Brianhead Planning meeting for our BIG Trip

Nola and I got the most comfortable 4 wheeler

We are at Paul and Nola's cabin at BrianHead.  We rode our motorcycle up and the David and Judith Nielson rode their's down.  Paul and Nola were kind enough to have us come for a very important planning meeting.  We are planning out our long ride in August to Victoria BC.  After we got their Paul aand Nola got us on fourwheelers and took us out to survey their property.  What a beautiful place, the weather was crisp and clear and the cabin was wonderful.  We had a great dinner and then the guys got down to some serious planning.   We bedded down early as the next day was a hike in Bryce Canyon.

David and Judith ready to ride.

Paul is getting ready to fire up one of his four-wheelers.

Nola and Paul are showing us the lake on their property.

The cabin!

 Here we are at Bryce canyon ready to hike the Navajo loop, it is 1 and a quarter  mile down and of course if you go  down, you have to hike up.

This is a man made lake that The harbers made on their property.  I don't know why the picture ended up down  here.

The view looking out over the canyon as we start a series of switchbacks on our way down.

If you look carefully, you will see not only part of the switchback but people way down toward the bottom.

Looking up, you can see the switchbacks we just came down.

Ross, Nola and coming down.  The scenery was breathtaking.  The weather was beautiful. 

There were all sorts of chipmunks eager for a handout aand David just happened to have  some sunflower seeds.

As you can tell we are now on our way back up the trail.  for some reason it seemed longer coming up, wonder why???  

Another beautiful view!!

I have to say after the hike, the ride back to the Harbers, it felt wonderful to sit on a very comfortable sofa and relax!

Paul, David and Ross.  

We are all pretty relaxed.

Time to start helping Nola with dinner.

This is a great kitchen area.  Nola loves to cook and has a huge industrial stove which you can't see here. 

This gives you an idea of how wonderful this cabin is.  Paul and Nola designed and built it using wood from trees that had fallen.  Notice the staircase made of split logs!

We spent the evening in here eating popcorn and watching a movie.

It was getting dark at the end of a great day.

I don't know how these pictures ended up here but we are at the bottom of the Navajo loop.

David and Judith walking ahead.

Ross, Nola and me before we start up.  What  a great three days it was.  The next day we were on our bikes early to beat the heat on the way home.

Memorial Day and Family

Memorial Day weekend is here and we were happy to have our six grandchildren, Matt and Kent as well as Susan and Jacob with us.   It's Friday night and Matt, Susan, Adisyn, Susan and Jacob arrived from Scottsdale and Austen and Aleck came from St. George.When they arrived they were all hungry so the first order of business was food and there was plenty of that.   At our table is Susan, Matt, Aleck,   Ross, Austen, and Kent.  

The next morning, Ross took anyone who wanted to come to Krispy Cream for donuts, as many as they could eat.  Shaun and Maggie were coming later and so Ross got them their favorite, everything Bagel from Einstein Bagel.   After filling up on donuts, it was time to relax.   Then Shaun and Maggie came so it was time for more donuts and bagels.

We decided to have some family pictures taken and brought Warsaw Poland Hardrock tee shirts for all of the family to wear.  Ross and I wore Poland Warsaw mission teeshirts to commemorate our 18 months spent serving a mission in Poland.   It's not easy to keep everyone focused on trying to get a family picture put together.   Adisyn and Jacob were discussing something......  We finally got it together for some pictures and even got the dogs Roxie (the Golden) and Shiloh the German Shepard mix to cooperate.  From right to left in the back row...Aleck, Kent, Susan, Matt, Austen, Ayden, Shaun and Maggie.   In the front is Adisyn, Ross, me and Jacob.

Of course it doesn't stay serious and organized and the goofing off starts.

The kids were hungry and stripped off shirts to have more foodd and then gort back down to the business of pictures.  Well, some of it was serious and some not quite so serious.   When it was all said and done, the result was pretty darn good.   Our family is great!!!  We love wach other and are as close as a family can be.  I'm grateful everyday for my husband, children and grandchildren.  The only thing that would have made it better would be if Colin were still here.

Concerts and recitals

We are at the Zion Youth Symphony Orchestra and Chorus which is performing at the beautiful Smith Performing Arts center.  Maggie is singing in the chorus and Shaun is playing the violin in the orchestra. They had to audition in order to be allowed to perform in this very fine group. It was a beautiful warm Sunday afternoon and we managed to catch the girls before the concert began.

This is Shaun and Maggie with a group of their performing friends.

This is inside before the concert began.  The concert hall is beautiful with wonderful accoustics.  We even had a box seat overlooking the stage where the concert was being performed.  The concert was "The Lamb of God" which was fabulous and it was so wonderful to see the girls performing in this wonderful musical written about the Savior and his Atonement.  It was a fitting way to close out the Sabbath day..

Maggie and Shaun both go to Las Vegas Academy which is a magnet highschool for the performing Arts.   We were able to go to their Spring concerts.  This was Maggie's piano concert which was amazing.  The picture above is our beautiful Maggie before her concert.  She does such a good job on the piano. 

We attended Shaun's violin recital and were so impressed with all the violinists and, of course, most impressed with Shaun's performance.  My mother who was a very good violinist and played in sympnony orchestras would have been proud to see her great grand-daughter performing.

Wee are now at Shaun's LVA Spring orchestra concert.  These concerts are amazing.  Because it is a highschool for the Performing Arts, the music and skill is a huge step up from your regular high school orchestras.   It's so wonderful to see our grranddaughters using their musical talents.

How cool is that.  Shaun looks like a violinist, doesn't she??  And she is!   We are so proud of our granddaughters and the beautiful girls they have become and we are so glad we are home from Poland and can go to their concerts and recitals.