Ferguson Canyon Viewpoint

I texted a friend Sunday to see if she wanted to go on a hike. We settled on today and left around 9:30 . We went up Ferguson Canyon. I mostly wanted to go higher up than we had gone before. It was not ideal today, because I had accidentally left Katharine's backpack carrier in the van, which Abi had at school, but I was determined! So I carried K on my back or shoulders for basically the whole hike. 

After an hour and 40 minutes, we were almost at the viewpoint!

Sweaty neck on me, and K was totally knocked out and snoring! Her little squished face, aww...

Beautiful view from the top!!

K was in good spirits after her nap. I still carried her, once we were at the bottom and the trail leveled out, we took a picture of cute Katharine.

Colors were nice, this was the brightest tree we saw.

I was home at 1, so it was a good 2 hours 28 minute hike. My hips and knees were a bit feeling like they did after the Y hike last week... so I was game to go on a low impact bike ride with Corey at 4. It did help loosen my knees up and the balls of my feet. Corey and I just went from the trailhead to ruins. Almost at the top ~

And selfie at the same spot. 

Still beautiful everywhere. Wes called around 6, so I was late to the emotional resilience class, the moon was so pretty rising as I walked there! Obviously this photo doesn't do it justice. I'm going to watch for it again tomorrow - it looks so big rising in the canyon!

Oreo Spiders

I put myself in charge of the FHE treat tonight. I bought things I don't like to buy, but it's fine. As I was at the store with Peter, Oreos were on sale, so I got two packages of those and googled "Oreo halloween treat" as I walked down the isle to get ketchup and bananas. Oreos helped narrow down our activity and we I decided we were going to make halloween spiders. I helped Katharine with hers.

I opted for Pocky chocolate sticks instead of just pretzels. And Corey and the kids had bought candy eyes last time, and they didn't use them all but they did eat them all, and I wasn't going to spend $9 bucks on candy eyes, so I got white frosting and chocolate chips.

Corey approved of the activity (he's the fun parent) and the kids liked it too. 

Natalie made quadruplets.

Owen concentrating.

After the kids had had time to make their spiders, we gathered them up for the college kids to vote on.

A3 won. The winner didn't get anything other than bragging rights. Abi C1, Lily B1 and Katharine A4 tie for silver. 

Today was the last day of fall break for the girls. The best part of fall break, they told me, was sleeping in. Katharine likes sleeping with Abi more than with me, and I'm ok with that, and thankfully Abi is too, even on school nights.

That's how K likes to sleep still - tucked up in the armpit. The girls slept in, except for K, she came down and had her regular buffet of breakfast choices, but ultimately opting to sit with Corey and eat his food.

Around 11am, girls were finally awake. Abi and I went to my mom's house to help them put their blinds back up - they got a new front room window and back sliding door on Friday. And we vacuumed. I stayed to visit for just a bit longer than Abi while Abi drove home. I was flattered to see my new favorite fall picture up on my dad's computer as the wallpaper photo for both of his screens.

He's cute. I decided to walk home, just to see how long it would take. 4.5 miles in 1 hour 20 minutes. Abi called to see how close I was right when I was walking up the stairs to our house. I like the halloween decorations that Peter made for our door. Cute zombie.

Also I this paper from school was a keeper - Peter is going to be a TeWex for halloween. 

I guess Peter's doing a repeat of 2022 when he and Wes were dinosaurs together. Wes is calling tomorrow. Today was a mission conference or something. His branch president sent me another pic - Wes enjoying dinner after a long fast Sunday. I said "It looks like he's really enjoying that!"

She joked that he was very hungry, but they staged this - putting all their bones on his plate while he ate a bit more. 

Daniel's Baptism

Today was a special day! Daniel was baptized this morning. 

He was very excited to make this promise to follow Christ. He was just beaming, cute Daniel.

Baptism was put on by the stake, even though it was just Daniel/just our family. 

