Labor Day Weekend & Birthdays

On Labor Day weekend, we got together with my brother and his wife Katie to raft down the Weber River. We tried to start from the point explained online that was further up the river, but it turns out that it had been fenced off with signs posted that only fishers were allowed in there. No tubing or boating was allowed. We started from the lower point instead, which turned out to be just as well. Austin spent a lot of the ride in panic mode, afraid of...some danger not understood by anyone else there. It didn't help that we were terrible at steering the raft. There were also a number of rocks just below the surface of the water or just barely exposed above the water that we kept hitting. As we drove up, I had been concerned about our raft upon observing these rocky sections, and I suppose I had good cause to be concerned. Part way through our ride, the raft was obviously becoming full of water at the bottom. We stopped to check things out and found a number of large tears underneath. We were hardly in danger of sinking, but there was also no keeping the inside of the boat dry. I was pretty disappointed at the damage caused to our boat.

Other than that though, we had fun. Austin enjoyed sucking up water and squirting it out with our water toy, and the rest of us were getting better at steering by the end of the float.

We also celebrated Nate's birthday that weekend. We invited his family over for a BBQ at our house. As it turned out, his sister and most of her family didn't make it since they found out the night before that her husband had a brain tumor. (Since then, doctors were able to surgically remove it, thank goodness!) We ended up inviting my brother and his family over too to help us eat all our food.

Nate with his Boston Cream Pie Poke Cake

We celebrated Nate's birthday, as well as other September birthdays in my family the weekend before last at Allan's place. It was Abbie's first birthday, and Katie's family has a tradition of presenting one year old children with their own personal cake to rip apart. This was interesting to watch...Abbie started with carefully pulling off some sprinkles to eat, then some frosting, and finally actually dug into the cake itself, stuffing it into her mouth.

By the end it looked like she had a large brown smile painted on her face, much like a clown's white smile around his mouth. We decided though that we will definitely stick to a single cupcake with our kids...

I also made another cake. This time it was a Butterfingers Poke Cake. It was poked and then covered with caramel before being covered with cool whip and chopped Butterfingers. However, we unfortunately realized that the seal on our jar of caramel we had just purchased was already broken. Since it was Sunday, and we couldn't run to the store, I ended up making caramel for the cake too.

After cake there were some gifts. Abbie loved the Mother Goose toy she got that could talk and sing.

Nate was excited to get a mini deep fryer.

The way Austin is trying to imitate Nate in this
picture just makes me laugh!

My brother Nathan got some new music and DVDs to enjoy.

So, we were all able to go home happy and full afterward.

10/1/17 Update: This evening we gave Abbie one more gift for her birthday that I was not able to finish in time for the party. It took her awhile to be interested enough to look into the gift bag, but Austin volunteered to help her with the process. Once she got the gift out, she seemed happy with it.

Solar Eclipse

Since we were so close to the path of totality during the solar eclipse on August 21, we decided to drive north a bit to see it. Actually, we were almost scared off from our plans given the high expectations of traffic jams along the freeway. After a bit of research, we discovered the route to Idaho that we had planned to take would be the most direct route for the second largest population group within the United States. So, we adjusted our plans to drive along a bit further, but much less crowded route through Wyoming instead. We left at about 4:40 in the morning to avoid traffic as much as possible and made excellent time to Palisades Reservoir. We arrived tired, but in good shape, a couple hours before things started.

Since we had some time, Nate took a nap while I took Austin on a walk out to the water and around the area. The shores of the lake were swampy, but it was still a very scenic area.

After visiting the lake, we headed away from the lake walking along a dirt road. A short ways up it we noticed a large nest built up on a platform attached to a utility pole. A couple birds of prey were circling nearby, and a young bird peeked over the edge of the nest. Walking around the nest reveled there were actually two young birds. It turns out these were ospreys, and we spent a good while watching them and taking pictures. Eventually Nate woke up from his nap and joined us too.

After that we headed back, since the eclipse was just starting. We had fun watching the moon slowly roll over the sun until it was entirely covered. The less exciting part was using the smelly restroom...with the huge influx of people at the spot, there wasn't even any toilet paper left.

