So Much Fun

We went on a trail ride at Park City Mountain Resort. It was so much fun. The horse guy hadn't had very many customers for several days because it has rained every day for two weeks here, so he was willing to give us a deal. I love a deal. So that was one positive.

Ian was pretty nervous since the last time he was on a horse, he was three years old. But the horse guy promised he had the perfect horse for him. And she was. Thunder was her name, but she was extremely gentle and docile and obedient and Ian had a great time. Positive number two.

I was pretty nervous, too. It's been years since I was on a horse, and I usually ride in a fenced pasture, so riding up a mountain side was a new thing for me. It was really fun. We went through pine trees and aspen groves and had to duck under tree limbs. But the horses weren't nervous or skittish. We're all ready to be horse owners again. Ian says he wants to have a horse and name it Nellie so he can say, "Whoa, Nellie!"

Camping in Pine Valley, UT

Here is our beautiful campsite in Pine Valley. It is so nice to be in the woods and SMELL the trees, even though it was a little cold. Our campsite was right next to the creek with a little waterfall. The boys had a good time shooting their bb guns and Jared tried his hand at fishing. We had lots of deer come right in to camp, as well as a wild turkey. This was probably the best camping trip I've been on, since the boys are big enough now to do alot of the work. Woot-woot.

MY PRECIOUS ONES

I came home the other day and walked in to view this:
I love it when my kids play together nicely.

COLORFUL SUMMER

Since we have moved to St. George the weather pattern has gone beserk. One summer was unusually hot. The next spring was unusually wet. This year we've have had an unusually mild beginning to our summer. The temperature has been in the low 80's everyday with lots of cloud cover. It is definitely messing with my tanning time. But I think it is making for lots of nice flowers....

I have been amazed this summer at all the flowers that are blooming around St. George. It seems that more things are blooming than ever before, and there is just lots of color everywhere you look.

People will plant these two bushes, the red one above and the white one below, right next to each other on the edge of their property, like we do lilacs in Idaho. They get rather big and it looks cool to have the colors alternating.

This plant below is my favorite. It ususally only has one spear shooting out of it, but this one has five.

The Sego Lily is the Utah flower. They have the thinnest stem holding up a lone blossom, and usually several inches or feet are between each flower. Last year the whole hillside above out house was covered with these short little flowers (probably due to the fact that it rained nearly the entire month of May.) It was beautiful.

This flower is not a Sego Lily, but it reminds me of it. Check out my action photo as a bee flew in just when I took the picture!

If you can't tell, I am enjoying my summer vacation.

Snake on the road

Here are a couple pictures of a snake I found on the road when I was out walking the dog.

I ran back home and got Jared and a box. He put the box on the ground in front of the snake, who was curious and slithered in to have a look around. I tapped him on the tail with my foot to get him all the way in the box. It worked, but the thing whipped around and hissed so loudly, and began rattling it's tail so loudly that I thought "uh-oh" maybe we got a rattler that lost it's rattle. It was three feet long and very cranky. Turns out it is a bull snake, aka gopher snake, and they like to pretend to be rattle snakes. It gave a very good impression.