An Active Week and Bear Lake Too.

At the beginning of the summer, Dad and I decided that we wanted to have a more active life.  We decided we wanted to do some hiking, pickle ball and kayaking, and hopefully to do one activity a week.  However, until this week we had played pickle ball once, gone kayaking once, and that was it for the whole three months of  'summer'.  This week we managed to go hiking together and to go kayaking together as well.  We may be a bit late, but hopefully we are on our way to a more active partnership. Having a family and friends who are becoming more active is definitely having a good influence on us.

On Monday Dad did his regular run, and I drove up to Bountiful, to go hiking out of Mueller Park, the 'canyon' of my youth, with my friend Arlene.  She's hiked it before with other friends, but I have literally not been to this canyon for 50 years.  Crazy!

That night Dad and I and the Kews went to see Cinderella, as performed by the Award Winning, Payson Community Theater.  We ran into several friends, including these four ladies from my book club.  Ann, Sandy, K.D. and Lillian.

Here we are shown with LaVerne and Ron Crump's youngest son, Jace, and his wife, who were part of the six couple dance ensemble.  

Then as I was leaving, I realized that my friend, Ardis, from my service group, We-Can, had played one of the ladies in waiting.  She was a school teacher for years, and said she's been involved with the PCT for 40 years.  That was so fun.

It was fun to see on line that Hannah and Scott had gone zip lining. 

Tuesday morning I hiked a new trail in Spanish Fork, called the Spanish Fork River Trail, with Ann.  Its a beautiful trail and runs past a farm, that in the past, has had fire flies.  I'm excited to check it out next year.

When I got home, Dad and I headed to Salt Lake to meet up with Tom and Edi, to hike up Memory Grove.  I've never been, and it was a great hike.  We went about four miles.

Tom and Edi belong to the Wasatch Mountain Club, (And know Dad's Aunt Karen, who also belongs) so they have a lot of fun knowledge they shared with us.  Here Tom shows us a mushroom.

We'd love to go shrooming sometime, at least that's what the English speakers in Finland call it.

Here we are at the 2 mile mark.

Then we went to lunch in Fort Union, at a great Japanese place, Itto Sushi, where we got Bento Box Lunches, which I think are super fun.

Then we finished up our lunch with a Fire Dragon  roll, which they actually set on fire.

They actually have several stations where people can leave their chop sticks.  I thought it looked like art.

On Wednesday Dad  worked his only day at Darby's for the week, but seemed to get a lot done.  He sheet rocked her utility area, and added doors too.

I worked with Nikki that day.  I kind of laughed when she found a way to get comfy behind the counter.

My friend Marcy has moved into the North Store as a dealer, and came by to see me.  Its been at least two years since I have seen her.  She is so very talented, and I will love seeing her on and off.

I've been meaning to make up one of my 1940's compo Story Book dolls as a witch, and decided to just take the stuff to work and to do it there.  We are also doing this project with my art group in a few weeks, but I have plenty of these little dolls.

When I was walking at the Cemetery with Tina on Thursday, I noticed this grave stone for the first time.  I really loved it.  I don't know the young man's story, but it felt like celebrating his short life.  It made me think of what a good job Hannah did of celebrating Ben's life in the choice of his memorial stone.

While I was getting ready to go to Bear Lake on Thursday, and while Dad was doing his temple shift. my friend Shirley called to say she had some Halloween crafts ready for the shop, we had agreed I could sell in my display, so I ran over to meet her.  She is so talented.

Here are a couple of her small items.  I actually purchased another, and she gifted me the coolest steam punk Mickey Mouse Ears ever!!  I'll have to share a picture of it when I get my Halloween decor out at home.

When Dad got home and we packed up, we headed north to go to Bear Lake, We stopped at Payson Market to get our blocks of ice for our trip, and we ran into two kids from the ward, Ava Pierre and Tayven Cook.  It was Ava's first day.  How fun is that? (She's Tina's granddaughter.)