It was pretty crazy to observe the drop in temperature as the sun gradually disappeared. It was also wild to see how dark it became as the eclipse progressed into totality. We were ecstatic that we actually saw the shadow bands we had learned about before going! They appeared clearly on the sheet we had brought with us and laid out on the ground for that purpose just prior to and just after the totality, but the direction the band appeared to move it changed in between.

Our videos captured some of it, but it was even more pronounced in reality.

The totality itself was incredible to experience. We were so glad that we went to see it!

We were also incredibly glad that our trip home was quite smooth. With the exception of the first mile of the trip right as we left the lake, we had normal traffic speeds for the rest of our trip until we finally got back onto I-15 around Willard. But even that didn't last long, since we got off again soon and took back roads home. We arrived before dinner time. It was way better than the 8-11 hour drive we heard many had coming back along I-15 from Idaho. Having what is normally a 2-3 hour drive take that long sounded pretty miserable to us, and we were grateful we had taken a different route!

Davis County Fair

On Saturday, August 19, we decided to go to the Davis County Fair for a couple hours in the afternoon. We particularly enjoyed watching the sea lion show there. The sea lions did all sorts of tricks, from shaking "hands" with their flippers, catching rings on their necks, and doing flipper-stands. One of the sea lions could stand on one flipper.

After the show we let Austin play on the pirate ship playgrounds set up there. Then we stood in a long line so Austin could go on the free pony ride. He even ended up on his favorite pony in the group.

Next that, Austin convinced us to pay an exorbitant amount for a ride on a car merry-go-round of sorts.

Then we walked around observing various displays and booths. Austin liked spinning the prize wheels the frequented many of these booths. The fair turned out to be a fun afternoon family activity.

Visitor from Iowa - Part 2

Friday morning we broke up into two groups. Nate, Ben, my dad, and I set out to hike the Sulphur Creek Route. We knew that the afternoon would bring a flash flood danger, so we hurried to finish the trip that morning.

This turned out to be one of my favorite hikes I have ever done in Capitol Reef. It was really beautiful! It took us down through the bottom of the canyon we had viewed on a previous trip from Gooseneck Overlook and Sunset Point. Luckily, the water level didn't go up more than just past my knees in the deepest spot (sometimes it is so deep it requires swimming), and the climbs down the sides of the three small waterfalls in canyon were not difficult.

I loved viewing the sheer canyon walls rising above us in a rainbow of reds, purples, browns, blacks, oranges, and yellows. Splashing through the creek while the water flowed around my legs and feet felt refreshing. The pleasant little waterfalls and water cascades added further interest to the route.

First Waterfall

Second Waterfall

Third waterfall

Meanwhile, everyone else, including Austin, hiked from the bottom of the canyon behind the Visitor's center up to the last waterfall. Austin started out being afraid to walk through the water, but by the end he was loving the experience. He also enjoyed throwing sticks in the water to create a nice splash before they floated downstream.

After returning from their hike, everyone else visited some of the other historic sites around Capitol Reef. We met back up with them when we finished our hike and ate lunch together. Then Austin went to a program about Capitol Reef geology for kids and got his Capitol Reef Jr. Ranger badge and a geology patch.

Austin with his Jr. Ranger Badge and Geology Patch

We also took a picture of us being rangers, just for fun.

Then almost all of us went on one last hike to Hickman Bridge.

Relaxing at HIckman Bridge

Last time we hiked here, we were in a hurry and failed to go around the loop at the end of the trail, or stop by the Nels Johnson Natural Bridge. This time though, we didn't miss these points of interest. The views from the point around the loop were particularly fantastic.

View from view point along the trail

Another view from the view point

Austin at the Nels Johnson Natural Bridge

My aunts took us out for dinner that evening, and we all went home Saturday. It was a good trip though, and turned out to be nice temperature-wise since it was cooler at Capitol Reef than it was at home while we were gone. This was also the end of our time with my brother Ben, since he headed back to Iowa first thing Monday that next week.