Spring Painting

We had a lot of fun yesterday. Breezy and her friends splatter painted Seth's room, and Jan & I painted the family room and kitchen. We did it all in one day. Pretty amazing!

April 2009

We had quite an eventful April. In reverse order, because I forgot that the first pictures you download appear last - we attended the baby blessing of Nickolas Jensen (the second son of our friends Erik & Kari). I flew to California to attend the outdoor wedding of my stunning niece Kimmy Miller. It was a beautiful wedding. Earlier, Summer and Tyler came to celebrate the wedding of one of her best friends, Jenney Tenney. They enjoyed the wedding, but were glad to get back to the warmth of Arizona. Why? Because it snowed while there were here, and Breezy had her first soccer game of the Spring. A few inches of snow on the ground didn't stop her.

Arches National Park

Jan and I made a weekend trip to Arches National Park. As soon as Jan got off work at 1:30 p.m. we jumped in the car and took off for Moab. I wanted to get pictures of Delicate Arch with the late afternoon sun on it. We made it to Arches about 5:00 p.m. and hurried to the Delicate Arch trailhead. It's a 1.5 mile hike out to Delicate Arch with a 450 foot elevation gain, and we had less than an hour to get there. As you can see from the pictures, we made it with plenty of time to spare, although clouds were covering the sun. Jan has been walking 3 miles every day, and you could really tell she was in shape. I was glad we made the effort to get there Friday afternoon.

We stayed the night in Moab, and then came back to Arches the next morning. It was cloudy, but the weather forecast hadn't said there would be any rain, so we drove out to Devil's Garden and were going to make a 4.5 mile hike out to Double O Arch. We made it a little past half way when suddenly the clouds came rushing over us, hail started to fall, lightning flashed, thunder roar and echoes, and we were climbing on slickrock. It was really scary. You can see the before and after pictures of Landscape Arch. We very carefully hiked back off the slickrock to our car, grateful to make it safely. We thought we might be able to wait out the storm, but it just kept coming down, so we finally gave up and left for home. It was truly amazing to see and hear Mother Nature change so drastically so quickly. It was truly a wonderful adventure.

I saw these mallard ducks swimming on the water on my pool cover, and thought it odd that two females would be together without any males. Then i noticed that the beaks were different, and did some research to discover that duck with the yellow bill is the male in "eclipse plummage". I went to the website http://10000birds.com/the-eclipse-plumage.htm to get this explanation:

"Different groups of birds have evolved different “moult strategies”: raptors, for example, replace body feathers and wing feathers in a set order and over several years; many passerines (eg thrushes) keep their wing feathers into the second year of life but replace their body feathers in the first year. Ducks, though, shed most of their feathers twice each year, and in mid-summer most male ducks moult from the bright and colourful breeding plumage into a drab, female-like “eclipse plumage”. The reason for this is that ducks have a rapid but complete moult after breeding, dropping both body and wing feathers, and for a few weeks are completely flightless. Temporarily unable to escape predators by flying away, many male ducks have opted to do what the females do for most of the year and merge safely into the background (or, like eg Shelducks, gather in large flocks offshore or in the middle of large lakes.)"

Witnie's blessing dress & booties

Our newest granddaughter will be born soon to Mark and Kristie in Houston, and this is the blessing dress and booties that my very talented wife has been knitting for the past month. They are so intricate and beautiful. She will look great in them.

Road Trip to Mesa Verde & Southern Utah

Vaughn and I took a great trip to Mesa Verde National Park and Southern Utah on the 6th, 7th & 8th of February. Mesa Verde is preserving the Ancestral Pueblo Indian cliff dwellings. Because it was winter, much of the Park was closed to us, but we were still able to see some amazing cliff dwellings. There were also Petroglyphs, with a possible explanation of what the petroglyphs might mean according to some Native American experts.

We left Mesa Verde and drove to Four Corners, taking a picture of us in 4 states simultaneously. We also saw some amazing Navajo jewelry and art. We then drove to Monument Valley, which is where all of the great desert scenery was taken. We were in awe as we drove through that landscape. Literally we drove for hours and hours through hundreds of miles of amazing redrock canyons and monuments and spires and cliffs. We felt very small indeed, and amazed once again at God's marvelous creations.

After Monument Valley we stayed at the San Juan Motel on the banks of the San Juan River in Mexican Hat, Utah. In the morning we went to the Mexican Hat Branch for Sacrament Meeting. They had dearth of priesthood holders that morning, so Vaughn helped bless the sacrament, and I was the only one passing the sacrament to the 25 people who attended the service. It was great to feel such a strong spirit in that desolate part of the world.

We made a short stop at the Goose Necks of the San Juan, where the San Juan River has carved out an amazing twisting path that curves back on itself many times. I wish I had a wide angle lense to get the whole thing in one shot. The picture included here does not do it justice. It was truly an amazing sight.

Finally we went to National Bridges National Monument, where water has created some gigantic bridges. The one shown here is the smallest, but the only one where we went all the way down and got a good shot of it.

We had an amazing trip. I am grateful to have a good friend to share such experiences with, and grateful to a merciful God who is such a fabulous artist.