Our Provo college kids were running late, but we didn't wait for them. We probably could have waited?  But felt a little of self imposed pressure to get it started and so as to not take too much of the bishop or the stake people's time, so we started as soon as Wayne arrived cause close, compared to Mel, Ethan and Bella who were 30 minutes away, coming around the point of the mountain. So they missed the baptism, but were there for the confirmation. And Bella gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. Wesley said he forgot but he gave a call tonight to congratulate Daniel.

Before his younger siblings hijacked the video call...

Hyrum tuned in via fb messenger... H listening to LSN musical number (could have practiced a bit more...)

Joseph and Eliza weren't there but they said hi tonight too. It's all good. After the baptism, people who wanted to were invited to come over for some ice cream, berries and bananas, and vanilla wafers. Daniel had invited a friend from across the street and we were so happy he and his mom came. After the baptism, Ethan and Bella had to head back to Provo, but Mel was able to stay for the day (took the frontrunner train later). Corey decided to do something with the boys and Mel. I went along too, we went up Millcreek Canyon close to the Porter Fork trail, and took a little ride on Pipeline. We listened to the BYU game on the radio on our drive. BYU vs. Arizona. Abi was at a Lyceum recording all day (10-5) Lily and Sophi wanted to stay home, and said they'd clean the whole house, Daniel was over at his friend's house, so it was Corey, Me, Mel, Natalie, Owen, Peter, and Katharine for the ride. Kids were a bit mopey (well, just Natalie and Owen - they wanted to go to grandpas to watch the BYU game). After I was tired of their sulking we turned around. 

Peter was having a great attitude. 

Natalie and Owen led the way as we went west on the trail. I was behind them, but would pause to check on Peter who was behind me with Mel watching him, followed by Corey and Katharine.

To help N&O stop being "bored", Corey told us to not wait for them, so we took off and didn't get very far - there are so many places where the trail has a total cliff off of one side that I had a hard time enjoying it, as I was concerned for my kids, and they were a little scared, and still wanted to stop, so I gave in and after just a few minutes of going ahead, we turned around and headed back. Them Mel, Natalie and Owen took off back to the car, and I stayed with Peter. He and I we walked along the steep scary parts. Corey and K left us to go catch up to MNO and load up the bikes, then he came back to help us. We were coming slowly but surely. Soon we were back at the car and went to Waynes. Mel did her taxes and we watched the BYU game.

I'm not sure they knew what was going on, but they knew to cheer for a touchdown. BYU won 41-19 over Arizona

I wasn't interested in staying, so I snuck away to Park City for a ride while they watched the game. Went up Armstrong and HAM, then down Seldom Seen.

Most of the leaves had fallen, but there were still yellows. It was still lovely and beautiful. I listened to the 1st session of Conference, I was beaming when the 3rd speaker Karl Hirst spoke about the mountains!

"When we don’t feel the warmth of divine love, it hasn’t gone away. God’s own words are that “the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but [His] kindness shall not depart from [us].” So, just to be clear, the idea that God has stopped loving should be so far down the list of possible explanations in life that we don’t get to it until after the mountains have left and the hills are gone! I really enjoy this symbolism of mountains being evidence of the certainty of God’s love. That powerful symbolism weaves into accounts of those who go to the mountains to receive revelation and Isaiah’s description of “the mountain of the Lord’s house” being “established in the top of the mountains.” The house of the Lord is the home of our most precious covenants and a place for us all to retreat and sink deeply into the evidence of our Father’s love for us."

So I was loving it up there. I saw a few hikers but there were no other bikers on the trail I was on. I enjoyed myself for that hour and 13 min. Turned on tunes for the descent. Had to take a photo of my favorite part of HAM! You turn the corner and get to go rolling through the pines twice, this is the second corner. 

Corey and the kids finished watching the game, and Abi picked them up on her way back after the Lyceum recording, so the I just headed home. I had all the bikes on Corey's car, but only had a lock on his. Thankfully none of them were stolen, yay. Wes called on the ride home, got home and helped with dinner, Corey finally got to leave to get some work done as I tagged him for being the parent on duty. Giving kids baths and ready for church tomorrow. 

