Jack's Week with Grandma

This week was clear back in July! I'm just catching up on my blog entries. Kimball and Wendy went to Las Vegas and then California (Laguna Beach?) for a week and I had Jack for that whole time. :) He was an angel. He's a good little sleeper and we had a great week. Here are some of our activities.

We went day-hiking with my friend Chyrell Cook from work. This is at the base of Little Cottonwood Canyon--Temple Quarry trail. Jack wasn't sure about this at first. He cried for a short bit and then seemed to be OK with it, though I don't think he actually really enjoyed it. Then he fell asleep!

Here we are at Grandma Smith's on her back porch/deck.

Grandma (Great-Grandma, I guess) has a lot of fountains. We were sitting next to this one and Jack was loving playing in it! A bit later he dropped my phone in! Yikes! Luckily, after drying out for a half a day the phone worked fine. Whew.

And here's Grandpa reading Jack a bedtime story.

And the final pic is us visiting Rachel at her apartment in Provo. We went there for lunch (Del Taco, bean/cheese burrito and fries). Rachel is sharing her fries. Jack loved them. Just like Grandma!

Uintas

Taking Karen's family, and Cath and Kiera, for a short hike in the Uintas was my last summer backpacking trip. :( Well, for this summer anyway. We had a nice time visiting together, and most of the kids had a good time, too. As far as having a good time goes, you know the old addage. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." You can provide a great, fun activity for a teenager, but you can't make him have a good time.

Here we are just taking off at the Crystal Lake Trailhead about 25 miles up the Mirror Lake Highway. We got a late start, so it was almost noon before we actually headed off. Oh well. :) Back row is Cameron, Karen, Sami, me and Cath. Front is Kiera, Caden, Mikela and Steffi.

Two of our cute little ones--Caden on the left and Kiera on the right. Caden is 8, Kiera 9. Notice Kiera's clothes and equipment, btw. Miniature versions of her grandma's stuff (and mine, for that matter). A nice REI shirt with roll up/button up sleeves, REI zip-off shorts, and, most amazingly, an Osprey pack. Pretty cool! And finally, a "Buff" (that's the brand) head gear just like mine and Cath's.

These pics were all taken on our way to camp. On the left we are crossing a bridge/dam at Long Lake, in the middle we are standing in front of Long Lake, and on the right is our lunch stop. Originally I had hoped to stop for lunch at Long Lake because it's a nice stopping spot, but we started late enough that we had to stop earlier for lunch. This was a nice lunch spot too because it was right at the top of the uphill and so the rest of the hike in was mostly downhill. Karen's family had Lunchables, Cath and I had bagels and cream cheese and fresh fruit. Kiera had a PB & J sandwich. The first lunch is nice because it can still be "real" food. It took us 4 hours to hike 3 1/2 miles into camp (that included our lunch break).

Here we are at camp--Duck Lake. There was a super big rock just barely out in the lake that had a fun little "cave" the kids liked. Here you can see Mikela and Kiera. Then in the center is Cameron and Caden eating dinner. This is where Sami fixed the Ouimette meals. It was very near the lake and had a great view. On the right is Kiera getting water for our dinner. She was a good little helper.

On our middle day I decided to go trail running. I haven't ever done that before and was interested to try it out. Since it was such a short hike in, I wore my Keens instead of boots so I could use my Keens as running shoes. And I carried in a running shirt & shorts. I actually had a pretty good time. I ended up running 7 miles--out to the parking lot and back. It only took about 45 minutes each way this time! Then I met Cath, Kiera, Mikela and Steffi at Island Lake, which was our planned "day hike" for the middle day. They were a bit late getting there so I took advantage of the privacy and had a nice bath, scrubbing off dirt and sweat from the run.

Here's just a pretty shot of the wildflowers and Island Lake. Island Lake was a mile from our camp.

We had a super good time hanging out at Island Lake for hours. The girls played on the cliffs, sometimes scaring themselves with their brave exploits of going to the very edge. I found this ledge (right photo) and had a nap while the rest of them ate lunch (I had eaten my energy bar during my run). A week before our hike Ole had brought his boys up here and they did cliff jumping and swimming here!

These are just pretty shots of the scenery--and we're in some of them. On the left you see the terrain near the lake, in the middle is a lily pad pond, and on the right is a nice shot of Island Lake.

The little girls heard me raving about skinny dipping and they decided to be brave and do it too! On the left is Mikela and on the right is Kiera.

Here's Cath, Karen and me enjoying the nightly fire and visiting. Cameron made the fire each night and Sami put it out. She did a really great job of that.

Here's our actual campsites (I don't have one of the Ouimettes. It was right by our nightly campfire). Cath and Kiera are on the left with their new super-duper Big Agnes SL3. And I'm on the right with my older but just as super-duper Big Agnes SL2.

And finally here we are at Duck Lake just as we're headed back out to the cars. It took a bit longer getting out, but not much. Four hours 15 minutes for a 3 mile hike. (The hike in was slightly longer because we did a loop.) Cameron, Karen, Cath & I are in back. Front (l to r) is Caden, Sami, Steffi, Mikela and Kiera.