So I had to share this combo collage.  On Wednesday at work, Doug Sues, who lives in Heber, and trains bears, came into the mall.  After he left I was talking to another dealer who said that Doug is the only bear trainer in the US.  I knew he trained and owned bears, but didn't realize that his bear is the one that is in the Kodiak Cake add that I love.  I have been trying to eat more protein, since I've been loosing so much hair, probably due to my vegetarian ways.  So this high protein mix is a winner for me.  I brought some with me to Bear Lake, and then laughed when I noticed how many people in our group of 72, were wearing the classic black and red plaid worn by the family in the ad (upper right hand corner), so I snapped the picture of Becca and Brady with Brittany Friebe, nee Gearheart holding her son DeClan. Please note that the pics I found on line of Doug, also has him wearing the plaid. hahaha OK, sorry, it felt like a theme, and we were, after-all, at BEAR lake, right?

This was our first time to Bear Lake since 2018 and probably 10 years since we were there before that..  When you were all young, we know you made a lot of fun memories going there, on Labor Day weekend as you were growing up.  We originally went with the Heuers and Moes, and their children, probably in 1992. In the early years, we had up to 9 children who went, and over the years, as they had more children they had up to 7 and 8.  Then Barb's sister Donelle Gearheart and her family started coming as did Amy and Jerry Mason.  This year we had those 5 families represented, and had a total of 72 of us.  We were very sorry that Davin and Bri and their family were unable to come at the last minute due to sickness in their family.  We are just grateful that it was not Covid. 

Here we see Robin's oldest grandchild, Lilly, holding our youngest grandchild, Cam.

It was super fun that Becca and Brady brought their new American Akita puppies, they got just this week.  The white one is Thor and they gray, brown one is Lady Loki. Brittany brought her Scottie, Missie, and Spencer and Brittney brought their Shiatsu, Bear. The Heuers also brought a couple of their dogs, so it was fun to introduce the dogs to each other.

We had a total of 8 grandchildren who were there.  Here Van and Mac get better antiquated, and did quite a bit of playing together over the four days. Van has a balance bike just like all the kids in Finland have.

Here Cam enjoys playing with her Mom's water bottle.

Becca brought this play yard for her puppies, along with a sleeping kennel.  The kids all loved to play with it too.  Jerry Gearheart looks on as his grandson Declan shares some puppy time with Reagan and Van.

Here is Dad with Randy (Moe) and Donelle (Gearheart) and her daughter Brittany.  Yes, we had 3 Brittanys, 2 Scotts and 2 Ryans at Camp, out of our 72.

Madi is showing me her heart shaped strawberry.

When we were playing down at the beach on Friday, we noticed that there were several of these spiral peninsulas, and wondered if that's where they got the idea to build the art installation in the Great Salt Lake that is called the Spiral Jetty.

Spencer introduces Cam to the coldish water of the lake, she wasn't too sure she liked it.

How cute is this hybrid creature with the floppy ears?

Brady and Mac checking out our new Kayaks.

Becca and Brady went over board carrying both of them down to the lake.

We didn't know it would work to have a child sit in front of us while we rowed the single man kayaks, but it worked great and we were glad we had gotten two child size life jackets as well.

Calista and Ben Heuer we hanging out with us at the beach the first day.  She eventually buried him, with the help of Lilly, but the picture I took didn't do it justice.

The kids didn't even need to be in the water to enjoy the kayaks either.

In a pinch the kayaks could carry three, if you only went out a few feet.

Such a cute sand baby.

cousins.

being pushed out ... thanks Madi.

 

Back at camp Van wanted to get into the folding chair bag....

Which works well as a child carrier too.

When I showed Spencer my nearly perfectly round rock, I'd found.  He showed me his nearly perfectly round rock chip he got on the way up.  Dang it.

Van thought the round rock was pretty cool, and wanted to keep it, but I told him he could go find one of his own.

He took the challenge and got a truck load of rocks.

Titan had brought a Family Feud, Disney Edition, and everyone had fun answering the questions.

Darby drove up on her own on Friday, for which I was very grateful.  She needed to work her night shift the night before, and no one else was coming that day from the south, so she almost didn't come.  We were so happy to have her. Here she is Saturday morning holding one of the puppies.

Spencer with Bear.

Everyone loved the puppies.  Here we have Emry Moe, Boston Terranova, Van Perkins and Declan Friebe.

