Boating

This has been a crazy summer. I can't believe it is August already. The sad thing is thinking soon we will be putting the boat away. Usually we pull the boat out in May and go a couple of times. By the end of June we had only gone boating one time and that was on Utah Lake.

So when Steve's birthday rolled around and we had Heather and the girls we ventured out to Deer Creek. It was stormy that morning and we thought about not going a few times, but it turned into an awesome day on the lake. It was my first time skiing this year and I wish I could explain how fun it is to be out there on a ski. Nothing like it and I hope to be doing it for years to come. We let Braelyn drive the boat and she was so serious about it. She would look at the compass and ask us what way she should go.

The old man still looks pretty good.

Braelyn just loved being pulled behind the boat on the skim skate. Next year we need to buy some little ski's and get her up on them.

Finally we got out to Starvation. It is my favorite lake. This year it is so full that there are tons of cliffs to jump. I talked Braelyn into swimming over to these little rocks and jumping off them.

The big sandy beach isn't so big this year. Most of it is under water, but we had to stop and play in the sand for awhile. I had Braelyn and Berkley over at Indian Bay for awhile and we had the sand toys. Berkley does not like to get dirty and told me that the wet sand was the ugly sand and the dry sand was the pretty sand. I also had to rinse out her bucket numerous times because it was dirty. Berkley stayed on the boat when we stopped here.

With two kids out of state we have had to go boating a couple of times by ourselves. With the exception of nobody to spot while we are skiing we totally love just hanging out alone. Too bad after one ski we are tired and just want to lay around, because that water looks pretty nice. I'm hoping for a calm Fall and being able to boat until October.

Days of 47 Rodeo

My sister Amy barrel races and I'm ashamed to admit that I've only seen her do it once. She has been doing really well this year and with Heather and the girls out we decided to finally support her and go to the days of 47 rodeo. I remember the rodeo from growing up and it was hot sitting out on the bleachers, it lasted forever. So I was never excited to attend another one. But Amy is so sweet to Heather and the girls that we wanted to go. She was the first one out for the barrel races and did awesome. She said Doughby tripped by the first barrel but I didn't notice. Braelyn was so excited and screamed so loud for Amy. She missed first place by a 1/4 of a second. Braelyn was so sad that she didn't take first place, but kept saying that Amy was still a winner. I agree with Braelyn.

I was surprised that the girls liked the rodeo as much as they did. They were so good and watched each event.

I love the look on her face. It was priceless.

It was a super fun night and I will definitely go again.

Birthdays

My birthday this year fell on a Sunday, and being the Primary Secretary I got to go up twice to have the birthday song sung to me. Braelyn thought that was awesome that I was getting sung to. She gave me the thumbs up song and sang the loudest. Taryn got up early that morning and made me a birthday cake. Which I really appreciated. Greg and Lauren came up for dinner also.

It was really sad when a couple of months ago I realized that I was 46. Most of last year I thought I was 45. Hopefully I will be able to remember that I'm 47 this year.

Taylor often did this pose so I made the other three children pose like this so I could send Elder T, the picture. In case your wondering Heather is not putting on weight but I will get another beautiful grandchild in December.

We bought this ball last year at Costco and it has been a huge hit. Braelyn would roll it up the hill, climb in and roll down it. We thought Berkley would be brave this year and try it, but no amount of coaching would make her do it. At least this year she climbed into it.

Steve's birthday fell on a Tuesday. The weather that morning was stormy and cloudy and we about cancelled going boating. Luckily we didn't and had an awesome time. We went up to Deer Creek.

We love to go up Snow's Canyon and just play around in the water. It was nice this year because the girls didn't mind wearing the life jackets.

I asked Braelyn if she wanted to ride on the skim skate and she said yes. I laid behind her and steadied the board. She was kneeling on top of it and Steve took off. She loved it. After she was done I decided to give the skim skate a try. I can get up, but could not get myself out of the wake.

Braelyn took the job of steering the boat very seriously. She would look at the compass and ask which way she should go. Every time we got in the car she would tell us what way the car was headed.

Berkley also needed a turn.

The old man looked pretty good.

