What that Storm looked like at our House

Logan was home teaching, so I took some pictures because I didn't think he's believe me if I just told him:)

Home Economical

 Since my sister and mother have been giving all my father's tomatoes away to strangers on Facebook, I thought I had better go over there while they were both gone and get some for Sydney and myself.
We started the day with big plans we gathered two grocery sacks full from the resting location on my fathers infamous wood burning stove and went to the store to purchase other supplies for the gallons of product we thought we would end up with.  Little did we know three hours of time and 30 kilo-watt hours later we would end up with 3.5 quarts of juice and 3 pints of spaghetti sauce.  Not the gallons we were imagining earlier.

We broke Sydney's mother's cardinal rule of not eating what had sealed but since we were planning on having spaghetti for dinner we tried a bottle that's why some are missing from the picture.  It was good and we were delightfully surprised, especially since we got discouraged when my mother told me there wasn't a recipe and we had to use one from the internet (not from pinterest).

Much of the time and electricity were used to heat up this massive water bath of my mother's.

The picture doesn't do it justice we have no idea how big it is, but it is way more than our ceramic stove top can handle. It seems silly to spend well over an hour heating the water up to boil the bottles for 20 minutes then dump the water out.  We could have bathed a dog or a large toddler in that thing.

Then if that wasn't enough Sydney had this idea to make cantaloupe jelly, to save some of our delicious cantaloupe.  It tastes good, but we would rather eat the three batches of apricot jam we made three weeks ago.  I think the jelly would have been better if we had found the recipe on pinterest:).

Next weekend we'll probably attempt to make grape juice and some jelly any one that wants to come help is welcome.

Old Lady to New Baby

We have been slacking not posting about the most recent room make over that we have done.  This was the office room of my mother's while she lived here.  She had decorated during the phase of her life when she was watching several hours of home design shows on cable networks (i.e. Design on a Dime, Trading Spaces).  Any who it was painted very thoroughly in two shades of "Old Lady" green.

 It's not just my mother even Sydney's mom likes that color, in fact she recently had "Old Lady" green vinyl siding put on her house.  When we moved into the house I personally found this room the most offensive, but we painted the faux finished blue kitchen first because Sydney loathed it. 

The reason for changing this room is because as most of you know we will be having a baby boy in September and this room is the only other bedroom upstairs with us, and no son of mine is going to live in an "Old Lady" green room.  The color I chose and Sydney consented to was orange, we picked this before we knew the gender thinking it was non-cliche gender neutral color.  After we found out we were having a boy we still wanted the orange room and went with it.

It took us over a week to finish it because of the well glued on wall paper and the ceiling was painted green, and then all the molding was an off white shade of green.  Many stages and coats later; the orange took 4 coats of paint/primer paint.  Which by the way we tried the new Glidden duo paint/primer it worked fine for the white and grey colors, but the orange was runny. So if you're going bold, stick with the Behr it's the better paint anyway. 

We got it all done and it looks great.  We still have some decorating to do and quilts to make but we should get it done before the baby remembers that his room wasn't decorated.

Still Getting Goodness From Our Garden

We planted a pretty big garden this year, and except for the beans and tomatoes and cucumbers we did pretty well.
We had a big haul of asparagus as usual, and a real bumper crop of summer squash and zucchini.  We did okay on corn and bell peppers, and the cucumbers produced but weren't edible.  Except to my mom, her taster must be broken:)  We had bad luck with tomatoes as one 6-pack was mislabeled and was actually cherry tomatoes, and the other 6-pack all died except for two plants.  And the beans died without ever producing anything.

This, however, is my favorite crop.  We took a chance and experimented with growing cantaloupe.  It was really touch and go for a while.  And then there were baby melons and I was scared to get my hopes up, and then one was ripe and I was worried it would be nasty like the cucumbers, but it wasn't.  They are delicious. Check out that monster in the back! 