Here Charlie and Alex check out the puppies, while their dog Missy plays with Lilly.

Bunny girls eating mountain man breakfast.

Hannah and Scott came up that day.

Brittney with Bear.

Robin had a different camp shirt for each day.  She is always so fun.

This is some of the members of our extended group, with a Volley Ball game being played in the back right hand corner.  Scott and Hannah played for most of the time.  The Moes set up the net!! There were up to  18 playing at a time.

Brittany rented a boat, on which we went in, unfortunately it only ran well for about 2 of the 8 hours she rented it for. 

Jeff and Robin rented a huge water trampoline and some of the kids went down and took a turn jumping on that.  Unfortunately, I wan't there at the same time they were so, no pictures.  Dad and I did kayak down to the trampolines, and they looked like a lot of fun.

It was fun that Cam and Reagan accidentally had matching swim suits.

Brittany brought her paddle boards, here Brittney is shown on one of them.

Spencer tried a surfer style.

I thought Brady looked like a pharaoh in this one ....

Here's most of our gang as we get ready to head up.

Scott and Hannah did a bit of a routine of the Acro-Yoga they do together.

Darby and her Smoosh.

Back in camp, here's a cute shot of Charlie with her dog Missy.

And Cam with her dog Bear.

Scott, Hannah and Scott .. which is sort of a double Palindrome, if you know what I mean.

We shared our vegan dinner with Britt on Friday night, as she didn't have to time to make her own as they set up camp late, so she made us a vegan meal on Saturday night.  So Yummy.

Titan took his Disney Family Feud to share with the Moes, after dinner that night.  They are the Disney Pros, and I am sure they had more fun.

This morning after breakfast we headed over to Moes camp area for a Testimony Meeting and Sunday School class.  Ryan Seamons lead the class discussion, and there were lots of wonderful comments.  In the past we have gone to church at one of the two local wards, where, with all the holiday visitors, they spend the entire time, passing the sacrament, with maybe one or two testimonies.  I loved this change in our tradition.

Spencer and Britt and their kids joined us for the hour and ten minute meeting, while the other kids took down their camps and made plans for  Brittany and Becca to go out on the paddle boards one more time.

We stopped by to say good bye to the Heuers. Look Robert Zangari has the Kodiak Cakes pajama bottoms as well...

It was time for our last farewell, as we headed out just after noon.  We had a great time, and the trip was the perfect culmination to an active week.  

These are the activities that one or another family member participated in this week.  Hikes in three different canyons, miles of jogging, kayaking, paddle boarding, water skiing, tubing, water trampolining, walking with friends, power walking, hot yoga, zip lining, acro yoga and dog chasing.

We hope you're all soaking up those final rays of summer.

Tons of Fun, Sun, Runs and Puns

I haven'y heretofore included Dad's Birthday pics, but he keeps sending them to me to use, so I guess it will be nice to have a record of them in the blog.  Of course we also celebrated Ben's birthday along with Becca's as well as celebrating his life.  We love our three kids born in three days, birthday wise, and have many fond memories of their shared celebrations.  So happy birthday week to Davin,  on the 26th, and to Ben and Becca on the 28th. 

We started our fun with friends week with the Crumps having lunch at Mi Rancherito in Payson.  We had to change it a couple of times due to conflicts, but we always enjoy our reunions with them.

Tuesday morning found Ann and I hiking up to the cross on the mountain on the south side as you enter Spanish Fork canyon.  We were very pleased with ourselves for making it.

That night Dad and I got to watch as Marysa Ottoson read her mission call.  She is headed-to Peru.  We bought her at a camp auction 7 years ago to do yard work, and have followed her sweet spirit and goodness ever since.

We had more school starters this week too.

Look how tall Madi is amongst her class mates.

This guy is also working on getting taller.

Welcome back to school Charlie.

On Wednesday, Dad headed off to work at Darby's while I worked at the store.  I gathered all my milk glass from my several booths ... who knew I had that much,

and put together a display.  The blocks spell out Milk Glass, and I thought the cow would be perfect to over-look all the milk (glass).