I was so excited that night to go home and give Steve his pumpkin pie. I got up early at 6:00 to make it, and I hate making pumpkin pies. It looked amazing but after a couple of bites I realized that I had forgotten the sugar. It tasted horrible. I am getting old so I'll blame it on my age. Happy Birthday to us.

Love my cabin

Steve left for Florida on Monday and then flew into Cincinnati to spend the weekend with Heather and Kevin and the girls and will fly home with Heather and the girls on Tuesday morning. I knew that I would rather be alone up at the cabin then here in Cedar Hills. My week got busy and I could see no way for me to leave before Thursday morning. Because of trek and being so busy with that I had not been to the temple for two weeks so I knew that I couldn't go out until I had attended the temple, also since I'm the only one home I needed to get the lawn mowed. I also had to cleaning jobs scheduled for Wednesday. I had bought a new king mattress for the cabin and had to pick it up and do some bed shuffling here. We decided that we would bring the king mattress from the cabin back here and move the queen mattress that we had here up to the cabin and get rid of one of the double beds. Wednesday morning I woke up at 4:30 am. I was still tired and tried to sleep but gave up at 5:30 and got ready for the temple. Got right in and was done with the temple at 7:00. Waited until 7:30 to mow the lawn and finished about 8:30. Went in to get ready for work and found a message that one of my cleaning jobs was cancelled. Went and cleaned the one house, picked up the new mattress and had Greg and Lauren help me haul out the queen mattress's and tie them all up and I headed out to the cabin Wednesday afternoon. I was so happy that I had been able to attend the temple and get the lawn mowed that morning so that I could leave. While driving up there I knew that I would have to get the mattress in the cabin before the rain hit. I don't know how I did it, but I hauled all three mattress's into the cabin by myself and 10 minutes later the heavens opened up.

I love when it rains up there and spent the evening watching the rain. Luckily my mom was up there and she helped carry the king mattress up the stairs. I tried and tried but could not get it up the stairs by myself. The next morning was stormy and rainy and the perfect morning to stay inside. That afternoon the clouds disappeared and I was able to get some yard work done. I love my new riding mower and mowing the lawn is a blast. My sweet husband said that I work too hard so he will mow the cabin lawn for me. I think I'll pass on that offer.

Friday I was sitting outside eating lunch and looking over at the mountains and realized how blessed I am to have this cabin. I love watching the clouds come over the mountains. Everyone should be able to enjoy lunch with this view. My Dad showed us this spot for our cabin and I thank him every time we go out. That afternoon Greg, Lauren and her parents and younger sister came out for the night.

It was great, they brought all the food and cooked it and I got to enjoy their company. Saturday we went up to Tom's to go fishing. Sidney loves to fish and caught a couple of them.
One of Tom's grandson's hooked onto Greg. He reminds me of Carsen when he was little.

Me, Lauren and her Mom just chilled out reading and visiting while they fished. It was a fun few days for me, but next weekend will be even better when everyone is out there except for Elder Taylor.

The River has flooded

We knew the Duchesne River was going to flood. It's been predicated for awhile and while we were at the cabin it happened. We got up there Wednesday afternoon and had to take some pictures. The water was really muddy and brown. This is a picture from the top of the hill. Normally the river is a calm river.

Here is a view from the cabin. We come down this road to cross the river to ride over the loop.

We missed the really high water as you can tell from all the drift wood that is jammed against the fence and the road. In this picture is a big piece of wood that is now in the middle of the road.

Where the small water fall is where we normally cross the river. Who knows what the banks will look like once all this flooding is over. We may be finding a new place to cross.

Down by my Mom's ranch house there is a ditch that runs along the road and right below the ditch at the bottom is a small creek. I do mean small but not today. This is the creek that has busted out of all it's banks.

You can see the ditch spilling over it's banks and running into the creek. I have never seen the water this high in all my life. I'm glad we took pictures Wednesday night because on Thursday the creek was almost back to normal. My Mom stayed at the ranch that night and said the creek was so loud it sounded like a freeway.
When we were first looking for a place to build the cabin we found this beautiful spot across the river right at the base of the mountain. Luckily we didn't build there because the river has flooded that spot.
Larry and Talitha came up Friday night and we had a blast going four-wheeling with them. We tried going all the way up Rhodes Canyon but had to stop because there are still snow drifts on the road. We had a great time with them. They are the perfect guests, they bring their own bed (a motor-home), their own four-wheelers and wonderful food. The best part was me and Talitha even won two hands of skipbo.

