Fall Brilliance

We didn't have violin today, so I made the plan to leave as soon as the kids were home to go for a ride. I thought I could go to Park City, but I think most of the leaves have fallen there. Atleast half of them were off when I was up last week. Plus driving up there would take up half of my allotted time. But I thought to myself "If I go someplace close by, I can still be gone 3+ hours, but that time will be spent biking instead of driving!" So, that's what I did! I went to Corner Canyon and was gone 2 hours 23 minutes, did 15.91 miles.  BST > Ann's West > Maple Hollow > Vertigo > Eagle Crest > Rush. My favorite photo of the ride was this on Maple Hollow close to the top - I went around a bend and then was surrounded by red!!! It took my breath away and I stopped then cheered "WOW!" 

wow wow wow. A few other pics from my climb ~

Oh it was just lovely. 

Getting the sun shining through the leaves - 

This one near the bottom of the Little Valley Loop.

So yeah, it was just heaven. I listened to a podcast on the Sermon on the Mount, thought about ways I want to become better and be a more faithful disciple of Christ. 

Getting outside, especially in the fall, is one luxury I let myself take advantage of. They were in good hands with my older kids at home, and Abi was making dinner too. She was making something simple, but I took so long, so Corey got home and I was gone so they made more for FHE - some halloween-ish stuff - Scary personal pizzas and spooky donuts. 

And they were watching The Nightmare Before Christmas when I got back. I'm glad I didn't miss anything too important, meaning I personally didn't want to eat any of their sugar donuts, I did have a few bites of pizza. No one missed me, and that's good. It is good for my soul to be out in the mountains. I kinda mostly do my duties in the morning and during the day (oatmeal, laundry, cleaning) and in the afternoons, that's when I sometimes take off for myself. I'm back on duty in the evenings for baths, scriptures, reading with the kids, etc. Today is Bella's Birthday. We sent a text, and were thinking of taking her and Ethan out to eat sometime this week? Whenever she's not busy, I'm not sure what our bday policy is for daughters in law, I should prob figure it out. Probably $... I'll try to get on top of that. From pics she sent, it looks like Ethan took good care of her for her birthday, good job Eth. Corey takes good care of me. He does a lot of Sunday and in the weekday afternoons when he's home. He did a ton yesterday, making lots of meals for the kids with orange rolls and tapioca and lots fo food food food (Is food a love language?) Peter really liked the tapioca with strawberries. Peter excitedly said "We should have this for dinner someday!!" 

Corey said "How about for lunch now?" Oh, good idea dad! Taking a pic to share with Wes. 

Peter, you are still so photogenic! 

Enjoying Fall

I loved my ride on Thursday, and have been wanting to get back up there again. This morning Corey and I made it up around 10 am, and did Armstrong and HAM. We asked a kind fellow biker to take our pic after our climb was over and we were ready for our descent on HAM. 

It was a beautiful ride. 

Another pic during the climb.

I didn't take any photos on the descent, cause that was the fast and fun part. I got out in the mountains again tonight by doing a quick impulse hike to Lisa Falls. I wasn't prepared for it, hence the reason why K didn't have shoes and I carried her on my back. 

Thankfully it's just a quick short hike, and the water wasn't too cold. I took her there after taking Corey, Owen and Daniel up and dropping them off for a downhill ride. They didn't have much time to make it before it was too dark, so I was killing time in the canyon in case I got a call to come rescue them. But they made it down ok, and they took the road home. Corey had his bike light and the boys each had a lights on their helmets, so they were visible to drivers, so that was good. 

I was glad to get out twice today, cause yesterday I was in a real funk, feeling stuck and restless... I really wanted to be in the mountains, but had elementary kids home from school today after parent teacher conferences this past Wednesday, plus violin group class at 4, plus a neighborhood gathering at 6 that we had to help out with, so our prime biking time in the evening was all spoken for. It was a big fall potluck party, with a bounce house, fire pits and smores, and chalk drawing... K eating a rice krispy treat ~

And over by the chalk art.

and enjoying a monster dog! Do you think you can eat that, Katharine?