Family Camping Trip

I just realized that we never blogged about our family camping trip to Lower Bowns Reservoir.  Logan has many fond childhood memories of this place and the old camper.  This is the first year the Blake family has had a big camp out since the one we went on when we were engaged.  So the Friday before Memorial day weekend we drove up to my Mom's house and spent the night.  My sister had to have emergency hernia surgery late that night so that was interesting.  The next morning we got up and had to shop all over for some maternity pants (because I'm an idiot and forgot to bring pants).  We finally found some at Walmart which I actually like a lot.  Anyway, we got up to Lower Bowns and everyone who was there so far (Ron and Anisa's family drove up the night before) were huddled in Ron's new fifth wheel since the weather was cold and windy.  Ron was fishing because everyone knows that sucky weather is ideal fishing weather.  A couple of funny things happened that day before everyone else got there.  Apparently Ron has a "fish pan".  It's the only pan you need on a camping trip (or so I've heard).  Anisa was just getting lunch started and had a grilled cheese sandwich in the "fish pan" and Ron comes back from fishing and plops a fish in the pan right next to our grilled cheeses.  We panicked (of course) but I got one of the first sandwiches so it wasn't fishy.  I heard the other one's were questionable however:)

Since the weather was so bad we decided to go for a ride in the Escape.  This poor Escape has really been put to the test by Logan time and time again.  It's basically just a car with better clearance, but Logan forces it to be an SUV.  As we were driving down this "Tantulas" road (Logan will have to correct me if I am wrong with that name) I was speculating what our car thinks of this.  Does it like that we don't let it's limitation hold it back? Or does it feel abused by us making it do things it hasn't been designed to do?  I'm weird I know:)  But seriously, 2 trips down the Hole in the Rock road, 2 trips to Tuweap, one almost to the top of Utah Hill, and now this back road into Capital Reef National Park?  That poor car!

So we were driving along this road that was pretty rough.  We go for a couple miles and we get to this really awesome place (presumably this is Tantulas?) where the road goes down into this stream bed that is green and beautiful.

 And we keep going because the goal is to make it into Capital Reef the back way and then take the highway around back to the camp site.  Then we get to this big hill that we have to back over.  I'm thinking, "Hmm.  The more obstacles we get past the more we have to get back over when we finally have to turn around when we get so something we CAN'T get over."  But we persevere.  Then we meet that obstacle.  And we pop a tire.  Yep, it's windy, freezing, blowing sand and in BFE and we pop a tire. 

 

Yes, lovely picture of me putting a coat on.

So we back down to a level-ish place.  We get out of the car and change a tire.  But we have to change 2 because we popped a front tire and we really need good front tires if we are going to get out of this place.  We're not worried by this point.  We have water, a tent and all our camping gear.  Ron knows where we are and we're not going to starve if we can't get out.  But with faith and a little elbow grease Logan changes the tires (I assisted, I promise).  We pray to get out of here and we are off.  It was a fairly uneventful ride back to camp.  But then the fun of trying to find a tire in Wayne County on Saturday of Memorial Day weekend begins.  We really don't want to drive 50 MPH all the way back to St. George on Monday.  Anywho, long story a bit shorter we finally found one in Loa.  Then we freeze to death in our tent that night, and a little less the next night.  And we hike to Lower Calf Creek Falls on Monday and nearly roast to death:)

And drive home through Escalante and Zion.  What an eventful weekend.  We seem to have bad car luck on Memorial Day (as we were stranded in Beaver with the Saturn a couple years back).  But that's how you make memories I guess:)

Rim 2 Rim

We did it! Craig Degen, his son Jahmal Degen, Cash Williams and I hiked from the North Rim to the South Rim via the North Kaibab and the Bright Angel Trails.  We left St. George at 5:00am* and drove to the North Rim and arrived about 8:00am. Walked over to the Lodge and looked

off then started down the North Kaibab Trail. This is a 14 mile long trail that descends 5671 to Bright Angel Campground in the bottom of the Grand Canyon.  On the way down we got to walk the first mile and a half to the Supai Tunnel.
 
