A few more things....

6/15/10

Jeesh, it seems like I've had nothing but marathon posts lately.

Monday was day four of the Yoder family reunion (we skipped out on day three on account of Mark getting home at 4:00 am and we were all bushed). Madelyn had her very first dance lesson Monday morning, so we thought it was important enough to let her go to it. She has been begging for lessons for years.

Here she is styling her new leotard and skirt the other day:
(click to enlarge)

She put them on as soon as we got them in the mail and wore them for the rest of the day. Doesn't she look ADORABLE??? I love seeing her in her own little Mirella dancewear. :)

On her way to her lesson

Warming up

She had the best time. I'm so glad that we found a class for her during the summer.

Then we had to scurry on up to Pine Valley, where the Yoder family was having a picnic. Unfortunately....our stuff in Cedar City took so long that by the time we got up there, everyone had already come and gone. We missed them by about ten minutes.

Madelyn had time to climb a big rock before we left, but that was about it. I felt bad--it would have been a nice place to lunch and visit. Luckily we live close enough to it that we can go back. So we just went back to Hurricane and hung out with the small group that was left.

Luke's new favorite thing is to walk around while you hold his arms. Aunt Kathryn was helping him out.
(I'm not ready for him to walk!!)

Mom and Pop Yoder

Luke and his cousin Kirsten

Madelyn hanging with Will and Jake

We've all had enough excitement to last for a few weeks--hopefully we'll get to have a long stretch of lazy summer days for a while.

Adventures of the Yoder kind

6/13/10

Oy.

We are in the midst of a Yoder family reunion, which means Mark and "the boys" (he has six brothers, a couple brothers-in-law and a dozen nephews who are here) have to go out and do some manly stuff. In this case we all went to Snow Canyon, which was really great and fun, and then we went back to the cabin in Apple Valley for some dutch oven cookin' and loud, rowdy Yoder action.

Then Mark came up to me and asked if he could go look for petrified wood with his brothers-in-law Mike and Emil at Mike's top secret spot nearby. It was 7:00 pm and I said I wanted to leave by 8:00 because it's an hour drive back to Cedar City and we both had lessons to prepare for church. He said he'd maybe be gone an hour and a half to two hours.....

Skip ahead to 10:00 pm when Mark was STILL not back, it was pitch dark out, and nobody had any clue where the guys were. Then Frank (Mark's dad) got a hold of them and found out that they were stranded on top of a mesa and would hopefully be back "in an hour". I decided to leave for home with the kids and let Mark find his own dang way home.

Skip ahead to nearly 2:00 in the morning--I finally got a phone call. Mark was still on the mountain, on his way down now. His brother John was kind enough to drive him from the cabin all the way back up to Cedar, where he was going to stay the night with us. I got that text at 3:00 am and got up to go find bedding and the air mattress in the garage because more than likely Mark would come wake me up anyway asking where the stuff was (raise your hand if you think I deserve bonus points for this). They finally made it home at almost 4:00 am.

Uuuuuugggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...........

What happened is that what normally would have been a short jaunt up a steep, scary, winding dirt road was that it rained and hailed a ton yesterday, so at one point Mike's Jeep (with a trailer attached!) started sliding off the road in the mud. Of course there was a sheer cliff just inches away. So they had to get out and attach their winch to a boulder so they could scooch on up the road.

They found a ton of petrified wood in like 15 minutes, but instead of coming back down the way they went, they spent the next six hours or so trying to continue on in hopes of coming across a road that leads to Kolob (the northwest part of Zion National Park). Apparently they are supposed to intersect, but their road just kept getting narrower and more boulder-filled. They blew a tire at one point on a tree stump. Finally they had to turn around and go back the way they came.

Am I the only one in thinking that a Jeep and a GPS gives some people a false sense of security???

The miraculous thing is that none of these men were murdered by their wives (or Mark's mom) when they finally made it back.

ANYWAY, we had our fill of excitement and stayed home today instead of going back to Hurricane for more family togetherness. Tomorrow we're headed to Pine Valley Mountain and hopefully nobody will get any more crazy ideas.

I took over a hundred pictures while we were in Snow Canyon, but I narrowed them way down for you. It is such a gorgeous place.

Luke loves to be outside

Madelyn's got a juice box, Lammie strapped on, and she's ready to go.

Down into the lava tubes

Nooo, I didn't go down there. It was not very baby friendly. Luke and I stayed a good 20 feet away because standing by the edges of things makes me nervous.

Madelyn and her favorite Yoder uncle, James

We were really fortunate that the weather was in the 70's. (It was 105° there last week.) There were big storm clouds but we didn't get rained on where we were. Hurricane and Apple Valley got dumped with rain and hail.

Paul and Nikki doing a climb

David and Sally

My niece Aubrey on Circus Wall (her first climb!)

The clan

Madelyn inherited some sort of Yoder mountain goat gene that is noticeably absent from my side of the family...

"Hi, Mom!"

Then on the way out, we passed by Red Mountain Spa, where I did massage for two years. It's right outside the entrance of the park and has the most beautiful grounds I have ever seen. We really do live in a special part of the world.
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Now if Mark ever wakes back up, I'm getting some popcorn and chocolate and we're watching the chickiest chick flick I can find! I am done with this macho business!

Back yard phase I

6/11/10

Get ready for a lot of dirty pictures! Haha.

This is our back yard. Isn't it lush?!!

This is what the ground looks like. Dry, brittle clay and rocks.

Shovels are kind of useless. Mark and his pickax have become close friends.

Here's what he came across while digging sprinkler trenches.

The plan is to get some sod, plants, flowers, trees, a play area and some nice landscaping gravel back there.

A couple weeks ago we had a dumptruck of topsoil delivered...

Madelyn was in hog heaven.

This stuff you could shovel, so shovel Mark did...

And shovel and shovel and shovel and shovel.
He said, "My arms are killing me."
Madelyn helped. In her underwear.

Luke cheered daddy on

Oh, good she found some shorts...

Plop

Inspecting the hole for the dry well

The sprinkler project

We have water! And.....mud. Which of course caked onto everything and got tracked all over the house. I looove my back yard.

Pretty dang exciting, huh. Hopefully in the coming weeks I will have more to show you. Like some actual green out there. This "beige no more" project ain't just for the inside of the house!