Let the exploring begin!

While I met my friend Cherstyn's mom for lunch (a delightful and wise woman!) Geoff took the girls to Snow's Canyon to do some exploring.


The spent a good deal of time at the sand dunes...


and met some friends who were also interested in digging holes...


Later they wanted to "scale rocks"...


It was pretty steep! They found names carved in the rock by early pioneer settlers. Look at those dates!




We all met up for lunch, including my mom, and went to the Mountain Meadow Massacre site.

The girl's wanted to walk the 1.5 miles from the grave site to the viewpoint to "warm up" for the weeks ahead

The massacre was a sobering tale with so many questions left unanswered. We spent some time painting the beautiful valley and writing in our travel journals.

The valley down below is where the wagon party was camping

On the way home we stopped at my uncle Brett and his wife Cindy's home. Her horses were eating dinner and the girls were so excited to assist...

"Hurry! This hay is heavy!"

When I was 11 years old, or so, I was in a movie called "Dream Chasers". I played a waitress in a little cafe, and had a speaking part interacting with the main character. I got paid about $1000! I felt famous! We went to the premier excited to see me in the big screen but soon realized they had completely cut my part out! (Hence, my acting career never took off...) That didn't stop my royalty checks from coming. I got checks for about 10 years totally another $800 at least!

Well, tonight we passed the little "cafe" site and stopped for some chili and ribs. It hadn't changed much!


Needless to say we were pooped when we got home tonight!

Nevada Desolation

Yesterday after eleven hours of Nevada desolation and major wind we arrived in St. George.

Dust storms brought us to 10MPH

We had to stop twice for wild steer crossing the highway and Adele was thrilled to see wild mustangs along the way. But most interesting was a bathroom stop in a town along "The Extraterrestrial Highway" that looked completely deserted, except for an old bar with a blinking 'open' sign.


As the girls ran for the bathrooms I asked a few people sitting at the bar (Where in the world did they come from!?) why the highway was called "The Extraterrestrial Highway". They looked at me like I was from Mars. After a pause one said, "Because Area 51 is just 8 miles from here." I looked at her blankly. Area 51? Responding to my blank stare she said, "You know, the top secret military base." Top secret military base? I was racking my brain to make some connection to "The Extraterrestrial Highway". The man behind the bar said, "This is the place they brought the UFO that crashed in New Mexico in the 1960s. I have a whole notebook of people who have seen them. I've never seen one, though." He handed over a full binder of testimonials, going back to the 60s. "Oooh," I said, like I knew what the heck they were talking about. There were actual photographs wallpapering the wall of UFOs seen around the world: in Brazil, Switzerland, Japan, etc. Apparently, believers of aliens make pilgrimages to this place. And Area 51? Good thing we didn't take a wrong turn because if you get close to the gate "deadly force is authorized"!



Naps and settling in were on the agenda today, although we did go to lunch to see my brother Mitch, his wife Joann and their son, Tag.


Luckily more of them to come...

Big road trip ahead!

Tomorrow we are heading out on a five-week road trip. It has been sort of a hairy one to pack for! Our dear friend/art teacher, Dana Solomon, offered to have the girls to her house for the afternoon, and since her house is a child's wonderland the girls could hardly believe their good fortune! I thought they would come home and be full of tales of all of the interesting things they saw and did (and they did mention a few), but what I heard most was, "I can't get enough of Dana Solomon!" It is true, it really is hard to get enough of this remarkable woman.


Our first stop is my mom's home in St. George, Utah!

Narnia!

After months of rehearsals the girls finally performed their musical, Narnia, this weekend. They look forward to the shows with so much anticipation, and can't sleep or concentrate during the entire week of the performances. Then...after a flurry of long days and late nights it is over. We're all ready for a three day nap!

Lucky for us, Geoff's mom watches the show through the lens of her camera. I sifted through hundreds of pictures and picked out a few to show the girls in action. Tennie was Dwarf Nero, the White Witch's right hand man. The bad Narnians were called "Cruelies". It was fun watching Tennie try to be mean! Adele was the Moonbeam Fairy, and Ceci was the Greenleaf Fairy, both good Narnians.

Enjoy the show!

My dad and his wife, Babs, came from Utah to see the girls

(My dad is always trying to sneak into other people's pictures)

Way to go little starlets!

A sampling of Ceci's art at six

Ceci cleaned out her bin this past week and I picked out a few samplings of the reams-worth of drawings. I think they are wonderful, of course! Enjoy.

Girls and their ages

A page out of a kid's clothing catalog

A house. These drawings of houses are almost identical to houses I loved to draw as a young girl!

These are orphans. I love how she named one "Mystical".

That is a lot of flossing!

A Kangaroo Princess with her kangaroo (Ceci's favorite animal)

General Conference Weekend!

General Conference for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was this past weekend. We enjoyed two full days of inspiring messages and fun traditions.

Making tiramisu (and I made my first delicious gluten-free baguettes!)

The girls enjoyed breaks with Pop Pop on the trampoline (Pop Pop is a VERY good sport!)

Grown-ups ALWAYS tire of a game before the children...

Mormor taught Adele how to hand sew a baby doll blanket to keep her occupied while listening.

And Ceci tucked Kipper into pillows, blankets and robes and treated him like a King so he was comfortable while listening too. Kipper expressed gratitude with lots of kisses...

Another week whizzing by...

I'm holding on tight, comforted to know that soon the madness will end...

A few photos from the week:

How can you resist taking a picture when your kids come into the kitchen like this?

Or later when they come in with attitude saying they're playing "college girls with boyfriends who wear saggy pants". They had to tie their Rottweilers up before dinner...

Or fun projects with Mormor...

Today Geoff's mom treated us to a day in Nevada City (a nearby quaint Gold Mining Town) to see a great performance of The King and I, have lunch on a shady patio, and get a scoop of ice cream to eat while window shopping; with perfect Spring weather to boot!


The cherry on top of our week is Geoff's arrival from Boston this evening!