Hawk enjoying it's lunch

We had a hawk land in the tree behind our house one day with some small animal it had caught. We were able to watch it for awhile as it enjoyed it's lunch. It was gross yet fascinating at the same time.

I hope they call me on a mission...

...when I have grown a foot or two.

Lake Powell

Now that we were seasoned boat campers (with one trip to Flaming Gorge under our belt) we decided to go check out Lake Powell with the long weekend Whitney had from school. It was about a 6 hour drive to Bullfrog Marina. Once we got everything packed in the boat and got it launched we only had a few hours left of daylight. We headed about 10 miles down river to the Rincon to set up camp the first night. We found a reasonable spot but could've done without the mud and sticker bushes. The next morning we packed everything up and headed further down river to find a nice sandy camping spot in Cottonwood Canyon.

After setting up camp we headed over to Hole in the Rock which is where some of the Mormon pioneers built a road to bring wagons down to cross the Colorado river on their way to forming a settlement on the San Juan river near the Four Corners area. The Colorado river is surrounded by shear cliffs so there a few places you can cross it with wagons. After hiking to the top and back down it is absolutely amazing to think they brought wagons down that cleft. They spent many days blasting, carving, and building a trail down that cleft. You can see it behind the girls at the bottom of the "V" on the horizon. The other three pictures show evidence of where they blasted and carved the trail out of the rock. In some places they drilled holes down in the rock where wooden poles where placed to help build more support for the road.

We enjoyed the afternoon spent tubing, wakeboarding, waterskiing, and exploring other side canyons. Jim was finally able to get up on one ski. The next morning we headed further down river to Rainbow Bridge National Monument with some exploration of some narrow side canyons coming and going.

The Rainbow Bridge is stunning to behold! It stands 290 feet high and has a span of 234 feet and is one of the largest natural bridges in the world. The ranger also showed us a dinosaur track believed to be from a dilophosaurus in the rock.

We stopped at Dangling Rope Marina for a few gallons of gas and some ice cream and then headed back to our campsite. We enjoyed a beautiful view up Cottonwood Canyon from our site but you better watch out because when the sun goes down the Wild Things come out to dance!

The next morning we packed up and headed back to Bullfrog. The water was nice and smooth so I enjoyed a wakeboard ride for a few miles as we headed back up river. A great way to cap a fun weekend spent camping, boating, and hiking. We figured we did over 150 miles in our boat that weekend!

Farm Country

I took Maren and Jonas down to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point as they had a great deal one day. We walked around and looked at and petted many of the farm animals. The most exciting thing though was the pony rides. Maren is into all things horses right now so she was thrilled to be able to ride a pony. She would have ridden all day if she could have!

First day of school

Whitney was excited and a little nervous about her first day of first grade in Mrs. King's class. We all love that we live close enough to walk to school this year. All of Whitney's nervousness quickly disappeared once we arrived at school and she saw many of the girls from her soccer team.

Campfire cooking

We picked a friend up that we met in VA at the airport this afternoon. Brian is staying with us for a few days before going to the MTC on Wednesday. He'll be serving a mission for our church for the next two years in Las Vegas, NV. For Family Home Evening we decided to take Brian up the canyon to show him some real mountains since he's always lived in the East Coast. We invited our friends the Hettingers down (that we also met in VA) to join us for a campfire dinner. The kids enjoyed climbing the rocks and playing in the stream as we got the fire going.

We enjoyed brats and hot dogs and later giant roaster s'mores for dessert (Jim has one made according to the directions on the giant roaster bag). It was a fun evening spent with friends enjoying the beautiful surroundings.

The next day we headed downtown to take Bryan to visit the Salt Lake Temple, tour temple square and the conference center, and enjoy lunch in The Garden on top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

Tour of Utah- America's Toughest Stage Race

While living in VA, Jim and I picked up road biking as there was little mountain biking around. We like to follow the Tour de France every year so were excited to hear that America's toughest stage race was being held in our own backyard. We headed up the canyon not far from our home to catch the last climb of the final stage. This was the third major climb of the 102 miles of the stage. We cheered Levi Leipheimer up the climb with chalk messages on the road at various points up the climb. He is in the yellow jersey with the view down Little Cottonwood. We've both ridden up Little Cottonwood and it is an intense climb with an average grade of 9.2%, you gain 3500 feet of elevation in 8 miles. I can't imagine riding it after already doing 90 miles and a few other climbs that day. Just to note that standing on the roof of the vehicle is not recommended as it dents the roof and screws up the opening of the sunroof.