Zion Nat'l Park

Warning, lots and lots of photos to follow! Bucky has been working a ten day on, four day off schedule for the last two months, so Ty and I decided to head down to southern Utah last weekend during the middle of the 10 days. We got to see Bucky at night, and enjoy the sights during the day. We focused mostly on Zion National Park about 30 minutes from Kanab where we were staying. The park is breathtakingly beautiful, and may just be my favorite nat'l park so far. I was hoping to do more hiking, but Ty preferred to explore instead of riding on my back. We did get in a couple mile hike each morning, and Ty even did some pretty decent hiking. It was a great long weekend, and I'm looking forward to the fall when the weather cools off to get some more hiking in down there.

We've been enjoying the transistion to summer, complete with afternoons at the Splash Pad and watermelon. Our garden is doing well both at home and at our plot in the new local community garden (hopefully pics coming soon of that). Ty is obsessed with radishes, and pulls out all the radishes before they are full grown. The sight of him running towards me with a freshly pulled radish in hand is too precious. He's going to be a nightmare once the tomatoes are fruiting!


Yummy




















The first afternoon back at the splash pad












Ty helped me open my new camera!







































































This may be one of my favorite shots of Ty ever

















Hiking along, bringing me back a pine cone






































The views from our trail



























Prickly pear cactus













Snacking after our hike at the visitor's center


















More views...











We went to a chuckwagon cookout in Kanab one night. Totally touristy, but too good not to join in. We "acted" out a movie scene aka were complete tourists.

This is Bucky and Mike the coyotes...









The scene













Ty and I were Indians (I'm so glad I am teaching my son these lessons...ick!)












The entire Sagebrush Consultants crew in their get-ups.












Words can not describe this photo













Back in Zion the next morning













Our hike took us above the mile long tunnel to get from the east entrance of the park into Zion Canyon.











At the beginning of the hike (you can see the guardrails above if you enlarge the pic)

















The morning sun was creaping through the slots into the side canyons.


















A gorgeous Juniper tree


















My hiking companion :)


















Gorgeous shots from the trail

















At the end of the trail, with the massive Zion Canyon unfolding below us.












Didn't actually get a good shot down of the canyon.











Sunday afternoon we visited Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab. The 3800 acre sanctuary is just the most incredible well run and inspiring animal "shelter" I have ever seen. They are no-kill and have rehabed thousands of animals in their 25 years. They house all companions animals; cats, dogs, bunnies, pigs, horses, burros, and birds. They do outreach across the country and are no branching off internationally. It was such an inspiring afternoon.
This is their welcome center.





They had a beautiful Koi pond outside the welcome center.












The sanctuary occupies Angel Canyon, so there were always incredible views.












We went on their 1.5 hour driving tour (yes, it's that big!). This is outside of one of many of the dog houses.













The outdoor portion of one of the cat houses. We visited FeLV positive cats who all were housed together and all were very happy and sweet! Ty was in heaven.

Finally Warm Weather!

Warm weather has finally decided to stick around. We've been spending a lot of time outside in the garden and our veggies have taken off. Last weekend we built a sandbox for Ty that has been a big hit. Nothing too new to report, just enjoying the gorgeous weather!!



Helping me in the yard


















Story time

















What's that he's wearing? Oh yes, Ty broke into the laundry and came out modeling!!


















Pretty proud of himself...


















Silly!



















We helped celebrate Sasha's first birthday last week














Party hats

















Ty is pretending to share Sasha's birthday presents with her.

Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day everyone! It's hard not to enjoy such a beautiful day we have here. Spring has finally come, and it looks like summer is right around the corner. We went from snow showers to 70's in just a weekend.



Ty in his best on cue, cheesy smile
















Our family has worked hard the last few years to minimize our impact and carbon footprint. We've made some big changes, and have a few more big goals as well. We have:

Switched our family to cloth wipes for cleaning, as well as cloth dipes and wipes for Ty
Almost all our cleaning products are made from vinegar, water, lemon juice, or baking soda
If we can't make it, purchased cleaning products are petroleum free/made from renewable resources.
Switching all our 'beauty' products to homemade
We eat about 95% organic, and hope to make that 100% with the food we grow this summer, reducing pesticides, herbicides, and synthetic fertilizers.
We've started to eat locally and seasonally (quite the process), and will hopefully preserve most of our winter fruits and veggies from our garden or the farmer's market.
We buy all our milk from a local farmer, straight at the dairy. He treats his cows ethically and with proper nutrition, and we are able to make almost all our dairy products from that milk.
We conserve water as much as we can in our desert environment (and the results is a near dormant lawn in the summer!)
We drive intelligently, combining errands, fuel efficient cars, and walk when we can.

In the near future we're hoping to: buy a bike with a trailer for errand running (Ty will LOVE that!)
Hopefully succeed with my bigger garden this year, and make a cold frame by the time fall arrives.
Finish replacing our old appliances with energy efficient models.
Try to replace my car with a more efficient model in the next couple years (we have our eye on an electric car coming out!)

So inspire me and others, what are you doing to reduce your footprint?

Eggs, Bunnies, Dinos, Oh My!

What a weekend we had! Our city holds a great Easter Egg hunt every year where they stuff 20,000 (!!) eggs. They even divide the areas by age, and the eggs were still gone in less than 90 seconds. I'm going to enjoy the fact that Ty just wanted to puts eggs in other kid's baskets because I know it won't always be like this. I'm even wondering if next year he'll be so generous! After the South Ogden egg hunt, we headed over to the dino park for another hunt. We got there early enough to hang out with the dinos and Ty was in love. Now that the weather is warming up I see a membership to the park in our future. What a great way to spend a morning.

After two eggs hunts, me driving an hour south of here to practice agility, and dinner with friends on Saturday night, we happily enjoyed a day at home Sunday. The weather was fabulous and we played outside most of the day. Peas, onions, lettuce, radishes, chives, spinach, cabbage, and swiss chard are up in the garden. Tomato and cuke seedlings are up in the house. I know spring is here but we keep getting teased with gorgeous weather and then bouts of snow. Hopefully the predicted snow showers this week will be our last for the season!


Sporting his favorite jammies and playing with dinos from the Pennsylvania easter bunny.

















Checking out his new dino shirt (thanks Hammah and Poppop!)













Another easter bunny and despite this hilarious expression, Ty loved him. He can say bunny now (it sounds like bunn-ay) and had a hard time standing in line while yelling bunny!















Ty's easter egg hunt field. So many eggs, and luckily the city recycles the eggs each year. :)













Trying to wait patiently for the hunt to begin.



















About to start...


















The loot!


















A huge croc skull at the dino museum













Checking out the easter bunnies


















A few of the 100+ replicas













My favorite



















Nice view!













Uncovering some dino eggs



















More eggs




































The playground was of course equipped with many riddable dinos.

Baby Animal Days

Every spring time a living history museum about an hour north of here puts on their Baby Animal Days and despite a cold and rainy day, we went and enjoyed all the baby farm animals. Ty pet bunnies, goats, sheep, cows, horses, donkeys, snakes, turtles, and puppies! He got to go on a pony ride (absolutely wonderful for him, especially when the pony sneezed!), we went on a wagon ride, and even saw the Easter Bunny. What a morning!


Ty thought the Easter Bunny was too cool

Our wagon ride, with a view of fresh snow on the mountains













Jenn and Pete














Mr. Serious on the pony ride, this is after his round of giggles from the sneezing pony.













Meeting a baby Lopp Bunny