo

























And finally back at the parking lot. Then we headed off 2 hours to the Dark Canyon trailhead.

Thomas Family Reunion

So here's the very long story of our Thomas Reunion trip to Spokane. I know I should make it shorter, but it's so easy to just cut and paste from my letter! The pics don't really match the paragraphs. They're just pics of the kids with their grandparents--and one pic of the family at dinner.

Wendy, Jack and Rob flew up early. Wendy has been wanting to spend more time in Spokane and our trips are always pretty rushed affairs, jammed in over just a weekend. Oh, I need to back up a bit. You know usually we drive, and actually we enjoy the drive. We eat. We visit. We actually bond and have a good time! I know that sounds sappy, but it’s true. But this year our crowd was getting just a bit too big for a car. With Stephanie and Jack both joining our family this year we had a long debate over how to get up there. We could have rented a big van, like a 15 passenger monstrosity or something. But those are certainly not comfortable—more like just practical. Plus Wendy was worried about traveling with Jack. Even though there would be lots of adults to help, poor Jacko would be cooped up in that car seat for an awfully long time. So after much debate we decided to fly this year. That’s why we could work it where some went earlier than others. They stayed (and then we did too, later) at the Marriott Courtyard downtown right by the river. It was really nice. They ate at Dicks, as well as other “new” places and they rode the Carousel and did lots of walks along the river, including to Gonzaga and the falls. They went to the new, really beautiful mall. They went to Spokandy. All in all they had a really nice and restful time. Jack’s Pack and Play barely fit into the bathroom and so that worked quite well. Poor Rob, who isn’t a good sleeper and who has to go to the bathroom at night, had to go down to the lobby each time he needed to go. J So then the rest of us (Rachel, McKay, Stephanie and I) flew in on Saturday morning. Karen was an angel and got up at the crack of dawn to come pick us up and take us to the airport for an 8:00 flight. We had a nice time together.

The flight to Spokane sure isn’t very long! There were only about 20 people or less on the flight. While boarding we had a “Meet the Parents” moment. I don’t know if any of you have seen that movie, but there’s a super funny part about when the main character is trying to board a plane and the airline workers won’t let him till it’s his turn, even though no one else is there. We had a young girl in front of us who was obviously very nervous and was boarding at the wrong time. They wouldn’t let her on yet. There was all of maybe 5 more people to board. Stupid! Anyway, we had a short stopover in Boise and everyone but us and one other person got off. The cockpit was open and Rachel was peeking in and pointed it out to McKay who was brave enough to go stick his head in and start talking to the pilot (or co-pilot?). I was nervous because since 9-11 the airlines are sticklers about the cockpit. But the pilot was super nice and let McKay come in and then Rachel went up and the pilot talked to both of them for like 15 minutes. It turns out the pilot and co-pilot were friends who served together in Afghanistan and Iraq. He’s flown refueling planes, and he says it’s just like in the movie “Air force One.” McKay and Rach really enjoyed that little experience.

In Spokane we rented a car and drove straight out to Rob’s folks’ house. We had a little car-renting glitch. National would only take a credit card, and I guess all my cards are technically debit cards. So instead of renting the one Rob had reserved, we moved next door and rented from a different company who takes debit cards. I didn’t know our rate, so they got the paperwork from our original place and rented us a car at the same price. It all went very smoothly. The only glitch was that I didn’t know Rob’s rate, and when all was said and done we paid a ton more than we would have at our original place. Oh well . . . It’s only money. (ha ha) Our family was the first to arrive at Rob’s folks’. We had a nice visit for a bit and then everyone started arriving. It was really a wonderful reunion because more people came than usual. The adults (meaning siblings) always come, but usually not too many of the grandkids come—usually at least a couple of ours and a couple of Bruce’s and that’s it. This time everyone was there except Cecelia’s two boys and their wives and Aaron’s daughter (great-grandchild). It was really wonderful. We had a super nice visit and ate lunch while visiting. Here’s who was there: Cecelia and Terry and their daughter Halley, together with Halley’s husband Danny (who went with us to the inauguration) and their children Gus (6), Oscar (2) and Ira (11 months). Bruce and his wife Patti were there and all, yes all, of their children. Elizabeth brought her two children, Meredith (10) and Adriann (3?). Marla brought her husband Brian and her 20 month old, Ginger. Aaron’s little one lives with her mom in Mississippi so she wasn’t able to come. L And William was there. Very nice. And then our whole family. My gosh, we had a good time. Rob’s parents, as always, are so, so gracious. Both looked good, though Rob’s mom has been not feeling well and has lost some strength. She tired easily. But they were both so thrilled to see everyone, and we them. After lunch we visited for a long time, then each family left for errands or rest time.

During our errand time we did our two traditional errands—the Rack and Spokandy. We were in a bit of a rush, so we just did the North Town Spokandy instead of the original one. We caught them on their last day of business! Spokandy isn’t going out of business, but they’re closing all their satellite stores and just keeping the downtown one and focusing more on wholesale. So we practically bought out the store. Not really, but it seemed like it. We sure pig out there (refer to previous paragraph about gaining weight). And the Rack seemed like a pretty successful visit for everyone but me. Nothing really jumped out at me and I didn’t want to spend money just to spend money. So all I got was a pair of running tights which I had hoped they’d have. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure what people got other than Rach. She was looking for a summer dress and searched and searched. She tried on like 20 items. She ended up with two blouses, and then as we were walking to the cash register all of a sudden we saw the perfect dress! She grabbed it and ran to the dressing rooms. It was perfect! So I ran it back to Rob at the counter and we got it! We were running a bit late by then and rushed to the restaurant were we were meeting. It was called something like Chickeria. It’s near Rob’s folks’ and it has a banquet room which had been reserved for us. It was perfect because the little kids could wander around and we could all visit. We again had a glorious time visiting and re-acquainting ourselves with each other. I think it was about 7 or 7:30 when we started heading off on our separate ways.

Our family went back to Rob’s folks’ for just a few minutes and then Wendy, Jack, Rachel and I went to our hotel. It was Jack’s bedtime! You know how babies and little kids let you know when they’ve had it! Rob and Kimball wanted to visit more with Grandma and Grandpa. The love birds (McKay and Steph) were enjoying sitting on the front lawn and mooning over each other, so they stayed. Us girl folk had a super good time lying around the hotel room visiting and eating Spokandy. Way later the boy folk and the love-birds showed up and we continued eating and visiting into the night. We love this Spokane trip. Although this year was quite different because we flew instead of driving, it was just a fantastic trip. Lots of bonding and visiting. A good time was had by all.