New Deck

The starting, the "redder" deck is the old one.

With the heat starting to fall, its been nice to go outside and watch TV while hanging out on our new deck. The girls love it, and I must admit I think its pretty fun to watch a move outside too. Reminds me of when I did "sleep out pig outs" with my dad, Maddy will experience that soon!

We FINALLY got the deck we always wanted. When we were building the house the builders just were not interested in building the deck we wanted so we settled. So happens our friend Mike use to build decks for a living, he was kind enough to donate at least 70 hours of his time to build us a deck. And we love it! It now connects the backdoor to our bedroom door. And its not wood, so no more painting! Mike did a really good job, there are no screw holes you can see which is why it took so long but it looks amazing!

Im not sure what happened, I had pictures from start to finish almost every day they worked, but they have disappeared. SO I just took this picture tonight, its dark and knot that great but you get the idea. Its a great deck, we are loving it.

Lava Hot Springs 2010

Soda Springs geyser

Getting soda water
Took our annual trip to Lava this year from July 30th to August 2cd. Some of Trever's family joined us this year, his mom and step dad Elroy, Kolin, Kolsen and Kylee (nephew and nieces), my sister in law Malinda and son Ryan nephew AJ, and we brought our niece Kaycee, neighbor (might as well be daughter) Kylie and our friends Mike and Becky and grandson Riley. We had a full group.
Last year the service getting food was so bad we decided to camp this year, it worked out so much better. Other then that we did all our normal activities, swimming, water slides, river rafting, eating, and playing. But this year we took a drive up to soda springs to see the geyser and get some soda water. We got to the geyser just minutes before it was going off, and right as it did a gust of wind came and we all got so soaked. It was hot so it felt nice, but that water felt so yucky. Then we went up the road a couple miles and got our own soda water. I brought flavors to add to it, it wasn't too bad. Kinda cooper tasting, but Maddy really liked it. It was a great little getaway.
This was the end of a very long run for us, it was nice to know we would finally get a weekend at home. Last weekend in June we went camping, July we had our 4th party, then camped for 5 days, then golf tournament/camping for 3 days, then lake powell for 4 days then Lava for 4 days. It was a busy month!

Lake Powell

Amazing, you hear about it from other people or from books but until you actually see it.... you get to see the true beauty.

Went to Lake Powell last weekend, it was my first time ever and Trever's second time.. but really his first since he doesn't remember much of the first time and he never actually went anywhere on the lake. All I have to say is what an amazing place, every time we rounded a corner I was amazed all over again.
The trip was pretty much put together as a last minute plan, going with Trever's brother Jay, wife Deana and 2 kids AJ and Kaycee. We got a hotel room since we had too many people to haul camping equipment anywhere. Trever's mom had wanted to take the girls for a few days and since Elmo was along the way to the lake, we figured it would work out great. We didn't realize until a few days before leaving, because we had changed from going to bullfrog to Wahweap we would need to head the opposite direction. Between picking up Kylee to haul down to Elmo, dropping kids off in Elmo, few wrong turns, and not hitting the canyons with hundreds of deer on the side of the road until dark it took us 9 hours to get there. I told Trever "this better be worth it". Did I ever eat my words, it was so worth it. The place is so gorgeous. I hope to make it an annual trip.

Rainbow bridge. So cool to see it and learn the history behind it. SO worth the hike


Cliff diving!





We went to a slot canyon in AZ. It was so cool, they had flash floods 3 days before that had water way above our heads. We could see all the debris. I was a bit freaked out looking at the memorial for the 11 people that died going through the canyon in 1999. They got caught in a flash flood. The canonyon now has rescue ropes and a sensor an hour up stream to give an hour warning of any water coming down. It was so worth the extra drive. I hope to make it an annual trip.
The day we left we headed into Page, AZ to a slot canyon tour. It was so cool. Back in 1997 they had a tour group going through and a flash flood came through so fast it killed them all. They now have a memorial set up, and have since (court orders) put in rope lines, stairs and have a sensor an hour up the bank that sets of a signal if water is coming. So they have an hour to get tourists out. 3 days before we were there a flash flood came through, you could see derby from the water above our heads. So crazy to think only 3 days before the water was well above our heads.
I would really like to go explore more of the slot canyons, the one we went through was called cork screw.