Now it's 11pm - I've been blogging, Corey's cleaning his office. We're still up cause we get to sleep in on Sundays, and cause we're waiting for Abi to get home after asking to Monster Mash. I just did 3 chin ups, starting from a dead hang, and doing all of them from a total hang! I did 3! I didn't know I still had that in me! I still have callouses and I've kept my upper body strength from climbing better this time than I did last year after our summer break. Excited to start climbing again, hopefully in a few weeks!

Walking is Therapeutic

Been a pretty chill past few days. I've been thinking a lot about walking after listening to this recent Laura Dixon podcast "Why Walk", and found another one by Dr Berg that I also liked: Amazing Benefits of Walking, and I'm convinced! Since I heard the podcast last week, I've been walking a lot more. I made 3 priorities for myself this week: fasting (not eating after 2pm), stretching (15 min), and walking (any distance or length of time, just trying to get out for a walk). It's going really well! I am still sore from the hike to the Y on Tuesday night.  I was sore the day after and still am. For Wednesday, since my thighs were toast, I went on a nice evening walk from Grit Mill to the end of techy and back. I started too late so I was in the dark on most of my walk back, I'll remember a flashlight for next time. By the 3rd bridge, the water was all gone in the creek, like it was being diverted somewhere else, so I was hiking up the river, over the rocks, and went under the bridge, it was fun. After passing under the 3rd bridge~

A few pics of that meander in the mountains ~

I walked up the Techgnar trail. Had to move once for a biker. 

Out of the woods and on the main trail again, at the end of Techy -

On the Quarry trail again, walking back down. 

It was pitch black when I was back at the car. Yesterday and today, ALSN had fall break, hence no school, so yesterday we left K with them and went on a ride in Corner Canyon at 9am. My thighs were still sore, but a chill ride felt doable. I let myself just take it easy, and so Corey had to too, since he's nice and sticks with me. No achievement emoji's yesterday. THEN I took an evening walk when Corey took the boys on a ride (I was their shuttle driver). I dropped them off at Carolina Hills, went to Cycle park to park, then walked up to see where I'd meet them. I jogged a little bit of the way, cause I heard Peter crying. That was a 25 min walk, I helped coach and encourage, and showed them the way to keep going along Porter Rockwell trail.

I walked back to car, drove to and parked at Draper City Park, then walked along the Porter Rockwell trail until I met them again. That was another .47 miles that time. K gave up again on the ride. We were joking that it must just be too much stimulation for her little brain to process.

So we need to work on her cognitive endurance. After we got back from that, I did another 8:15 pm walk around the block 3x. I was told years ago by a neighbor that 3 laps equaled a mile, but I'd never measured it for myself, and I didn't know if it was from the middle of the road, or if the sidewalk counted, or if I needed to be on the outer sidewalk... I'm please to report that the inner sidewalk is 1.07! So including the bit from my house to the corner is 1.17. Notes there for the statistician in me. And then today, still surprised that after so much biking I could still be sore from Tuesday night... I'm saying it was because I was carrying K in the backpack, so that extra 30+ pounds did that to me. Corey and I went on a ride this morning from the trailhead to Ruins. We left early at 7am and had Abi get the boys out the door, so that was nice. We were the first and only car in the parking lot when we started, so that counts as our achievement for the day. The boys had folders come home selling school pictures.

I have enough pictures of them, so I'm not buying anything.

...but I did take pics of the tiny pics they gave me as options.

Hopefully that's not illegal.

We are back after a late date night. It's been late the past two weeks because Lily is possibly joining a new blue's band. 

We went to the Draper Aubergine at 7pm, felt very late. But it was very good. I really love Aubergine. The Better Earth Bowl was gone, so that was sad, but they had something new - They serve "plates" now, Corey got the salmon plate, it looked so good! He shared a bite. I think I'll get that next time. I ordered the Peanut Tofu, so good. Every entree and salad there is delicioso. Plus we always get Brownie Layers which is also a favorite. So yeah, that's been the past few days. Walking, enjoying fall, taking care of kids, and having a good time. I do think walking is therapeutic. I'm going to keep it up next week too and see if I'll have a good week next week too! And I've been up blogging while I wait for Sophi to get home from Lagoon - she had a good time, and now she's home. Goodnight.