Wheeler Farm

Today we went to a place which I have never seen - Wheeler Historical Farm. It is on about 60th South in Salt Lake. Katie's playgroup friends took their kids and went to the farm. There are old buildings, crops, animals and a wagon ride. The kids had a great time running around and looking at everything. We took Ava with us as Julie had to work today.

Ava gives a wave on the wagon ride. We were towed by a big tractor and had a fun ride through the farm along the river bank, and through the beautiful green trees. The air smelled so good!Farmer Cooper tries his hand and milking the cow.Milkmaid Savannah gets a little squirt of milk in the bucket!

We had a terrific time, and I still think I have the cutest grand kids in the country, hands down!

Let's Visit the Zoo!

One of our favorite places to go is Hogle Zoo. Because we have season passes to the zoo, we don't have to spend a long time there - only the amount of time we want to. Tuesday's visit was fun - we got to watch the caretakers feed the elephants and work to get the elephants to go into their new pool. We also enjoyed watching the baby orangutan play, and see the incredible white alligator. We rode the train and the kids played at the zoo playground. As always, we had a great lunch! Here is Savannah peeking out of the log on the playground. Cooper is climbing (as usual). Ava was so exhausted from her trip to CA, that she fell fast asleep and kept slumping over in her car seat. Poor tired girl!

Buzzy and Vannah!

At long last the much anticipated visit to my grand kids is here! I flew out from Phoenix on Saturday morning and arrived in North Salt Lake Saturday afternoon. Instantly I had two little sidekicks that truly have not left my side for one minute! Savannah even waits outside the bathroom door for me. As we unpacked my suitcase, the little presents were an instant hit. I brought them these really stupid glow in the dark glasses. They loved the glasses and played happily with them. They were still glowing in the dark when I went to bed. Cooper has a favorite pair of pajamas that are way too small for him. He just can bear to part with them. He has them on here, accenting the whole mood of the ensemble with a pair of his dad's boots. Sleeves too short, belly hanging out, and one happy boy. What a character! Today the kids jumped on the trampoline. Cooper just loves to show off his skills! Savannah was worried about the water on the edges and had to wipe it up with a towel. Princess Savannah - always ready with a beautiful smile for the camera. My Buzzy Boy! We have had such a great time so far. The past few weeks, Ryan has been reading "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" to Savannah before bed. She loved the story so much that he taped the movie with the cable recorder and we watched the movie with the kids. Savannah and Cooper were totally enchanted by the beautiful story. In fact, they are watching a second time. I have never seen Cooper sit so still and be so involved in a movie. Savannah knew exactly what was going to happen next as she remembered the story. It was really fun!

North Rim

Since we had never been to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Rod and I decided to take off Wednesday afternoon and have an adventure. We stayed at a cheap motel in Page that night, and left for our final destination early Thursday morning. We drove through miles and miles of beautiful red rock country and then hit the high desert region as we climbed. The red rock gave way to sage brush, then to cedar trees, and then to magnificent pines with quakies and vast meadows of lush green grass. We arrived at the parking lot of the visitors center and the North Rim Lodge. We meandered over to a little stone wall lookout and this is what we saw. It totally took my breath away, my hand went up to my chest, and the tears flowed down my cheeks. The brilliant colors of the rock, the vastness of the gorge, the green of the foliage, and the breeze whispering through the pines let me know that I was special enough to God that He made this view just for me - because He knew I would love it so much. We found a little trail that lead out to a "scenic view point" and followed it to its half mile end. We did go off the trail a couple of times to climb out on some jutting rocks. It took great bravery for me to do this, as I am somewhat afraid of heights. But it was soooooo worth it. Here is another little view point we stopped at. The wind was really blowing from the canyon and was just whipping my hair all around. Just look! the canyon goes on for miles and miles!

We found a 3 mile round trip trail that went all along the rim of the canyon. We decided to go for it and grabbed our water and hit the trail. It meandered through the pines and brushed the rim of the canyon in several places. We took every chance to inch as close to the edge as we dared.

We walked out on another ledge that jutted out over the canyon at the end of the trail. I am trying to show you the depth of the canyon with some of these shots, but the camera just cannot capture the whole grandeur of the place. It is indescribable. We were out on the edge of the rock on the right of this photo.

