Waterfalls and Ghost Towns

While Tyson had the opportunity to spend yesterday at the Monticello Temple with youth from around the SW Colorado area. After working in the temple, they assembled hygiene kits as part of a humanitarian project.  That was followed by an opportunity for flirting socializing. He had a great time.

Meanwhile, Paige and Cody spent the day with Kayla and Everett Cranmer exploring the nether regions of western Colorado. Kayla and Everett love the Naturita-Nucla-Norwood area and know every nook and cranny. So along with their two dogs, Georgia and Tinker, we played in waterfalls along La Sal Creek, 4-wheeled narrow canyons, and checked out an old mining ghost town.  No ghosts were found ... but the remains of a copper mining operation were amazing. 

For pictures of the waterfalls, ghost towns, and more ... click here.

Paige comes out of a mining tunnel ... with no spiders!

Kayla and Paige ... Cody and Everett (and Georgia)

Paige sitting behind a spring fed waterfall.

An old well (the non-wishing kind) in an abandon ghost town.

Exploring the abandon mining operations.

Camping ... Finally!

Finally ... after a two-year hiatus, our family was finally able to enjoy all the thrills of a camping trip! Yea! We headed over to Hovenweep National Monument for 3 days/2 nights of camping and hiking. That's the great thing about living where we do ... because you can go and enjoy places like SE Utah this time of year when there's too much snow in the mountains still ... and then this summer, you enjoy the mountains when places like Hovenweep would be just too darn hot to even think about!

Hovenweep National Monument is one of the few places within the park system that allows you to bring your dog. So Kallie got to go on all of the trails with us. She didn't care much for the ancient ruins, but she loves smelling every sage brush that she came across ... and there were plenty of them! Altogether she hiked 4-5 miles on her old "grandma dog" legs. She's slept ever since she's been home.

Quick! While It's Running!

Ty's RC Nitro Gas Engine car spends more time "in the shop" than it does running. He'll run it till either runs out of gas or breaks a part ... and it's usually the latter. Then he hops online, finds the part he needs, orders it, and then patiently checks the mail every day.  The car runs on nitro gas, which puts the price of gas that we pay in perspective - after all, his costs $15 a quart! That's a lot of floor sweeping around the house! But during one of those rare moments when his car WAS running, we got some video of it at his request ... just to show you how cool of a car it really is.

We're Alive and Well

Hopefully you don't use our family blog status as a way of telling whether or not we're alive or dead ... as it's been a few weeks since we last posted. But rest assured, we are alive AND well.
So what have we been up to? Let's see ...
Paige has been busy maintaining order in the house, as well as doing a little plumbing. Our medicine cabinet is directly above the porceline sink and one morning, Tyson accidently dropped a glass bottle of after shave into the sink. He was relieved that it didn't break. What he didn't realize was that the sink did crack into several hairline fractures. D'oh! But good thing we have a Paige in the house to replace it with a new one. Yea for Paige!

Who knew that the replacement part from Home Depot would only cost $35?

Tyson on the other hand has taken up track as a way to divert his attention away from computers and electronics. But some things never change. He sold an old toy on eBay and got enough money to buy a new Android phone. As soon as he learned that it had sold, he texted Paige 12 times from school wanting to be taken out of school early and head straight to the AT&T store in Cortez. That didn't happen, but he did eventually get his new phone.

Laptop? Cell Phone? So long as it has an on/off switch!

Cody spent six straight weeks traveling on business ... Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Alabama, Logan UT, Kansas City, and Seattle WA. Whew! But while he was gone the weather warmed up and he took off for a camping/photography trip to Arches National Park. You can see a photo slideshow here.

Good enough to be on the front of the Utah license plate.

It's springtime in the Rockies which means we're heading outdoors. We'll post more ... and that will help you know that we're alive and well.

Mini Home Videos

We updated a bunch of our home videos from the past couple of years and posted them online for your viewing pleasure. They're short ... .almost like mini-clips.  You can see them by clicking here. The first 20 videos shown are the most recent. Enjoy!

Running on Nitro

When Tyson celebrated his 15th birthday a few weeks ago, he got a coupon from Mom and Dad to either go snowmobiling for 2 hours or snowboarding for the day.  He eagerly chose snowmobiling ... but then we ran into a problem: You have to be 16 to drive your own snowmobile. Obviously, sitting behind Dad on a snowmobile for 2 hours wasn't going to cut it. So after some deliberation, the Parental Advisory Council decide to apply the money that would have been spent on the snowmobiling adventure and help the boy purchase an RC Nitro "gas engine" car. Well, it arrived the other day and since then, he's had all kinds of fun driving it up and down the street, into snow banks, and more. He loves being able to fine tune the engine and make tweaks here and there. We always thought he'd have to get a job when he was 16 to pay for gas for his car ... at $15 for a quart of nitro, he'll need a job long before he's 16.

Yes ... there's normally a cover that goes on top that makes it look like a race car/truck.

Personal favorite ... click to see the bigger version of this one. :]

The Thick of Winter

There are those days in July when you feel like you're in the thick of summer.  Then there are those days in January when you feel like you're in the thick of winter.  That's where we're at now ... the thick of winter ... and it finally feels like it too with the 6-8" of snow we got last night. Below are some random pictures from the past couple of weeks of "winter."

Jeffery keeps tabs on the morning's activities outside.

Paige settles in for a long, winter's nap.

Jeffery ... looking "fluffy."

The Rico Hotel in Rico, CO ... an overnight getaway for Paige & Cody.

The warm and cozy lobby of the Rico Hotel.

Cody and his truck up La Plata Canyon (before the snow came).

Dirty? Yes. New battery installed? YES!