Sunday, September 26, 2010

Exploring Utah

In 2009 Hi-Mountain Drug in Kamas was voted the best burger in Utah. Guess what? They won again in 2010! It just so happens that it's my friend Gennifer's family that owns it. I have been wanting to go for some time. We finally made it up there this weekend. 

We started our day in Park City at the outlets. We did some returns, pick up a couple of things and then headed to Kamas. 


 Paul and I both got the gonburger (Is that right Gen?) It has bacon, cheese, BBQ sauce and onions rings on it. Hello! It was totally delicious. Check this baby out. 


The kids really liked their cheeseburgers too.


Check out that drip of sauce. This is not a dainty burger. Yum! 


It was great to see Gennifer again. It had been way too long. 


The drug store was so fun. The kids were thrilled that they could shop for toys, candy, pocket knives etc. while waiting for their food. They were in heaven. This place took me back to my childhood. I remember when we would camp near Chester, Ca. we would go into town and there was a drugstore there that served milkshakes. It was fun to "go back in time."


Andrew got some Cowboy and Indians that are like army men, but not. Emma got some Disney magnet dress-up dolls that I secretly wanted but I opted for these earrings instead. I loved the colors and couldn't leave them behind. The only negative was that we ate too much and there wasn't room for ice cream. 


After our late lunch we headed to Mirror Lake. The Aspens were turning yellow and copper but we had missed the red leaves. It was still stunning. 


There weren't many trees like this but there were some. I had never seen Aspens this color. It was gorgeous. 


The whole area heading to the lake was open range for cattle. We saw a lot of cows.


Finally we made it to Mirror Lake at dusk. It was smaller than I had imagined but absolutely breathtaking. It was really cool up there too (It was 57 degrees) which was nice since it has been close to 90 lately.





They have this cool walk way to walk on. We walked almost half way around before heading back. We saw fish jumping, tiny fish or tadpoles (they moved so fast and it was rather dark making it difficult to know for sure what they were) and chipmunks on our walk.



On our way home we saw a sign for the Provo River falls. Paul zoomed past and I looked out over my shoulder and caught a glimpse. I said we had to go back and he obliged. It was so worth stopping. 


We could climb all around the falls and along the river. We were bounding around the rocks like mountain goats. The kids were having a blast throwing rocks, exploring and checking out all the different falls. It was like the best water feature you could ever imagine. It was so perfect it was hard to believe it was real. I used the rocks as my tri-pod and played around a bit. It was gorgeous! Did I already say that? ;) This picture below is another set of falls further down the river.




See Andrew down there? This gives you an idea of how large this part of the falls was. I loved the sound there too. I am wishing I had taken a picture down the gorge but I didn't. We walked down quite a ways and it was one fall after the other. Absolutely glorious. 



As we were coming out of the canyon we hit some "traffic". It was like the cows thought they owned the road. We made it home pretty late but it was so worth it. I love discovering the treasures that we have in our backyard. 


Emma Turned 12!!!

I can not believe it has been 12 years since Emma was born. She is such an important part of our family and we are so thankful to have her. 

She has been counting down the days to this birthday since Girl's Camp. She has been so excited to join the Young Women's Organization. On the flip side, she's been totally ready to be out of primary. Today was the primary program at church. She was beyond thrilled that she did not have to participate. Her birthday was just in the time. 

Friday morning I asked if Emma wanted anything special for breakfast. She asked for pancakes. 


Paul and I then went to the Junior High and checked her out so she could go out to lunch. She wanted In-N-Out so that's where we went.


 After lunch my mom and I ran to get her balloons and some wrapping paper. We wrapped everything so  it was all ready when she got home.


Emma had to wait until dad came home before she could open any presents. That was hard for her. 


Once Paul got home I let her open a little gift. I had gotten this ring at Bath and Body Works while we were shopping there together. She totally wanted it while we were there but didn't have enough money so I bought it on the sly. It had been quite while ago and had it sitting in my purse for forever. I swear I thought she had found it but she says she didn't. I told her this is the only time a fish face picture was acceptable. 


We went to Iggy's for dinner. Emma got a Pina Colada and a grown-up meal.



 I had put up some decorations before she came home.


The loot. 


She got Young Women Value pencils


Some perfume.


Make-up


A Webkinz Owl 


Some Ugg knock-offs


She got a journal, clothes, blanket, pumpkin bread (she asked for it) and a glitter toes certificate amongst other things.

She asked for a chocolate cake from Magelby's that is so rich and dense. Yum! 


Overall she had a great birthday. She was upset when she found out we almost got her a cell phone but didn't. We just don't think she needs one or is quite ready yet. We are so mean! 


When we got home last night we found this waiting for her from the Beehives. Today she got kidnapped from Primary and introduced into Young Women's at church and she couldn't have been happier.  

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Autumn 2010

Monday night we went into the canyon for our annual autumn pictures. 

It was interesting.

We decided not to have dinner up in the canyon. I didn't want to rush through pictures so we could start a fire and eat. Also I couldn't stand the thought of eating a hot dog or gathering everything we would need while trying to get everyone ready. Unfortunately the kids were not happy about that. Emma held a grudge all evening.

On the way up we hit and killed a squirrel that was playing frogger. I felt terrible but there was no way to avoid it.

My sweater, that I had never worn, that still had the tags on it, had big moth holes, right on my boob. I don't know how I didn't see it when I was laying things out or steaming it, but I didn't. I wore it anyway. Thank goodness for the clone stamp tool in Photoshop.

The leaves weren't quite ready. The red leaves (Just so we're clear I go in the canyon for RED leaves not yellow.) were still up high on the sides of the mountain. They weren't down by the river yet.

I wore high heeled boots with the hopes of looking taller and leaner. (Ha!) Climbing hillsides, walking through dust, dirt, gravel and underbrush in heels in not easy. It's also not good for my nice shoes but we made it to some of the red leaves. At least I didn't have to worry about getting holes in my sweater!

Want to see the fruits of our labor? 350 + pictures later and this is the best we got. (Unless otherwise stated these are all straight out of the camera) One of these years I need leave the tri-pod and remote at home, suck it up and hire a photographer.

(Feeling Blue? The color is so off in these next two.)


(Ah, a little warmer)


I love this one. There was a pretty cold wind and she was getting chilly. She grabbed onto her daddy to get warm. I thought it was cute so I just said "hey" and snapped this.

Here it is 70's style.



This is the response I got when I told Andrew I wanted to take a few more pictures with him. NOOOO!

Then he started screwing around.




These are grainy because I opted for Auto and it picked an ISO that was higher than I like. 






After we were done we ate cookies from Paradise Bakery while hanging around Mutual Dell. 


I really like this one of my soon to be 12 year old.