This is way too much work!

So, I've been spending most of the last month preserving stuff from Janean's garden. Who needs a garden when your mother-in-law has a huge one that can feed three families! She is nice enough to share her produce and we help out when we can. Matthew thinks I'm a weirdo because I took pictures of everything we preserved. Okay-not everything-I missed the frozen raspberries, frozen peaches, and freezer corn (yum). The first two are great for making Jamba Juice!

Anyway-I thought I'd post a few pics.

We planted three rows of green beans this year because I love them! We used all the ones we did from last year. We also ate a ton of them fresh! Yum!!

Peaches are always a sticky adventure! They are so good fresh! They also look very pretty when your done! We accidentally got 9 boxes of peaches-my mother-in-law bought 5 boxes the same day my father-in-law bought his 4 boxes. Needless to say, we canned, froze, or ate them all! I'm actually starting to like half and half with my peaches. Use lots of sugar!

Zucchini was my newest adventure. I got a few over sized ones from my good friend and decided to shred them up and freeze them. Twelve bags was the final count. I'm still not sure what I'll use them for-but it was free-so.......

It's kinda nice to know our pantry is full and our deep freeze is full with Matthew's job slowing down.

The results are in....

Okay, so contraindicate is a word. Erica was talking to me the other night and she was tired, and she meant to say contradict but said contraindicate instead which made it sound really funny and not like a word at all. She was right, it is a word and is used quite a bit in the health profession when something is not advisable, like taking two medications together or something like that. It just sounded really ridiculous when she said it.

Not too much is going on, work has slowed down for me this fall, so if anyone needs any engineering work done, let us know. We do civil, municipal, floodplain, onsite sewer systems, and stuff like that. I'm mostly joking about begging for work, but I do need some work to keep me out of trouble. Although not working and playing Mr. Dad is kind of fun. We have a lot of fun when I am home. I kind of enjoy it. I don't mind taking care of the house too much. I do get a little antsy when I have been inside all day though.

Lets take a poll

Is contraindicate a word? We are taking a poll. You have to say yes or no before you look somewhere for it.

Silly kids!

McKinley wanted to make party hats tonight out of her construction paper. I just wanted to share these cute pics we got of them. The one of Matthew and Gavin was actually taken by McKinley. She wanted to try out the camera. Not bad for a 4 year old. Gavin turns 2 on Monday. He's grown so much! He talks incredibly well for a 2 year old. It's fun to hear him talk. He's such a cute kid. That's all really-I just love my kids and want everyone else to know how cute they are!

My side of the story!

Okay, I'm really not going to share the whole Paria experience from my point of view, but I did want to add a few thoughts.

First of all-I would not recommend this hike to women who are 5 months pregnant unless you've done some serious backpacking. It is a lot of time on your feet and not very comfortable sleeping conditions. I do have to say-those thin mats seemed to get more comfortable each night! It's like magic!

Second-I would give the hike 5 days instead of three. Maybe even four would be okay. I'm a fairly slow hiker-even more so when I'm pregnant. If you are fast and in shape-like my brothers-in-law-you can pull of three days. We hiked all day with few breaks outside of lunch. And we hiked until dark-so it's pretty grueling. Give yourself at least 4 days!

Third-If you can-get a hotel the day you get out of the canyon. Don't try to drive 8 hours. It was long and we all swelled up from the knees down.

Overall-It was a fun, learning experience. I really did enjoy the backpacking. My group was very kind and often carried my pack for a ways to give me a rest. Either that or they just wanted me to move faster. Either way-I appreciate the help. I love you guys! Thanks to Sophie, the inspiration for getting me outdoors! She has enabled us to enjoy rock climbing, river rafting, and this awesome adventure! It's nice having her as a sister-in-law. She is also incredibly good with my children-who love her to death! Your awesome, Sophie!

A shout out to Mark and Lara Cook! They let me stay at their home in Boulder City, Nevada the night I flew into Vegas. Thanks for picking me up from the airport, Lara. You saved me a bundle in hotel and taxi fees! I owe you!

Sometime-I'll post some pictures of the new van we got in Vegas. I've enjoyed it so far. More about that later.....

Paria Death March!!!!!

So, what a trip! We went for quite a hike three weeks ago. If any of you have heard of Paria Canyon, that is where we went. We took the Wire Pass to Buckskin Gulch to the Paria River all of the way to Lee's Ferry. It is about 43 miles and you go from elevation 6300 to 3100. There are some sections that you can touch both walls and it goes up for hundreds of feet. We left on Wednesday night and drove Salt Lake and then the rest of the way down on Thursday. Erica met me, Morgan, Sophie, and Devin in Kanab with our new van she picked up in Las Vegas. It worked out pretty slick that she picked it up and we used it for our shuttle vehicle. We dropped one car at Lee's Ferry and drove around to the trailhead.

We started hiking about 6:40 pm on Thursday night and we made it to Lee's Ferry about 6:30 pm on Sunday night. So 43 miles in about 72 hours (which includes sleeping at eating time). It is pretty amazing. Wire Pass and Buckskin Gulch are really narrow slot canyons and then the Paria River widens out a little. A lot of the walking you do is slogging through mud. The last few miles is out of the slot canyon in a wider canyon which during August is about 95 degrees. We about cooked that last day. That was quite the site to see the Colorado River and go get in and take a bath. It felt so good. The water is really cold since it comes out of the bottom of Lake Powell not too far upstream. Even though it was so cold it was so refreshing to get the stink from 3 days of hiking off.