Who could ask for a more beautiful place? Brilliant blue skies, scuttling clouds, wind soughing through the boughs, the scent of the pines so strong it was almost overwhelming, warm sun, and visual images so magnificent it almost hurt the eyes. Who could ever doubt the creation and who it was for? I certainly know - and give my thanks to God for his loving kindness.

Birthday Flowers

My dear friend Rondaleen brought me these beautiful roses for my Birthday, which was Sunday, June 10th. I love flowers, and this was especially thoughtful of her. There had been some stuff going on at work that was bothering me, and she knew just what I needed. It was not a landmark birthday, or anything like that, but it was another notch on my measuring stick. Let me explain. My dad sent me this email for my birthday, and I thought it was pretty neat: Dear Karla; How are you keeping track of the years passing? If you are beset with worry of such continuance in your daily grind here is a suggestion. It might be a fun thing and become a tradition for your kids. Your great grandfather Kitchen used a tally stick for keeping track of happenings, particularly that of cattle branding. Whenever Kitchen went out to brand calves, he would carry a short stick in his back pocket. When he branded a calf, he would whittle a notch in the stick. In the evenings after he had returned to the house, the notches were transferred to a much longer stick which hung from the rafters in the house. One side represented the heifers; the other side the steers. I counted the notches the other day and by June 10th you will have carved 52 notches. So....HAPPY BIRTHDAY. DID I COUNT RIGHT? I love you .....Dad

A Perfect Day

Saturday was a day that I will add to my "Perfect Day" list. First of all, I got to wake up next to Rod! We got our stuff together and traveled north for an adventure in the beautiful Red Rock area in Sedona. The drive was beautiful. The some of the saguaro cactus are still blooming, white, yellow, and red blossoms. As we started making altitude, the terrain changed and soon we were in the "high desert" with cedar trees, which soon included pines. The sky was laced with beautiful wispy clouds which curtained a brilliant blue sky. We planned to hike the Boynton Canyon trail and take a little turn off at the end where there were supposed to be some Indian ruins. The scenery on the trail was so beautiful! There was a lot of different kinds of tress and bushes. I was just fascinated with these particular bushes with the brilliant red bark. We had quite a climb up some rocky and steep areas to reach this ruin. It was not visible from the trail. It was settled way back under an overhang. Rod is standing in the doorway. Here is one of the rooms. This is a good shot of the whole ruin from one end. Note the overhang, once again. As we climbed up the hidden trail, we met Jackie and Harley. He had climbed up before and acted as our guide. He did a great job. They are from Virginia. Here is a shot of Rod and me sitting on some rocks near the ruin. This is a view look out from the ruin.I was amazed at all the red dirt that stuck to my legs at the end of the trail. E-e-e-ewwwwww! Gross! We stopped in at Costo on the way home, red dirt and all. We showered and rested and went out for a birthday dinner with some good friends. It really was a perfect day!

Montezuma's Castle

Ever since we moved to Arizona, Rod and I have wanted to take a little side trip off HWY 17 to see Montezuma's Castle. Since we had the time on our way home from the Grand Canyon, we decided to see this National Monument this morning. The kids did not want to stop, so they stayed in the car. They missed out! It only took about 15 minutes and was very interesting. This is an ancient Indian ruin of a cliff-dwelling tribe. They say the tribe disappeared about 700 years ago, giving some idea as to how old these apartments are. It is amazing to me how they could have even gotten the mud and dirt up there to make the stucco, let alone the rocks and the stuff they used for mortar. There is a small river down below that furnished them with water. They grew cotton, which they used for weaving crude clothing, and corn and beans. The also ate small game.They had wooden ladders used to climb up to the rooms. It looked like the apartments were weather proof, and safe from enemies - both man and animal- once the ladders were pulled up. We enjoyed this little side trip, and we did not have to hike through acres of cactus to find these ruins! :o)

Grand Canyon

This weekend, Rod and I decided we wanted to take Becca and Nick to the Grand Canyon. They weren't too thrilled at first, and then got caught up in our excitement over this little mini-vacation. We wanted to see the North rim, as we visited the South rim last summer, but there were NO ROOMS available. We went ahead and got a room in Flagstaff. We left Friday night about 6:30 and got there in time for bed. We got up at our leisure and made the hour drive to the Grand Canyon. First thing we did was go to the IMax theater and see the movie on the canyon. It is fantastic! We then drove to a lookout point about thirty miles to west and worked our way back. We got back to our hotel about 4:30 and the kids got to use the pool. It was cold and windy, but they still loved the swim time. We had a great dinner at Chili's and settled in for the night. As we were peacefully sleeping, some other hotel guests decided they had had enough to drink and noisily came back to their rooms with lots of yelling, and loud laughing. It woke up our whole family. How can some people be such idiots. Oh, well, we still had fun! What a great weekend!

