The coolest rock!

We got back from a trip to Cedar City last week. My older sister comes with her family every summer for a month and we have started making it a tradition to go out to the desert somewhere with my dad. We caravan to the middle of nowhere and then load every extra body into the back of Grandpa's pick up truck and drive to the hard to get places. One year we did this in St. George when it was 108 degrees and some of the grandchildren have never forgotten or forgiven. We usually look at some native american rock art ( my dad's an archeologist). But this year we took two trips--one for rock hounding and one for rock art viewing.

Is this not the COOLEST rock? It's called banded opal. It's purple and yellow and white and clear and it's just SO cool!

Funny story-- My dad drove the truck away from the rest of us looking for a better rock spot.

Cash says "Why is Grandpa leaving us here?"

I say "He's not. He's just looking for a better place. Do you think Grandpa would really leave us here in the desert?"

Cash looks at the awesome hammer that he is holding and says "Well probably not. These ARE his tools we're using."

Lake Solitude

Last Friday I took the kids hiking. (Good Job reddirtgirl!) We hiked the trail to lake Solitude which starts at Brighton and goes for about 1.5 miles to the lake and then the same trail back. The kids were GREAT.

Sage did not say she was scared even once.

Cooper's informed me in a matter of fact way the he felt "like his ankles were going to break". ( We threw his shoes away when we got home. They were turning his feet in.)

And Cash kept saying "My legs are sure tired but I am just going to DRIVE ON. Right Mom?"

(We had a talk about what Johnny Cash says a few days before.)

All in all though, not a hike a would recommend for kids. It's pretty enough. The wild flowers were nice and there was some snow. The lake is a little anitclimactic--small and you can't get to the shore to throw rocks. The most exciting part was the very BOLD squirrels. As soon as they heard the crinkle of a Dorito bag they were withing 6 inches of us. We were good. We didn't feed them.

Summertime list

So far this summer we have done the following:

1) Dinosaur Musuem with Melanie and Kalli.

2) Children's Garden with Robin and her boys.

3) Camped and climbed at City of Rocks with Pam and her family. Cooper got to drive the car on the dirt roads for his birthday. He was amped.

4) Aquarium with Kendra and her kids.

5) Downtown library and Salt Lake Roasting Co. ( yummy pasteries).

6) Planetarium and fountains at the Gateway with Susan and Kendra (add a little Ben and Jerry's ice cream).

7) Cedar City for the 4th of July.

8) A couple of Movies and popcorn -- Wall E and and Kit Kitteridge The American Girl Movie.(This one was fun. I took Sage and Haley and their dolls. They were SO stinking cute.)

9) Lots of swimming. Lots of legos. Lots of snow cones. Lots of peeling kids off the couch and away from the TV and monitoring video game time.

I think that's it. Not a bad list except at the beginning of the summer I said I really wanted to get the kids out hiking once a week. Step it up, MR.

commitment to blog renewed

I am going to try a little harder to blog a little more. That doesn't really sound like a COMMITMENT does it. Anyway, I think I'll start by posting some old ones that I thought needed more editing and upon re reading them were not so bad. And then I think I'll not worry so much about editing and just write a little more.