So it was quite the adventure. Sophie was worried that we would never go hiking with her again, but even though it was tough and we were slightly uninformed, we had a lot of fun. There is just something about spending time with close friends, especially when they are your brothers. Erica had never been backpacking before and she enjoyed it. It is fun to carry everything you need to survive on your back. We were always dead tired when we got to camp, but we found things to laugh at. What a blast! I am already looking forward to our next trip. It probably won't be quite as long though. I had started writing another entry but it was getting really long, and Erica said that no one would read it. My first thought was that people will read whatever I write, but then I thought about it and decided to give the shortened version. There are some interesting articles and trip logs if you search for Buckskin Gulch and Paria Canyon.

Hopefully this will motivate some of you to get outdoors and enjoy something. Before you go on this hike, I would recommend talking to someone who has done it recently, like us. I love being outside!

I don't know how else to describe it so I'll share some pictures. Enjoy!!! There are a lot, but we took a whole lot more. If you click on the picture you can see a bigger view of it and then just click back to finish looking at the rest.

Here we are at the trailhead just after we told Devin how far it was.

This is kind of the entrance to Wire Pass.

Our first camp, the morning after.

This is just somewhere with a picture of Morgan that I like.

This is just the way it is.

Group picture in Buckskin Gulch

We love our muddy feet!

I have no description for the awesomeness of this picture.

"We like short shorts!"

They don't help when the water is up to your waist though. This is just one of many mud holes in Buckskin Gulch.

Just follow the path Erica! It will lead you into more mud holes and eventually out of the canyon.

The Wall of Death, as Erica refers to it.

This is the confluence of Buckskin Gulch (to the left) and the Paria River (to the other left).

Camp the second night in Paria Canyon.

Some cool rock formations. The river cuts through these several times. It is interesting to think that I just looked at these a few mud holes ago.

I like these panarama shots at corners of the canyon.

Morgan found this bucket and was thinking of trying to float out instead of walking. If only, Morgan.

It would have beat the alternative of walking through this hole though.

Camp on the last night.

This is at the last spring before you enter the Burning Desert of Death section of the hike.

Devin was pretending to be the Grim Reaper. Morgan was volunteering I think.

Here is our fearless leader, Guru Sophie.

The Paria Canyon starts to widen out and it is kind of pretty.

Climbing through these boulder fields was almost as much fun as wading through knee deep mud along the river.

Lunch time. Devin was hoping a California Condor would come eat him. Right, Sophie?

Ah, the blessed end. The Colorado River at Lee's Ferry.

No comments here. It is what it is. We survived the Paria Death March.

I've got to post this before Matthew starts up....

So, we recently went on a backpacking adventure in southern Utah. Matthew is in the process of writing a day by day account. However, I still haven't posted about my triathlon-or team triathlon!

So-here we go! Sadly I don't have any pictures.

The team consisted of my sister-in-law Sophie-swim, myself-bike, and my mother-in-law-run. Last year Sophie did the whole triathlon by herself and I swam and we let Matthew bike for us. Okay-we made him. We kicked him off the team this year and Sophie was a competive swimmer in high school-so I moved to the bike. Serious bikers are amazing! I'm not one of them. Sophie let me borrow her road bike and a friend in the ward let me borrow her clipped riding shoes. More about that later.

We participated in the Rush Triathlon that takes place in Rexburg. We did the sprint distance. Sophie started us of with the swim in Rainbow lake, swimming a half mile in 20 minutes 47 seconds. (okay-somehow I just deleted everything I wrote after this-argh! I'll rewrite a condensded version) We transitioned nicely and I was on my way. I finished the 14 mile bike in 57 minutes and some odd seconds. I just closed the website with exact times. I made my goal of under an hour-but got passed so much that I realized how under prepared I was for this race! Oh well-I was wheezing after I finished-so I figured I must have given it my all. The transition to run was a little rocky, but Janean was off and blasted through the 5K under 23 minutes! There was only one other team participant that went faster than her! She's fast!

So-the rocky transition. I had just gotten the clipped shoes for the bike the night before the race and was out practicing with them at 11pm. I felt pretty comfortable gettting clipped in, but only managed to get one shoe out. I figured I could just undo the strap and run in with one shoe off. Well, as I approached the dismount area, I clipped out my left foot, and then clipped out my right foot! I was so excited that I'd be able to run in normal. I think this is what happened next-it was all a blur. I put all my weight back on my left foot to swing my leg over and get off the bike, and I fell! The only thing I can think is that I accidently clipped my left foot back in. Suffered minor scratches and bruising, and minor humiliation. Sophie eased my wounds-assuring me that I wasn't the first, nor the best fall to come in. That did make me feel better. Matthew got to the race about 15 seconds before I rode in-not enough time to get a picture before I fell. He did have the camera ready when I fell-but showed mercy and didn't take a picture. We didn't ever take a picture with the three of us-so no pictures. I did get a cool silver colored plaque thing.

Overall it was a very fun experience. Next year I'm thinking of tackling the whole thing by myself. We'll see how training goes with three kids!

That's all for now. Matthew will post our Paria canyon trip before too long.