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.

Memorial Weekend and my new Toy!

We started out our Memorial Weekend by participating in the Kalemia 5k run. I've always hated running and would kill myself by just running 2 miles. It has bugged me that running is so hard for me so I thought this would be a great opportunity to train and get in shape. It was a great opportunity I just never took advantage of it so I about killed myself running the 5K. Me, Steve, Greg, Jared, Mary and Morgan all started out together at the end of the pack. Jared left us rather quickly, then Greg and Steve took off. I stayed with Morgan and Mary. At one point I thought I was holding them back so I told them they could take off without me. They said they were fine. Soon Morgan quit running and it was just me and Mary. Steve was about 30 yards ahead of me and Greg was no where in sight. After about a mile I thought my heart was going to burst and I wanted to just walk. I could walk all day and be fine. Soon Mary stopped running and I was all by myself. Lucky for me I am really stubborn and wanted to prove that I could run the whole way and I did. Not very fast, but I did it. I hated every minute but want to keep running to see if one day I will like it.

After the race and visiting we headed up to the cold, cold cabin. Our stake trek is in a few weeks and there has been concern that the regular route we go on will be covered in snow so they have asked us to see if there is a route they could take up at the ranch. As we were driving on this route we looked up and saw two of the ugliest moose you have ever seen.
Sunday we ran down to my Mom's church and it turned out to be my friends son's farewell so that was exciting to get to hear him speak before he leaves on his mission. We went and visited my Dad and Grandparents grave and then headed back up to the cabin. Greg, Lauren and their friends Kylie and Dustin came up with them. Monday morning we woke up to more snow.
After lunch we all gave up and headed home.

This weekend was a much different story, look at that sunshine and look at my wonderful new toy my sweet husband bought me. For the last two years I have been mowing two lawns every week. So this year my husband bought me this new lawn mower for the cabin. It was sweet, I mowed the lawn in half the time and it was fun.

The river is so high. I'm sure it's going to spill over it's banks this year. This is where we usually swim and the river is about 2 feet higher then normal. We haven't even been able to cross it on the four-wheelers yet.

During the summer the water just makes it to the pile of rocks you see in the middle of the picture. The willows up above are flooded with water and we haven't seen the worst of it.

Still Closed

We love the drive over to the cabin. We drive it most every week for 5 months and we never get tired of the scenery. For obvious reasons they close the road in the winter, but most years we are able to drive over it in April. Many years there is only one lane open for a week or two, but it cuts 1/2 hour off driving the long way so we take our chances. Last week we thought for sure at least one lane was opened up. We took a break in the afternoon and saw a truck and car pass by on the road. We figured if we didn't see them in 20 minutes then the road was opened up. We never saw them come back.

We packed up and headed up the hill. Both lanes were open and it was looking pretty good. About a mile from the top it turned into one lane with snow taller then the truck on both sides. At the top we saw some men on snowmobiles and asked them if the road was open. Much to our dismay they informed us that it was still closed but that we needed to go see it.
The top picture is how the road ends. Unfortunately the road will not be opened up Memorial Weekend. They are predicting it won't open up until the middle of June. It's crazy the amount of snow that still needs to melt. Glad we have the boat in the driveway, it may come in handy.

Water, water everywhere

We are in shock with the amount of water up at the cabin. Water is seeping out of the mountains and hills. This is supposed to be our lawn but water is seeping out of the hill by it and filling the yard with water. Steve built the pond outside the fence to help water the meadow and the pond is also filled with water.

This side of the cabin has ponds all over it. Normally it is dry and dusty. We have a big willow right below this picture and the hill it is below is leaking water and the tree is surrounded.
A couple of ducks have discovered our pond and for some reason we think that is cool to look out and see ducks on it.
Behind the cabin we have a canyon that we love to hike up. It has a small stream that will run after a lot of rain or sometimes in the spring but this year we have a creek. We decided to hike up it to see where all the water is coming from. This stream is what filled up the pond and filling up our yard.

Almost to the top of the canyon on one side of the hill we saw one of the sources of water and it is just coming out of the mountain.
This was taken at the top in the middle of April. A lot has melted since then but we may still see snow up there in July.
Normally a tiny pond for the sheep and goats to drink from.
The road is still closed to go over the mountain but we wanted to see how far they have gone. It is a one lane road and you can see how much snow they still have. My sister posted a video of a friend who had taken a drive up there and they haven't broken through yet. Hopefully in two weeks when we go back out the road will be open. The river was really high when we left on Saturday and I wish I could be out there this week to watch the river.
Greg and Lauren came out on Friday and it was fun to have some company. Steve had someone to shoot with and I had someone to play games with. At least we will have a very green spring and early summer.

RHS Rhone

On the cruise we went scuba diving off the island Tortola. We dove the RHS Rhone which had the distinct honor of being the second ship deemed unsinkable. After this ship sank they quit calling ships unsinkable. Steve was really excited about the dive and I of course was not as excited. I get really worried about my ears being able to clear and that I will make a fatal mistake while diving. This dive was also 85 feet down and that had me worried. But I was able to descend with no problems and the visibility was great.

The handle of the dive camera broke right before the dive so Steve was the one responsible for the pictures. I feel bad that I couldn't take his picture. Not that we look so great in our dive gear.
They tried to take off in a Hurricane and hit a rock which tore a hole in the ship and when the cold water hit the hot boilers they exploded. The sad thing is since this ship was unsinkable they had just transferred a bunch of people from another ship which safely made it through the hurricane. The ship sunk in 30 seconds which is a good thing since all the passengers were tied down in their beds for the night. That thought makes me crazy.

This is one of the boilers that blew up.

I can't believe Steve even spotted this fish since he blends in so well. This was a two tank dive and one of my favorite. I can't wait for the next one.