Natalie was getting a tumbling lesson from a neighbor Liz. Natalie really wants to do tumbling. I'm all for it, once we have the funds. 

It was good to be there, even though Corey and I both feel anti-social sometimes. I'm glad we got out into the mountains today. I'm glad we don't have soccer games right now. I would have signed up Owen and Daniel, and tried too, but I was too late, so we didn't get the coach we wanted and weren't able to have their friends on their team or be at the field we wanted (Lone Peak park was full, but we could have done Buttercup or Flat Iron) but I didn't want to go to two fields, so I told Owen and Daniel we missed it for this season but we'll do it in the spring. In the spring I think we'll be ready to get outside, but right now, with wonderful fall weather here, I'm glad we don't have another thing on our to-do list and that we can take Saturday morning bike rides. 

For Our Happiness

Fall colors are at their peak in the higher altitudes and the mountains are calling to me! I can usually break away on Thursdays, so that's what I did today as soon as Natalie was home from school. I left for Park City for a ride. The ride up Parley's canyon was beautiful. I was on my bike at 4:30, going along Armstrong ~

Stopping every now and then to soak in the colors and snap another pictures. The bright leaves were still in full force, waving to me from the trees...

...and posing the ground.

I was heaven. It totally filled my cup. Wish I could be up here all day. The only thing that would have made today better was if Corey had been there with me. So Armstrong was gorgeous - 

As was the trail to HAM in the pine trees.

I'm grateful that fall colors make the ground so enjoyable to look at. Usually I'm looking at dirt and rocks and planning my line for where to get over the next feature, so all the leaves make a nice and joyful visual change to the normal dirt and rocks. It was great. Sunset was at 7:15, so my plan was to explore up as high as I could, and then start to make my way back down at 6:15 to give myself an hour of light to get back to the car. I made it back right at sunset at 7:15. So I went up Armstrong, HAM, then continued up to Midmountain, but I took midmountain north for the first time ever. I explored that until I got to Ironman, and that's when I turned around to come back. It was fun to explore new parts of the trail that I hadn't been on before. Midmountain north was a more narrow trail and was definitely less traveled, but I was happy to go get acquainted. 

It was really pretty!

I continued close by a neighborhood (top of White Pine Canyon road) 

Soon I had a nice view of the McPolin Barn and Quarry mountain.

So the trail went north along or around Iron Mountain, toward the Canyon's Ski resort. I listened to some podcasts, some General Conference, and Some of Elder Patrick Kearon's recent BYU speech "Flecks of Gold". His laugh at his joke at 2:30 is so full and joyful, it's really fun. I liked this quote by Elder Oaks that he shared at 23:03

I feel close to God in the mountains. The mountains and fall colors are two of millions of things in this earth that were created for our happiness. I was grateful to be in the mountains today. And grateful when I got home to my little ones.

Bear Canyon Bridge

I took Natalie Owen Daniel Peter and Katharine on a hike tonight. 

It was a bit impulsive, but I saw a chance to get up in the mountains, so I took it, cause we've only got like another week of full mountain splendor. I had D&P already in the car, cause we just got back from their parent teacher conference, so I was already almost half way ready. I called Natalie on my drive home and told her to tell Owen to get ready and to get K ready, we were going to go on a quick hike. There wasn't a lot of leaf changing magic going on there at the Orson Smith Trailhead, but it was still good to be outside. We were able to look up at the mountains in some of their colored glory. The older girls ALS were at a stake activity and doing good work assembling hygiene kits for refugees.

