Zion's National Park

So here we are at Zion's National Park. I have never been there before. It's a beautiful place. You'd think it might have occured to me to pack some tennis shoes for hiking since this is the main activity at this park, but no, alas I did not. But it was raining and snowing the whole time so I had a good excuse to be lazy and lounge around while Javan was in meetings.

We stayed in Springdale, Utah, just outside the park at the Majestic View Lodge. It was a neat little town with lots of little shops and restaurants. When Javan was all done with meetings we went to the Imax theater and watched a thing about the park and we toured around the town a bit. There were lots of interesting animals, our kids would have loved it. (We left them with Grandma and Grandpa.) It was a good weekend. Javan and I have had some nice trips together recently, I love it.

A little elk ranch just right in the middle of town.

Some crazy white deer with moose-like antlers.

Poor thing had wire wrapped all around his antlers.

View from our balcony.

Another shot from our balcony.

When entering the park you have to go through 2 tunnels. One is very short, the other is over 1 mile long, and very dark. There are some little windows along the way. I'm not sure what they are for because you can't stop in the tunnel. Maybe they are for fresh air or just light, I don't know, anyway this is one from the outside.

The town of Springdale and the park is down in the bottom of this huge canyon. This is a picture of the switchback road as you make your way down.

A big buffalo.

One ugly black and white cow amoungst the buffalo.

The Majestic View Lodge. This is the picture they had on their website. (I didn't take any myself) It's kind of a weird picture.

This was interesting

Last week Javan and I went to Zion's National Park, for some of Javan's meetings. On the way there we were happily driving down the road when and ambulance suddenly turned into our lane and stopped. Apparently they had just loaded a passenger into the life flight helicopter. The driver of the ambulancejumped out and started taking pictures of the helicopter so I decided I should take some too. There wasn't an accident on the highway so this must have just been the meeting point for life flight.

Another Birthday Party

What a spoiled boy. We had another birthday party with the Grandma's and Grandpa's, with more presents, more cake, and more ice cream.

I hate this. This was video of everyone singing happy birthday to Ethan while he wouldn't smile or look up until it was time to blow out the candles.

Happy Birthday Ethan!

Ethan turned 4 on February 18th. But since we were out of town both the weekend before and after, we had his party early on Feb. 9. It was his first friends party. He was so excited to have all his friends come over to his house. We had a good time and Ethan got lots of fun presents. Wow, birthday parties are a lot of work.

The Scooby Doo Cake

Ethan and Ally with the Scooby Doo

The kids eating pizza

Playing pin the collar on Scooby Doo

Playing Scooby Doo Bingo

Opening presents

Blowing out the candles and eating cake


What a day!

Max's Birthday Party

On February 2nd we went over to Javan's mom's house for our nephew Max's birthday party. We played in the snow and had a blast. Then warmed up with some yummy soup.

Ethan and his cousin Ashlynn sledding.

Video of Toby pulling Ethan and Ashlynn on the sled.

(I cannot make videos work, does anyone know?)

Where's the sun?

Will the snow ever melt? It feels like the longest winter of my life. I am so tired of scraping the windows on my car, getting stuck in my own driveway, having a wet stinky dog in the house, being cold, bundling up, driving on slick roads, get the picture. I am ready for the warm weather.

We had a pretty big storm on Sunday and Monday, there was ALOT of snow. They closed the highway between Blanding and Monticello for awhile. I didn't leave the house for 2 days (with one exception, I went to rescue my mom, whose car was stuck in her own driveway). I thought there was alot of snow in Blanding. Then I went to work in Monticello. Holy cow, they got burried. I'll have to take some pictures next week.

Here are some pictures of snow around our house. The sun did come out for awhile yesterday and melted quite a bit of snow off the roads and such.

Snow falling off our roof.

View from our front door.

The deck.

Our backyard, and swing set.

Bad Dog Toby

Just when we were thinking Toby was a good dog, he and his girlfriend Rose had a little violent streak. They killed a cat and attacked a small dog in our neighborhood. The owner of the other dog took it to the vet, it has some broken ribs and several lacerations requiring stitches. That we have to pay for (which is reasonable).

We were so surprised. Toby has never acted this was before. How embarrassing. So he is being punished now and has to be on his chain at all times. Which has proved harder than you would think. We bought a kennel this summer to keep him in and he pushed through the fence to get out. So we lined the edges with railroad ties so he couldn't push through, and he just dug a hole under. He can unwind the wire that holds the fence down and gets out no matter what we tried. So we decided to chain him up. Well he would just get out of his collar. We would come home at night to find his chain with collar attached, but no Toby. So we just let him roam, he spends most of his time over at Rose's house (our neighbors). Since the attack we bought this harness, thinking there was no way he would escape it. Wrong. So our most recent purchase is a choke chain, the harder he pulls to get out, the tighter it squeezes around his neck. It has worked good so far this week, maybe we're on to something. This is probably of no interest to anyone, but I am just venting.

Rabbit Hunting

We have been out rabbit hunting a few times in the last couple weeks. Each time we went one of the rabbits that Javan shot fell or ran down into a hollow log.


This is Javan and Ethan trying to fish out the rabbit with a stick.


This is Javan trying to rip apart the log with his bare hands to retieve the rabbit.

Toby had a blast, once he got on the trail of a rabbit he would chase it under a bush and then look up and wait for Javan to get over there. He was a pretty good hunting dog. We actually had him jumping into the truck (Up until now he will not jump into the back of Javan's truck, he will jump into the jeep, or Davey's truck, but never Javan's.)

We shot about 5 or 6 rabbits in all. Javan was super excited because he wanted to eat them for dinner. And we did. I wasn't so sure about it but we fried it up like chicken and ate it. The meat tasted okay but it was pretty tough.

While hunting, we headed down a road that had huge ruts and was all washed out and muddy. Sure enough we slid right down into the rut and slammed against the other side of the road. This is not what you want to do in a brand new truck. Javan was pretty ticked that I was taking pictures, probably becuase he knew I would post them on the blog, but that's okay.


This is Javan assessing the situation and the damage.



This is the back wheel, off the ground.