This stretch of the trail is heavily used by mules so it is very dusty and covered in manure.  It was like walking in one of Dad's corrals for a mile and a half, yuck! After that the trail was mostly foot traffic and very nice. We walked to Roaring Springs and took the .5 mile misleading side trail to Roaring Springs.  I thought you could actually hike to the bottom of the big spring, but it only went to a potty and a water spigot. 
Kept on going down, stopped at the Pump House Residence for lunch then we saw the section of trail that was washed out from the water line break.  This could have ruined our trip apparently, but it didn't so off we went.  Passed the cotton wood campground, where most people stop for the day, but we were doing it in two.  This campground is not bad, but some spots have no shade.  Then we hit the .5 mile round trip side hike to Ribbon Falls, this is one of the highlights of this trip very cool makes the trip worth it.
We got to the falls about 12:30pm* and hung out there about an hour.  I left my bag next to Craig's and walked up around the falls. I got back and a squirrel had chewed through my camelbak hose right where it comes out of the bag. Very annoying!  I had to move the mouth piece to the new end and leave it inside my bag and take my bag clear off to drink.  On a good note my new Marmot pack I got on clearance kept my water cold the whole 1st day. I got brain freezes while hiking in "The Box" at 4:00*.  After Ribbon falls we hiked the last 6 miles starting about 1:30* and got to Phantom Ranch at 4:30*.  So without counting stops it took us 7 hours of hiking to make to the bottom.  We hung out at the camp ground and put our feet in the creek, had dinner, then Craig and I walked back to the ranch to call our wives.

I wanted a T-shirt but the ranch had funny hours and the store was closed from 4-8pm** and we were there at 5:30**.  So we had to kill time till 9:00*.  Craig and I decided to walk the 1.5 mile river loop over the 2 bridges.  It was cool we got to see the river in the day light and watch a life flight helicopter land,
and see the left over medical supplies where a person collapsed after hiking down the South Kaibab Trail in late after noon.  It was rumored the person died, but I'm not sure. It was awhile before the helicopter took off, but we got to see that too.  We made it back to camp and still had to wait a little but I got my T-shirt, Craig got his cold lemon-aide, and Cash and I sent post cards by mule.  The next morning after a horrible nights sleep Craig woke us up at 4:00am* and we got on the trail about 4:45*.  We hiked by head lamp along the river and half way up the devils cork screw.
 
We made it out of the inner gorge and to Indian Garden camp ground 7:30* which is half way on the Bright Angel Trail.  Ate a good breakfast of freeze dried eggs and sausage and left just after 8:00*.  We spent the next 3 hours climbing out of that hole.  Stopped for water and breaks at the 2 rest houses and passed lots of people and 2 mule trains walking down the trail.
 
 We made it to the top about 11:30am* so in approximatley 6 hours we hiked 9.5 miles and ascended 4380 feet.

We found a nice shady spot on some grass at the Bright Angel Lodge and layed there.  Sydney walked through the lodge about the same time we did.
 
It was a great trip sore knees, sore muscles, blisters and all I would do it again.  Craig and I with side hikes ended up with 27 miles in 2 days below the rim of the Canyon.

(*Utah Time)
(**Arizona Time)

NO WOLVES IN UTAH!!!!

 The following is a hilarious conversation between two teenage girls that Sydney found on her Facebook page.  She has no idea why she read the whole thing but she shared it with me because it was so funny.  This is an excellent example of why you should teach your children about privacy settings, and who they should be friends with:)



Girl 1:  NO WOLVES IN UTAH!!!!! They said they moved out of Utah when the settlers came in and the wolves moved out and they don’t expect any more to come in, in the near future!!! Yay, I did my research!!! They have seen a grey wolf a long time ago on May 6th they said they spotted 4 wolfs... they said they didn’t know if they were wolves for sure they could have been dog-wolf breed or something so NO WOLVES YAY!!!!!

