At the Park City Doggy Parade

It’s that time of year again, where kids get crazy with the clothes and run around sugar crazed. Too much fun. I missed the Doggy Parade this year, but (thankfully??) Halloween is more of a ‘season’ than a single day.

Tory and Tegan on the Horizon

Fall means canyoneering around here, so we headed down to the North Wash area of Southern Utah. It’s located between Hanksville and Lake Powell – essentially BFE. Heather, Josh, and Sirisa, as well as Babbie, Brad, Tai, and Aspen showed up too – But the first morning was just us. We took the kids through a canyon called Lucky Charms – a perfect little slot for kids.

Tory got on rope and let me lower him down a 30ft rappel. He was a little nervous at first, but was determined to do it. And he liked it!

There aren’t more shots simply because lugging the camera through skinny, sandy, hands-on canyons is a pain. We need to get a little point and shoot for these kinds of things.

Hiking at Brighton

Rather than try and go back and separate out each event that happened over the last two months, here’s a bunch of photos from that time.

The main reason I’ve missed so much is our camera had a series of unfortunate events… but we’ve got it back now so I’ve no longer got an excuse for not posting.

Tegan actually got second, but gave it up to Mittens for their solid effort.

On Saturday Kari participated in the annual Wasatch Powderkeg race at Brighton. It’s an uphill/downhill type race in the Wasatch backcountry – 6 miles of climbing and skiing. Babbie and Brad participated as well – everyone was a little tired but had a good time. The kiddos and I were there to watch them finish.

Tegan's very first ski run

Keeping with the tradition of nudging Tegan into things a little too early, we took her up for her first ski in mid January. Luckily the Canyons now has a magic carpet in the beginners area (used to be a t-bar) to make things easier.

She wasn’t sure at first, but after a couple of ‘runs’ between mommy’s legs she broke out with the smiles. Baby steps, my friends :)

A quickie birthday with a slice of gross frosted cookie.

We spent Tegan’s official birthday-day on the road driving back from Minnesota. We got home in the late afternoon and decided to throw together a quick celebration. Kari picked up a slice of frosted cookie thingie. It was very gross. We’ll celebrate her birthday with a little more enthusiasm this next weekend in a combo party with Tory.

We try to make it back to Minnesota at least once a year, and common sense usually dictates that it occurs during the summer months. Since we missed going last year (as a family) all together, we decided that it would be nice to head back for the Holidays. So it was Christmas with the Hoffman’s and New Year’s with the Moe’s.

Overall it was a good trip – the weather behaved mostly, meaning it never dipped below 30° below zero – the kids did exceptionally well traveling in the car (2 days, both ways) and Santa received our temporary change of address.

Instead of spending X for a cut Christmas tree this year, we decided to spend a little more, like about 3X and get a live, though dormant, potted tree. As with anything there’s pluses and minuses that go along with it all. The biggest bummer is that you can’t leave it inside for very long, if at all, due to the fact it’s hibernating and prefers to be frozen. The benefit here is that we no longer have to buy 20 cans of spray snow to get our tree to look as it does above.
Kari did pull out the spruce flavored essential oil and a diffuser to get that wafty Christmas smell that we all love.

The kids had fun putting the balls on the tree, and we did also decorate our sad, sad ficus inside, so we weren’t really missing much. And this spring we’ll plant ol 2010 (creative, affectionate tree name) and celebrate all over again. I’ve got the music cued already… Oh, holy night, the stars are shining bright – ly….

Tai and Tory run the edge. Click for quite a few more.

Fall means Canyoneering in Utah, at least in our house, and while we’re still very limited in what we can do with the kids, it’s still important to get them down there and exposed. Babi and Brad, Tai and Aspen came down for a couple of days as well, and all the kids had a fun time cruising around on the rocks at camp.

The first couple of days Kari and I and the kids hiked around by ourselves. We explored the Grand Wash the first day and hiked up Cottonwood Wash the next. It was a real struggle getting the kids to even enjoy themselves walking up the wash. The first couple of miles aren’t very interesting and there was much whining and gnashing of teeth. Many times Kari and I looked at each other and wondered if it was worth it. But then we got to a more interesting part of the canyon; Once Tory had something to climb around on the day got much better.

The third day Brad and I actually got out and did a full canyon from top to bottom. We got dropped off at the top and descended Burro Wash. Rain threatened the entire day which added an edge to an already exciting canyon.

Over all it was a great trip. It’s a ton of work right now with the kids, but it will pay off. The kids love the desert now, and I can only hope it continues.

Marcus, Kari, Tory, and Tegan look out over the Uintas.

Right after Grandma Pat and Grandpa Gary left Tracy and Marcus showed up. Literally. Same day. Again, not a whole lot of pictures were taken, but I did get a few of the day we spend hiking Bald Mountain in the Uintas. It was really fun having so much family around for a few weeks, and I hope they had fun too.