My three favorite traveling companions.Becca checks out some Indian ruins. Becca and Me at Desert View Lookout point. There was a big tall tower to climb and several outlooks for some great pictures.You can see the river winding through the canyon. Love this shot - pictures just don't do this justice.Clouds, shadows, and magnificent cliffs.

Women's Conference 2007

We planned it for a year - a dream get-away trip with the girl friends. We went to Women's Conference at BYU the first weekend of May. We flew out from Phoenix and landed in SLC where we noticed and IMMEDIATE difference in the temperature. Boooooo! Last year was my first year with these ladies. Nancy called me and said "come to Women's Conference with us. We go and just eat our way through." Well, who could every pass up an opportunity like that? First thing on the agenda was a visit to the beautiful Salt Lake Temple. It is always a breath taking sight, especially from across the street. It was a very sweet experience to share with dear friends. After our temple session, we strolled through the grounds to see the beautiful flowers. I took some different and interesting shots.I particularly like the above shot - I tried to capture the tulips up close with the temple spires in the background. It was a very tricky angle and I tried several times before I actually got one that worked! Momma Myrt, Nancy, Trudy and Teresa at the reflection pond.

I sure love these beautiful girls! This is my most favorite picture! Tulips, blue sky and clouds. A very cool angle. I got this idea from some pictures that Katie took last year and put on her blog. I thought it was hilarious that these ladies were all on their cell phones talking to their sweeties as they crossed the street. What brilliant colors - and the back ground is the old and magnificent church office building, where the prophet still has his office. A highlight of the trip was seeing Karli and Diane. I hadn't seen Diane for over 4 years. It was a joyful and tearful reunion. I am so blessed with such wonderful friends!

It was a truly fun experience to be in the Marriott Center with 15 thousand women! Just imagine singing hymns in that setting. We parked ourselves in the top row and set up camp for the next two days. The speakers were so great - timely messages and very personal to me. The music was so beautiful - unforgettable - and the spirit was so sweet. And the concert on Thursday night was another highlight. I ended up buying 5 CD's. Oh well..... Of course, there was a Sun's game and Trudy and the rest will not miss such a great event. I was so dead-dog tired that I rolled over and went to sleep and missed Trudy jumping on the bed when they won! But we laughed and giggled like a bunch of school girls. I swear, Teresa can laugh more than anyone I know! We kinda got slap-happy late at night, and it did not take much to make the giggling start. We ate our traditional J-dogs - M-m-m-m-m-m! We ate our traditional spiced nuts, our traditional nice dinner at McGrath's, the traditional mint brownies from the BYU campus, and tried some new stuff, too. Yeah, we ate our way through it again! We have already started planning for next year. What a great tradition! I am so thankful I could take this time to renew my spirit and be so uplifted and get so excited about life! Thank you!

"Ditch Day"

Tuesday, I did a very random thing. I decided not to wake the kids up for school, I called in to work to use a discretionary day, and we ditched work and school. It was a totally beautiful day! I had been wanting to do this for several weeks. We went to Rondaleen's over in Sun City and she took us on a miniature golf tour. It was so much fun!

Rondaleen is definitely the expert and beat us all hands down.

We had a great lunch at Furr's Cafeteria (yes, this is an old folk's cafeteria, but the kids loved it). I also got the kids' bathroom painted and the shower curtain up. They can now officially use their bathroom again. Yea! The only down side is that I am so dang sun-sensitive; I absolutely ROASTED my arms. I was in serious pain when I went to bed Tuesday night. I wore long sleeves Wednesday so my sunburn would not show at work. The tops of my feet were also slightly lobsterized. But it was worth it. Rod was too dedicated to take a "Ditch Day" so he went to work. He missed out! I think I will make this an annual tradition. It was really fun!