 Girl 2:  They are already in Utah! Up north. They are going to be here soon.

 Girl 1:  No, research it. I looked and it said they have only sighted them, they are not in Utah.  They said that pack of 4, that they think was wolves, would be the first pack of wolves in Utah and they were talking about removing them from Utah if they ever came into Utah and it is not likely that they will come in the near future. And do you know what kind of wolf it is?

 Girl 2:  Grey wolf, timber wolf I don’t know, and go and check how recent that research is.

 Girl 1:  “The gray wolf, Canis lupus, once inhabited much of the Northern Hemisphere, including North America, Asia, and Europe. The species has been driven from much of its former range by humans, but populations still exist in some areas of Alaska, Canada, northern Mexico, the northern United States, and Asia. The gray wolf was once common in Utah, but it was extirpated (exterminated) from the state by early settlers. Recent reintroductions of the gray wolf have occurred in Idaho and Yellowstone National Park, but reintroductions are not currently planned for Utah. Recent reports, however, suggest that gray wolves may move to Utah from surrounding states in the near future.” They may but they haven’t yet.

Girl 2:  “Over the weekend USDA Wildlife Service agents, while out flying around killing coyotes, observed what they think were four wolves or wolf dog hybrids near Springville, Utah. There have been reports of wolves there for the past year and a half. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources plans to attempt to capture them in the next few days to take DNA samples so that they can determine for sure if they are wolves or not. If they are wolves then they are subject to full protection under the Endangered Species Act because they are outside of the Northern Rocky Mountain DPS.”

Girl 1:  Yeah that is what I was talking about. That was in may 6th or close to there and they said they were a little too far in to be wolves since we don’t have any and they are possibly wolf dog hybrids and it would be the first wolf pack ever in Utah in a long time and There is also the belief that public hunting could reduce the chance of wolves spreading to neighboring states such as Oregon, Washington, Utah, and Colorado so it said they could prevent them from coming in which there aren’t very many now like 4 or so.

Girl 2:  It says there have been wolf reports in Utah for the past year and a half.

Girl 1:  Yeah just of them coming in not actually living here

Girl 2:  No. They have been spotted for a year and a half. They have to be living there or they would only be spotted coming in for like a week or something.

Girl 1:  “In March 19^th, 2008 for the first time in almost 80 years, there's a confirmed sighting of a wolf pack in Utah. Five wolves were spotted running in a remote corner of the state.  In recent years, lone wolves have been trapped in Utah twice, but this is the first confirmed pack to enter the state since the last Utah wolves were exterminated in 1930.”   Ok, I think there is wolves in Utah but there isn’t very many of them in Utah... that is my opinion and unless I see it on a news program or on a Utah wildlife page I will not believe it.   Unless I see that they are all over that is what I mean.

Girl 2:  They have been here since 2008 they keep coming back, it’s obviously going to happen.

Girl 1:  Yeah, but not that soon, it will eventually happen.

Girl 2:  Eventually as in pretty soon like one possibly two years.

Girl 1:  Yeah I doubt it will be that soon at least let’s hope so ha ha ha. So maybe I will go hunting next year.

Girl 2:  LOL slight chance Ha ha. “Sightings like these have been happening over the last several years and a pack of 7 ‘possible wolves’ have been spotted in the Strawberry and Heber area.”  That's up north so, maybe they will stay up there for a while I hope.

Girl 1:  Yeah possibly and hope they aren’t wolves and if they are then I also hope they stay up there

Girl 2:  Yeah if not... I'm moving to Hawaii !:)

Girl 1:  Dido.... :) no wolves there!!!! ;)

Letting the Cat out of the Bag

I guess it’s time that we announced it.  We were trying to keep him off the internet for as long as possible (poor kid) but since the cat is getting harder and harder to keep in the bag as far as Facebook goes (Kristy, BryAnne, and Anisa), we thought the rest of our friends had better finally hear it from us.

