FOOTBALL AT THE U OF U

A couple of friends have season tickets and they couldn't make it, so they gave us tickets to a University of Utah football game. We decided a little trip together would be a great way to celebrate our anniversary (a little early.)

Here's us waiting at the Trax stop, to ride up to the U.
Here's a picture of everyone on the train dressed in red. Like the crazy hair?
Here's a picture of the mountains behind the stadium. What a beautiful place.
Here's a picture of the marching band forming a U. At the end of the song all 45,000 people yelled "Go Utes!" It was quite the experience.
Here's a picture of us at the game. If you zoom in, you can see the score. 38 to 10. It was so fun with crazy fans all around us motioning for the first down and screaming for the players. They really get involved. We had the best seats and were in the shade the whole time (no sunburns). We realized we hadn't been in that stadium since 1987 so it was a real treat to be back and think of all our fun (and not so fun) memories of our time at the U.

Sunflowers EVERYWHERE

On our way home from Kanarraville we stopped to take pictures of the miles and miles of sunflowers that have bloomed this year. I wanted the boys to get out and stand in the field for a cute picture. They said, "We refused to be filmed frolicking with flowers."

Labor Day hike in Kanarraville

Scotty heard about a great hike in a place called Kanarraville, which is about 40 minutes north of St. George. Here are the boys, looking nonchalant in the car on the way there. (They LOVE getting their pictures taken ; )


WILDERNESS STUDY AREA. Scotty is being studious.

There were quite a few people there when we started out. The water was COLD so we took the high road, and let the boys take the low road in the creek bed.








We were all so excited to be in a slot canyon where you can touch each side.


This ladder is the first of three as you go along. It was steep and scary, and Ian wouldn't come with us. But this is the point where most people give up, and so you get to be in Nature a little more by yourself for the rest of the hike. So, we told him to go back and wait for us in the sun , and we would be back in a little while.... then we got distracted by the butterfly and the beauty and he got tired of waiting for us and ended up climbing this all by himself. We were pretty surprised when he caught up to us!




Here's a rock slide, like you see in the movies. But the water was too cold! This group was braver than we were.




And here we have the second ladder. You can't tell, but it is going to take some tricky maneuvering to get from the top rung to the level above. Jared is shivering from the spray, and we decided we are going to try this hike again - in AUGUST.

I would call this an advanced hike, for those seeking high adventure. It was way fun, and I'm hoping we can share it with some friends another day.

The Bug Whisperer

We went on a hike to a slot canyon near Kanarraville on Labor Day this year. It was a beautiful day, although a little on the chilly side. When we left St. George the car thermostat said 104. By the time we got to the trail head 40 minutes north, the temperature read 68. This is one of those hikes where the creek bed is the trail. That water was icy cold, so we took every opportunity to walk on the side and get out of the water. At this point along the trail Jared discovered a butterfly in distress.



It was pretty big. And beautiful. He examined it for a long time. He said it's eyes were like hologram things, with shifting colors of gold.

He has always enjoyed bugs. I remember when he was about 4 years old, I would take an old bathroom rug outside. We would spray the flowerbed with water and then place the rug down. In the morning we'd peel back the rug to reveal the bug circus going on underneath. Lots and lots of different kinds of bugs would migrate under the rug where it was wet and warm. He would sit on a stool with his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands and watch those bugs like a TV show for an hour, until I said time was up and we needed to move on to another activity.

The butterfly stayed on his hand for a long time, fanning itself and drying out it's wings.


Then it did what bugs with wings do. It flew away.