Celebrating Dad Earl's 100th birthday at Gold Butte National Monument and Whitney Pockets

Dad Earl would have been 100 years old in January and 
Dad Branch would have been 95 years old in January. 
This isn't meant to be a commentary on our ages haha. 

Amazing!

We thought it would be fun to celebrate Grant's 100th birthday 
with all the Earl siblings!

Marti and Chuck were wintering in St. George

and Scott and April knew of some neat places in the Mojave Desert

so we all drove south for a birthday celebration.

(Sadly, Steve and Carol weren't able to make it - we missed you guys!)

We stayed in St. George with Marti and Chuck for church on Sunday.

This was the view from their trailer park. <3

Then we picked up 4-wheelers 

and headed to Gold Butte National Monument

where they watch out for their tortoises.

We could see Lake Mead in the distance.

Scott and April led us to this beautiful campsite at Whitney Pockets.

Then the celebration began with 4-wheeling!

Scott and April took us to Little Finland

known for intricately eroded rock fins

and white salt deposits that looked like new fallen snow.

Naturally occurring palm trees were growing along the base of the cliff

where springs were watering more than palm trees and lizards - like the little wild burro

that left these tracks Scott and April noticed!

We drank in the sunset

as we ate dinner and shared memories of dear parents.

The evening of Dad's birthday, Marti lit a candle in a fruit bread while we sang happy birthday with feelings of gratitude for such very good parents.

Happy Birthday Dad!

The next morning we rode to the tailhead of the

falling man petroglyph rock art panel.

Scott and April had put all the waypoints in their GPS 

and that was a game changer.

We'd have never found so many petroglyphs on our own.

Falling man was a little scramble up to a hole in a rock wall.

(Loved the "tree of life" petroglyph next to the hole.)

We crawled through the hole and came out the back side

to find the "falling man petroglyph".

Such a pretty place!

That afternoon we explored historical remains 

of a CCC irrigation dam project from the 1930-40's.

(picture from birdandhike.com)

Washington County Historical Society has this terrific aerial - sooo interesting to see the dam (top center of the photo) and other features from above!

The dam was half of the way into this slot canyon/drainage.

One set of stairs went up the right side of the dam

and another set of stairs went down the back into the reservoir area. 

We could continue into the reservoir area as it was dry that day, 

to a second layer of dams that the guys believed was built to retain sediment. There was a geocaching virtual cache letter/symbol stamped on the rod that thanks to Scott's detective work and persistence we were able to find and log. 

It was such an interesting place 

way out in the middle of that beautiful dessert!

Thanks for the wonderful time sibs and happy birthday Dads!!!

The best of college life...

The other day, 

Paul and I came home from the Stake Single Adults' Breakfast Activity

to this cool-looking doohickie on our front porch.

Yes!! 

How fun does that look?!!

One of the twigs' favorite things

 about college life

is the plethora of recreation/physical education classes 

they get to take 

and this semester they're both taking skiing and golf.

Our girlie is also taking racquetball.

Their pal, Will, is taking a snowboarding class

but the classes are at the same time so they carpool together

and get to ski together after their lessons.

It's only been two weeks 

but the stories when they get home are so much fun!!!!! 

I'm sure grateful 

our twigs like to tell us their stories 

because we sure like to listen!

Thanks for sharing your pics, guys.   

=D

Knock knock...

Dance invitations and answers are a whole adventure 

in and of themselves where we live. 

I often think, it wasn't like this when I was growing up

 50 years ago in Idaho. 

I don't know if that's because it was 50 years ago

 or if that's because it was Idaho.   ;)

Here are a few of the twigs invitation/answer adventures. 

The whole goal seems to be anonymity. 
Well, that is until the "puzzle" part of the invitation gets solved.
Keeping that anonymity causes one to do some crazy things!

Our girlie left this invitation after dark one evening on a friend's porch.

The letters of her first and last name were written on the "cuties."

Then the crazy began!!!!! 

Amidst mounds of ice and snow in the middle of winter, 
she and Hunter knocked and ran..... nothing happened. 

 Hunter is so nice and he's super fast so he kindly
 climbed the steps to the porch and rang again 
but no one came to the door. 