We are having a baby boy in September!

His official due date is September 24, which means I am 22 weeks pregnant.  I am feeling fine, no big problems and I was never even very sick.  We’ve known he was a boy for a few weeks but selfishly have told only our families and close friends (and the people they have told) so that we could sit back and enjoy it by ourselves for a little while. 

We haven’t settled on a name yet, but we have some serious contenders.  I am excited because I have always wanted a little boy and Logan is excited to turn him into a child skeet shooting champion (as evidenced by the Browning 20 gauge semi-automatic shotgun which is already on baby’s Christmas list).

Thanks to all of you who have been so patient with us not wanting to share our news just yet. 

Solar Eclipse

Thanks Cash and Kali for throwing an awesome pot lock at the "Sweet Spot" for the eclipse.
It was a good time had lots of fun taking pictures and hanging out with the family. Here's a photo to make you all envious.

You Know You're in Elsinore If...

You are driving with your mom on your way to your sister's house and you see this: 

You think it's really funny so you slow way down and take a picture through the windshield of your car.  You laugh as these horses start calmly walking in the opposite direction you are heading (toward where they live).

Then you turn the corner from Center Street onto Main Street and see these horses (who have since cut through someone's backyard and completely changed direction) on a dead run heading straight toward the passenger window your mom has rolled down.

You slam on your breaks thinking, maybe if I'm not moving the horses will have a better chance of not hitting me.  You lean to your left and brace yourself for the impact.  You hear the hooves sliding on the pavement trying to turn and not hit your car.  Your mom sees the whites of their eyes.  Strangely you notice a guy you grew up with working in his yard just in front of you with his mouth wide open.  And by some miracle, the horses turn in time.  Literally inches from your car.  And you laugh because you just dodged two giant bullets.  You somehow have the thought to take another picture because no one but your mom and the guy in the front yard are going to believe this.

And they happily trot away down main street.

Asparagus for Trade

Logan has had a run of good luck lately.  Just for some background, many of you have no doubt heard Logan's rant about how much better British/Australian chocolate is and how he can't get it here. Well his luck started when some friends from  the ward (Jim and Sherry) traveled to New Zealand in November to visit family and brought him back some Cherry Ripes.  Then, the family they were visiting moved to the ward a couple weeks ago and brought him two more.  Then tonight a couple from the ward (Shelley and Tim) texted and told us that if we had any asparagus left that they were willing to make a trade for some British Chocolate.  Logan had it picked and up there within a couple of hours.  This is his stash now, along with some expired Tim Tams I bought in Hawaii a couple of years ago.  I guess it pays to have connections with the British siblings in the ward:)

If Libby Can...

My cousin Libby has hiked the strenuous 11 miles to Kolob Arch and ran 3 half marathons on pure will, so I thought why can't I hike up to observation point without any preparation?  The hike is 8 miles round trip with a 2148 elevation gain.  I thought I would do it to try and prepare for my rim to rim hike in the Grand Canyon I have in 7 weeks on June 7-9.  Strangely enough it took me about the same time to up the trail as it did down. 

on May the 12th I'm planning another practice run before the Grand Canyon.  I want to hike UP the West Rim trail.  This is a 14.4 miles hike with an elevation gain of 3140 ft.   The Bright Angel Trail is going to be 9.5 miles with an elevation gain of 4380 ft.  This should be a good warm up to let me know how it will be.  If any one wants to hike the West Rim Trail let me know I could use some company.

Disturbing

Look what I found in the freezer section at Lin's right next to the popsicles meant for human consumption.

Springtime

Thunder Over Utah

A big thanks to Kristy for getting us tickets and roping us into going to the "Thunder Over Utah" air show. We were on the fence about it but were really glad we got to go and hang out. Photography is really about the quantity and touch ups, "I know, right?"

A little help from picasa

I didn't do anything to this one, yeah I'm that good:)
Sydney says I have to say it's me.