I have gotten a bit behind on the blogging scene despite lots of recent going-ons. Last week we returned from our trip home to Oregon, it was another whirlwind trip but still good to be back and smell the clean air. I am always so shocked by how green it is, flying into Portland is such a contrast compared to Salt Lake (even though Utah has been having a “wet” spring). I was able to see almost all of my family, Jason flew in a few days after me and he managed to squeeze in a lot within his few days as well. I spent some time in Longview at my Mom’s, Jenna played hookie from school we hung out for the day and then went to visit Mom at work, here she is showing off the baby chicks in her classroom….
Dan and Kathy hosted a BBQ and we hung out Oregon-style around the fire pit…
Erin drove up from Corvallis and we toured the Japanese Gardens…
Chinese Gardens…
And we ate cupcakes at St. Cupcake…
Jason and I met up with Steph, Jenna, Mom and Jim to watch a Portland Timbers Game, afterward we met up with Lindsay to have drinks at La Merde and dessert at the Rimsky-Korsakoffee House.
We went on a hike with Dan, Kathy and Steph to Wahclella Falls in the Columbia River Gorge…
Everything was so lush and green…
We also got to visit with Corey, Alyssa and the new addition Carson! I didn’t get any pictures but man is he a cute one, I enjoyed cuddling with him, so tiny! I miss you Oregon and everything and one that lives there!
Some of the glyphs date back to pre-columbian times but as you can see the “wheel” was most likely done during the time of the pioneers. Either way it was pretty cool, I love the little goat glyphs. We drove back through Arches on the way home and caught a glimpse of Delicate Arch, the parking lot for the hike up to the Arch was full, ugh, so we went to the other parking lot for the viewpoint…
So we are going to have to go back for a more close up picture perhaps even earlier in the season to avoid the crowds. We also hit up the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands to see Mesa Arch. I think this was probably the most impressive view/arch that we saw and again we were one of two cars in the parking lot which made it even more excellent…
The above picture is of Capitol Reef, Jas and I got away last weekend, we first explored Bryce and then on the way home took a quick tour of Capitol Reef. I can’t wait to go back to do more hiking at Capitol it was absolutely amazing there, even better was the fact that we had the whole park to ourselves, literally we did not see another person!
Above is a picture of Jas cross country skiing at Bryce, looks as though he is about to go over the edge! We had perfect weather this day, totally clear and warm enough to ski with just a long sleeve shirt on.
We also had a fun time exploring the SLC night scene which included a sad and hilarious attempt at “bar hopping” we ended our evening by performing Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” at a Karaoke bar, it is pretty safe to say we were the only ones with talent, immediately after our performance despite the entire bar’s pleads for us to stay and give an encore, we left the building. Here is a picture of Lindsay from that night…
After Lindsay left Steph came into town for Thanksgiving! We had a good time as well, one of the absolute highlights of her trip was when we managed to come across 7 Newfoundlands at a very posh pet store in Park City, the owner of the dogs (and the store) must have sensed my love for them (I did tell him at least three times “I love them”) and gave us 2 Newfie’s for us to walk around Park City!!! I was beyond excited, in fact I am still worked up about it, made my month!
Oh Yeah we were pretty serious about it, our very own little Whoville! Steph and I also cooked a turkey and did the whole Thanksgiving feast (mini style since it was just Jas, Steph and myself). The turkey turned out amazing, although I have to say that while Lindsay was here she and I cooked a full turkey breast in preparation for my first bird and it was by no means an easy task, in fact it was a disaster. Luckily the second bird turned out and was just wonderful, all credit going to Steph since I had to work the night before Thanksgiving when she did most of the work making the brine and everything else. This picture is blurry but check that bird out!
That is a tarantula! My first wild tarantula! I was really excited and so happy that I decided to bring my camera with me last minute.
It is official now, I live in the desert.
We are pretty sure this is the same mom and baby moose duo that we saw two months ago as it is fairly close in terms of moose legs to where we spotted them last time. However this was a much more precious sighting as we had them all to ourselves! I think I could definitely get used to this moose thing, they are surprisingly graceful despite their large size and they seem to be so peaceful especially in the snow (from a safe distance that is). Anyway, our purpose for heading up the mountains was really to see the fall foliage; here is Jason with some colorful Aspen trees in the background…
You can see the cute little chairs they had carved out of stumps and the plants were trained to grow over the wire fencing which provided the structure for the playhouse, it was so nice and cool inside because of the plants perfect for hiding out on a hot summer day! They had a large tunnel trellis that was shaped like a snake, you entered through his mouth and then you could wind through his whole body like a maze, here is a picture of the inside of the snakes belly…
We ended our day by driving down into Heber City on the other side of the Canyon and then swinging past Utah’s Bridal Veil falls, it was impressive but my goodness were there a lot of people standing at the base of the falls sort of like going to Multnomah falls but worse because here people were splashing around in the water, sort of takes away from the beauty.
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It was a nice little hike although it will probably be even better in early fall once all the kids go back to school. Then we went over to Snowbird and took a ride on the tram which takes you up to the top of Hidden Peak which is 11,000 feet! It was sort of scary but awesome at the same time here is a picture of Dan filming our ascent…
Our chariot…