I had to get a picture of the mountains because I've never seen them so green. We are blessed to live in such a beautiful state.

Stake Trek

Around December I started thinking about Stake Trek. Our stake goes every four years and I've had the privilege of going 3 times. The first time they called a week before trek and asked if I would help with food. That was an easy assignment, I helped load the trailer and then pass out the food to the families. I got to walk the trail with the handcarts and my job was to spray them off with my spray bottle to keep them cool. It was fun to be up there with Heather.

The next time we had trek they asked me and Steve to be a Ma and Pa. This was a lot more work, but we had the best kids and it was so much fun. The downside was they didn't give the ma and pa a tent or the boys so the last night it started to rain. We covered all our boys the best we could with the tarps and then realized we had nothing for ourselves. We saw a truck and decided to crawl under it with our sleeping bags to try and keep dry. The person was asleep in his truck so we didn't want to wake him and needless to say I didn't sleep the whole night worrying that he was going to take off with us under the truck. Also the ground was slanted and my sleeping bag got soaked with the rain. The next morning we were awakened to "O what a beautiful Morning" All I could do was laugh. Taryn and Greg were on this trek.

The next time trek rolled around we were asked again to be a Ma and Pa. We were excited because we loved last time and Taylor would be going on this trek. This was the most difficult trek. They had a heat wave and it was in the upper 90's in the mountains. They also thought that it would be great to make us go an extra 3 miles the first day. The last 2 miles we ran out of water and we could not find the water truck. Kids were dropping like flies due to the heat and no water. We made it to the campsite and everyone just collapsed. The kids were so worn out that they didn't want to play the games or do the square dancing that night. The next day it was still that hot, but we were able to camp in the upper meadow and with all the green grass and trees we were able to cool off and have a great night. Along with the heat, we were also hungry. I guess poor planning lead to not enough food. That day we were supposed to have meat sandwiches and they didn't even have enough cheese for everyone or mayo, so I had a meat sandwich with no cheese or mayo.
So around December I started thinking of what I would say if they asked us to be Ma and Pa's again. I decided I would tell them no and then the thought came to me that they were going to ask us to do the food. I hoped that I was just having strange thoughts, so when they gave us the assignment I knew the Lord had been preparing me.
One day while buying 72 bags of chips in the store I ran into the lady that I helped do food with for the trek and told her what I was doing. She said that doing trek food was the hardest assignment she has ever done. I agree with her I put in 100's of hours before hand buying food, looking for sales, figuring out amounts and praying for help.

The day before trek begin was a nightmare. We got the trailer loaded up that they had given us and realized it could not handle the weight of all the food. Also our truck was not going to budge it. Luckily Chris's brother loaned us his diesel ton-truck to pull the big trailer and we rounded up three other trailers to get all our food and gear up there. Here are some of the helpers loading up the trailer.

Steve decided to grow a beard a couple of weeks before the trek. We had to laugh that the middle part was so snowy white. It started to bug him a week before and he couldn't wait until trek was over to shave it off. We worked our heads off up there feeding 360 people. The first night we cooked them pulled-pork sandwiches, baked beans, potato salad and watermelon. That night after the dance we served peach cobbler and chocolate cherry cobbler. Then we cleaned and packed everything up and drove 2 miles away to set up for breakfast. We were all up at 4:00 getting ready for breakfast. We served breakfast burritos, hash browns, cinnamon rolls, bananas and hot chocolate. Then we had 20 minutes to clean up and head up the trail before they took off in their handcarts. Up on top we served yummy Gandolfo's sandwiches with chips, cookies and apples. Once they reached the top we had more cookies and apples and bananas to eat. That night they made taco-topper soup and biscuits in the dutch oven. After the fireside they ate brownies. The next morning we sat our yogurt, muffins, cinnamon rolls and bananas. Once they reached the end we had watermelon sat up for them. One boy at the end told me that I gave them too much food. I am taking that as a compliment. With all that food I still was $1,500.00 under budget. Will I ever do this assignment again. That would be a big fat NO. But I'm happy that it was successful and the kids were never happy and loved the food.