A third time, Hunter climbed the steps to the porch 

and reached out his hand to knock.

Right then a car pulled up in front of the house

and the front door swung open. 

Hunter dived into the shadows and the intended young man came out the door

 but not to answer it, he came out to move his pick-up truck.

 He stopped for just a second 

and looked at the signs and box of cuties 
but the car that just pulled up honked 
so he went to his truck.

 If he had walked around the front of his truck 

he would have tripped right over Hunter who was hiding there in the shadows.

 That would have been a sight!   :)

 Luckily he went around the back of his truck

 and backed it out instead of running over Hunter! 

The young man's mom and sister were in the car that had pulled up

 and he was moving the truck out of their way 

so they could pull their car in the driveway. 

Again Hunter almost got squished, 

this time by the car. 

The Mr. and I were sitting in our car in the dark, 

just down the street, watching all the craziness. 

We could see Hunter sneaking around a third car

 parked in the driveway when the pick-up truck came around the corner.

The young man had just driven it around the block 

and was parking it in the driveway again. 

A third time now, Hunter almost got squished in the driveway. 

The young man had seen someone 

when he pulled the truck back into the driveway 

but by the time he got out to see who it was, 

Hunter had taken off down the street. 

The mom and sister were on the front porch 

looking at the invitation and oranges.

Our girlie was hiding in bushes watching the craziness too. 

What a lucky girl to have a brother willing to be her stunt man!

This next invitation was pretty much the opposite of the first one. 

This was another of our girlie's invitations. 

This young man's front door was all glass

 and there was a light on in the front room. 

Despite the lights, 

the twigs weren't concerned 
when they went to the front porch. 

They could hardly get people to answer doors, remember?

So although they were dressed in black, and were being quiet,

 they weren't thinking about getting caught in the act.  

They walked up the front step, 

barely set the posters and balloons down

when in an instant the door came flying open 

and out jumped the intended young man onto the front porch!!!!!

Hunter took off running around the house. 

and our girlie hid on the side of the front porch. 

The young man just kept mumbling something about "I'm so sorry" 

and "this is so awkward, oh man this is so awkward." 

He gathered the things off of the porch and took them inside. 

Turns out he thought it was some doorbell ditcher friends 

of his little brother's and he was going to catch them. 

Catch them he did!   :)

A few weeks ago, this was left on the doorstep for Hunter.

He answered the invitation with this. 

He left it on her front porch, rang the bell, 
and disappeared into the bushes. 

 She came out, looked around, 

gathered the balloons and note, went back inside and 

flashed her front porch lights off and on, off and on. 

No crazy this time, just cute.   :)

His "I'm getting an idea" face...

I'm blessed to have funny funny brothers.

Here is one of them on the far right of the picture...

One can only guess this must be his "I'm getting an idea" face...

Our girlie has the cutest giggle when she's being teased.   :)

Love my funny funny brother!    xoxo

Shine the light...

The twigs had the opportunity of a life time this summer to participate in the cultural celebration called "Shine the Light" and the open house of a Holy Temple of God.

At the "Shine the Light" Cultural Celebration they sang and performed with 16,000 youth from Utah and Wyoming. I keep hoping the songs will show up on the Internet but so far no luck. Fingers crossed 'cause they were fantastic!!!!

There were only so many seats available in the Dee Events Center so youth and the people who drove them to the facility got to be seated inside. The celebration was then broadcast to hundreds of Stake Centers throughout Utah and Wyoming for everyone else to enjoy.
(Never been more happy to be a driver!)

At the Open House, the twigs put booties on people's feet as they entered the temple and cleaned wheelchairs for use by the next visitors to the temple in need of some wheels.

We also got to go through the temple ourselves. These pictures are from the LDS Church and they're beautiful, the temple is beautiful, but it's not about the magnificent architecture or the exquisite furnishings.

It's all about God the Father and Jesus Christ. It's about being Their child and following Their examples. Like following Christ's example of being baptized by immersion, like He was baptized in the River Jordan. Love these murals of that place!

 It's about Their love and Their sweet peace and Their work.

We're excited to do Their work in this temple.     :)

I'm grateful for all of YOU who "Shine the Light" of Christ in the way you live and love!       :)