So yeah, seemed like a good chance to do something with the younger kids. I thought they'd like the suspension bridge across Bear Canyon, so that's where we went. The hike up was fun. We went barefoot for a bit, inspired by Natalie. She started it, then I followed, then K and D followed me. The part where it's the old Bonnevile Shoreline was nice and soft sand, like on the beach but as we got closer to the top, it was more firm, hard, and pebbly. That wasn't as fun to walk on. We ran out of water (K hogged it). We got to the bridge before the sun set, and the kids found it rather terrifying. It was rickety and creaky and rocking back and forth cause of all the people on it. To quote Owen "Iiiiiiiii do not this that bridge." I told Owen to come back for a picture, but he just turned at me from his spot near the end and held up his two thumbs, as if to say "I'll pose, but I'm not going back on that!" and Daniel and Peter just ignored me and kept on walking away. Ok fine, so Natalie and Katharine it is.

I told them that I wanted to go a little further up the canyon, cause there was a fun spot that I thought they'd like. They didn't trust my opinion anymore though, since I had thought that they would like the bridge and they DIDN'T, but I insisted "oh come on..." and so they dutifully followed. They did like this part of it. There was a little log hut that someone had made, so they thought that was fun...

And then there was a smaller bridge that restored their confidence in bridge makers. The kids felt safe again ~ "I trust this bridge." It was small and steady, firmly planted on the earth. 

Ok, that was what I really wanted to show them. We can go now. The sun had set, and it was a lot darker than it looks in those two last photos. I knew we were pressing it to have enough light to see on our way back. We hiked pretty quickly, there were plenty of other people on the trail, so I knew we'd be safe if there was an emergency. I carried Katharine on my shoulders for most of the hike up and all of the hike down. We made it back to the parking lot, everyone drank lots of water, and we watched Shrek 2 on the drive home. ALS were back home when we were, cute Sophi - 

So even though it was barely past 8pm, the kids felt like it was really late, and we did scriptures and prayer and everyone headed to bed around 9, which was nice! So here I am blogging and having a moment to myself, yay. I finished blogging March today after I got Bella and Ethan's wedding photos. I asked Bella for the link, and when I saw that the website is kandaceriggs dot smugmug dot com and I was like "wait a minute... Kandance Riggs???" cause that is the name of my mission trainer from my mission in Arizona! It took two seconds to put together the incredible resemblance of Kandace and the wedding photographer Ellie, and then I was like "Ellie is her daughter!!" A little bit of facebook searching confirmed this, and I messaged Kandace to let her know that her daughter took the wedding photos for both of my sons this past summer! Silly that it took me 6 months to put this together, but how fun. What else happened today? I spent part of the morning negotiating with Katharine~

Me - “How about we go downstairs basement?” 

K - “ummm how abt watch movie on the phone?”

Me - “how about we go outside jump trampoline?”

K - “How about we watch Bluey on TV?”

Neither of us won. She didn't win cause we didn't watch anything fun on tv, but I didn't win cause she did not allow me to be productive. I had a really great week last week, and this week so far has been a lot of meh. Today was Parent Teacher Conferences for the elementary school. First was Owen at 2:15, during Owen's recess, which I was sorry about (Sorry Owen!) I was too slow logging in to sign up, so I didn't find an opening for Owen close to time slots that were open for Daniel and Peter. K was so cute as we went over there for Owen's, carefully holding her baby ~

Keeping her baby safe in the wind! 

Then inside she was sweetly showing her baby to everyone, probably not realizing they were smiling at her, not her baby. 

She is adorable. One last cute thing from today - I saw some scurrying going on in the backyard and noticed a little squirrel grabbing up milkweek fluff! Probably taking it to it's nest to help his family have a nice cozy winter, I was proud that we'd made some nice big accessible clumps for him yesterday. :)

Milkweed Fluff

Two weeks ago, I gathered up a good quantity of the milkweed pods that were in our yard. Today I finished collecting the seeds from the pods, and with that I was ready to let the kids have fun with the leftover milkweed fluff. Peter jumping in the soft "snow" ~

Katharine saw him having fun and came to join him.

Running around, looks like they need a new supply of fluff. 