I added more scary goodness to my Halloween display after selling 3 large pieces that morning. Dad meanwhile, did his temple shift and a few chores around the house.

after work, we divided and conquered. 

I spent the evening at my book club meeting.

Meet Lillian, one of my friends from book club, who will be moving into our basement apartment soon.

After book club I went over to KD's house and got some squash.  She's evidently a great gardener.

Dad had to go to the wedding of Elder Ammon Gatrell without me, and as you see he found plenty of company there.  He said there were another half dozen missionaries who came after the picture was taken.

Then on Friday morning we got KD to come along with us on a hike up Payson Canyon to the Forebay Reservoir,

 just as the sun was coming up.

When I got home it was prime time to check out my morning glory.  Some is over powering my tomatoes, and shading them, so I'm afraid I'll have to pull part of it down.  It makes me so sad.

I met this gal in line at DI later that morning, after Dad had headed off to work at Darby's again.  

I was so tickled to see that she was buying the dishes I owned in our early marriage.  It was also fun to note that her mom is exactly my age.  What a lucky mom.

After that I spent another day at work.  Three in a row, and I was really feeling my age by the end of it.

Dad finished up the last of Darby's windows that day.

Bright and early Saturday morning Dad walked up the to the park and was bussed up Payson Canyon for his first half marathon in five years.  He's hasn't run one since getting his second blood clot while training for one then.  He's been taking aspirin on the advice of Dr. Money ever since, and thought he'd try it.  It was his 5th in all.  He started off at 6:30 A.yawn M. 

Davin and Bri went to cheer him on, so we actually got a short movie that I wanted to post here, but alas twas not to be.

Thanks you two!!

He rings the bell for his fastest half marathon in 5 years...

Way to go honey.  

Unfortunately he was pretty broken when he got home, and we had intended to go to one viewing and another funeral, as it turned out we were only able to attend the one funeral, for Brother Cleve Waite, who is the father of our two plumbers, as well as Crystal Kwiatkowski who lived in the ward when we moved in and worked in Young Women's with me.  

Dad was also too broken to go  to the Vintage Market Days Sale in Heber with me, he definitely needed a nap.

With his training runs included he had run 27 miles altogether this week.  He deserved a nap.

So I drafted Terry Kew to go with me, and we got there in time to spend an hour shopping.  I just loved this funny little half horse.  He is very old, and is probably from Texas.  I was sorely tempted to take him home ....

I ran into Kimi, so that was fun, as always.

Afterward Terry and I went to an interesting concept restaurant for a late lunch. Its called the Global Grill and was decorated with enlargements of stamps from all over the word.  Terry got a giant burrito and I got veggie Marsala.  She said hers was very good, mine was typical premade  commercial sauce, and since I'd skipped the chicken and had gotten 'extra veggies', I was pretty disappointed that 

 it had only onions and zucchini, without a price break.  Alas, I love the concept.

I got home in time for Dad and me to do the shopping to make salmon soup for a sort of Finnish senior missionary reunion that night. This is Elder Bridge and Elder Smith.

Elder London and Elder Shurtz.

The menu was very Finnish, Salmon soup, Pirakkas, sour dough rye bread and a veggie tray.

Dad, Smiths and Londons and Sister Bridge.

Bridges and Shurtzes

I even managed to get in a picture.

We had a lovely evening and realized that between the five couples we had served 27 missions to Finland.  The Bridges expect to replace the current office couple come January. 

Today we went to church, as always.  Afterwards I have to admit I took a nap.  Then we took some piirakkas and the rest of the soup to the Jamsas, who had stayed home because Ralph had been sick, and worrying it was covid had gone in for a test, which had not come back in time.  As it turned out it was just a cold, so we got to have a nice visit after-all, as they just live over in Salem, but they missed seeing the rest of us, including the Bridges who had served their younger mission at the same time as the Jamsas.  Both couples having met on their missions in the early 1980's.

We finished off our day with our last concert in the part for this year.  Next week we will be driving back from Bear Lake.

Its hard to see our official summer season closing this week with Labor day almost upon us.  We hope you all got enough sun and fun to keep you over another winter.  Much Love.