What Do You Call A Pile Of Rocks?

Rock On! Rock on! Rock on!

Quinn made up that Joke while we were hiking in Snow Canyon yesterday.

It was such a perfect day, beautiful, sunny, luke warm/cool. Aaaaahhh!  Can you hear me sighing?

 Aunt Sarah, who was down from Cache Valley visiting for the Holiday came with us.  Which really helped the kids be excited about hiking.

Adi really likes her picture taken "CHEESE" but has a hard time looking at the Camera.

Here is Coulson at our destination, Three Ponds.  More like, 3 puddles, but it was very beautiful.

Adi didn't like hiking through the sand, she wanted to sit and play in it. After some encouragement she made it through the day hiking over 5 miles which is really good for a 3.5 year old.  I have to see the positive in it because sometimes her whining makes me wonder if it is worth it, and yes it is!  She really is tough for what we make her do.

 Ellyn Climbing!

I was at the back of the group, taking care of any stragglers when I noticed this written in the sand.  What a way to make a Mama Smile.

BEAUTIFUL

After the Three Ponds hike, we tackled a Cinder Cone, this is a picture of another Cinder Cone taken from the top of the one we hiked.  It is neat to get to the top and look down inside of it.

The 360 degree view from the top is exquisite.

And so is this view



 The kids and Seth hiked down through the middle of the cone and up the other side. This is the zoomed in picture. It sorta looks like they are giants with a miniature road behind them????

 On Monday, Grandma and Grandpa Dale came for a quick visit.  Just long enough for the kids to snuggle them, show them everything they got for Christmas, and PLAY!!

Well, I Guess that's a wrap.

GREBES and other stuff

On Monday a huge flock of Grebes (small water birds) crash landed in Cedar city.  We didn't think much of it because most of the birds were on the south end of town, and we're on the north end.  Until this morning when I was picking up our neighbor for our carpool to early morning choir.  We found this little girl on the side of their drive-way.  A couple of Ravens were pecking at her thinking she looked tasty.  But we saved her and let her swim around in our bathtub for a while until we took her in to the DWR.  I had noticed some Bald Eagles in our neighbors field yesterday and assumed they were eating bunnies, nope Grebes.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, if your a big bird) the rest fell victim to the Eagles, hawks and ravens.

 It was a bit freakish to have her stare at you with her bright orange eyes!!!

Our Annual Gingerbread house.  Believe it or not...No fighting, only fun and LOUD, HAPPY decorating.



 We were cleaning off the toy shelf and the little critters found a fun play house.

p.s. this is what happens when you take too long to respond to the calls for help.