"Snowballs" falling off onto the ground.

Almost feels like the fluff from the cottonwood trees in spring ~

Bouncing around and around on the trampoline, with floating fairies in the sky all around.

I uploaded a few vides to youtube. 

This evening I started to feel a bit stressed, partially bought on, I think, by Sophi somehow detatching the rear wheel of my silver bike after she rode it to her friends house. I drove over there to pick her up. Not sure how she did it. Perhaps some evil-doer came by and sabotaged her bike while she was inside. Anyway, and then I had my "emotional resilience" class at 6, and I didn't really want to go cause I wanted to go on a ride or a hike with the kids instead, but I told them I had the class and they could come again to play in the nursery like last week. But then Abi got home and could see my stress, and she took all the kids to the Draper park instead, and I bailed out on the class and went on a ride instead. Corey had left 45 min before me, and I caught him coming down right after I climbed up avalanche hill. He was glad he ran into before he got to the bottom of that, cause if he'd been at the bottom he might not have wanted to join me on my climb, but he was ok taking a climb again from the top of avalanche hill. We went the ruins, did techy on the way back, and we paused to put the log feature back in the techy section. 

Someone (perhaps Sandy City?) came and cleaned up fallen trees last week and they cut the log and moved it out of the way. I was totally bummed. Corey and I were glad to put it back. We went over it, felt like before, so techy is back to normal. All is right in the world, ha. Now it's 9pm, P&K are taking a bath, I'm here typing, Corey is helping Daniel practice sax, A is practicing flute, L&S are on the computer, hopefully doing homework. Natalie is....

...being Natalie. She's finally able to do a front split! Congrats Natalie.

When kids start being creative like this, that is my signal that it's time for them to go to bed. I'll go wrap things up with the kids and we'll go to bed. I went to the temple today with some sisters in our ward. It was nice, but also slower to go with a group, I'm trying to decide if I think it was worth it, cause it's not like you can socialize that much in the temple session. We were able to visit during out drive out and back (we carpooled there together) so that was good. It turned out to be a 9-1 thing and took all my day time hours where I'm productive and I struggled to get it going after I got back. That might also be a reason why I was feeling stressed this evening. But I feel better now after the ride. Tomorrow I have parent teacher conferences for the elementary kids, and I need/want to fill up the garbage cans with as much yard stuff as I can before the trash is collected. So that's the plan for tomorrow. 

Ice Blocking

It was a good day - Lily stayed home feeling a little sick with an eye ache, might have a sinus infection? Sophi and Natalie had violin, and as soon as we got back from that, I went on a ride, because fall is upon us! I drove to the trailhead and just went up the canyon. Fall colors are here! 

I left early enough to get back in time to go on a quick hike or something with the kids for FHE, cause we have to get out and enjoy these autumn leaves! But as I arrived home, they were in the car ready to go do something else. They all voted for ice blocking. Ok, sounds fun. I went with them to Reams and Corey bought 7 ice blocks and then we headed to Flat Iron Mesa Park. 

I was a little cold, since my clothes were a little wet with sweat and now the sun was setting. So I did not feel like sitting on a block of ice. I tried to roll down the hill, but that made me feel sick... I'm not as young as I used to be. I did try it once a little bit but I didn't dare let myself get going too fast. Mostly the kids took rides on the ice, and Corey and I helped Peter and sometimes Daniel haul their ice blocks back up the steep hill.

I got a few videos of the kids. Here's one of them.

It was funny to watch. I think Natalie and Abi got the hang of it the best. They both made it all the way down the hill. Here's one where Natalie did that. Abi did it too, and I think cause she's larger than Natalie, it was just way impressive cause she'd get going super fast! This clip wasn't that one, but gives an idea of the speed she achieved several times. She went crazy fast! I also didn't go cause I didn't want to go into a death roll down the hill at 20 mph. It was an activity that made an impression on the kids and I'm sure will be very memorable. They are looking forward to when we do it again.