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. :)