Now This I Gotta See

Christmas Gift!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ha ha! Got you all.

Yellowstone

Our kids had fall break at the end of last week. We decided to take a quick trip up to Yellowstone to celebrate. We drove to Rexburg on Thursday and stayed overnight with our friends, the Smiths. (They are the ones who own Pizza Pie Cafe.) It was fun to see them again. We went to Pizza Pie Cafe for dinner. We picked up Kelsi Meyer (niece) and took her with us. It was fun to see her even though it was only for a little bit (sorry no pictures.) Thanks for coming with us at the last minute, Kelsi. The Smiths have a motor home that they turned into a guest house for us. The kids had fun sleeping in it.

Thursday we drove to Yellowstone.

I love the framing and colors in this picture at Artist's Point

We hiked down to the lower falls. It was a pretty steep hike.

We drove up to Mammoth. We saw the calcium carbonate terraces and a lot of animals. We saw elk, bison, fox, chipmunk. We really wanted to see a wolf too, but didn't see one.

The most exciting part of the day was that we saw a grizzly bear. It was pretty far away to begin with. It started heading up from the river toward the road. When we were pretty sure where it was going to go, we hopped back into the car and went to find it. It crossed the road right in front of us. It was pretty cool.

We stayed in the appropriately named Three Bears Lodge in West Yellowstone on Friday night. Before we went into Yellowstone on Saturday, we went to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center. We saw some bears and wolves and birds of prey in captivity. It was pretty cold.

As we were walking around, we ran into one of my former Chinese professors from BYU. His wife taught mark at star talk a couple of years ago. Mark wasn't with us, but she remembered him. We talked to them for a while. Just as we were wrapping up with them, we saw two of the kid history guys (Brett and John)  and their families watching the bears. We tried to get Lauren to take a picture with them, but she refused.

I did take a picture of Brett. Lauren called me a stalker.

Silly Bwett

Saturday in Yellowstone, we went the southern route toward Old Faithful. It was over 20 degrees colder on Saturday than it was on Friday. The funniest couple helped us take the following picture. They were a black couple from L.A. and were super friendly and funny.

Hard to tell where the geyser ends and the clouds begin 

A Danish lady came up and sat down on the bench right between Lauren and Ryan while we were waiting for the geyser to erupt. She was really friendly and we talked to her for a while. She shared some Danish "candy" with us. It was kind of like the horehound candy from pioneer times. It was pretty nasty. Old Faithful was spectacular as usual.

Clowning around at Old Faithful

We had to hurry back to Rexburg on Saturday afternoon because we had made an appointment for Lauren to feed the bear cubs at Grizzly World just outside of Rexburg. For the uninitiated, Grizzly World is a place you can drive through and see bears (mostly black) right by your car. They also have a petting zoo, corn maze, spud chucker (sling shots that can throw a potato about 250 yards) and carnival rides. When Lauren heard that you could sign up to feed the cubs, she really wanted to do it. It was only Lauren and one other kid who had signed up, so she got to feed several bottles to the bears.

Lauren feeding a bear cub

We spent the night with the Smiths again on Saturday night and went to church with them Sunday morning. We drove home after that. We all had a really fun trip and plan on doing it again someday.

Summer Wrap-up

We've had lots of events lined up to finish out the summer.

Ulcer

I decided to ride in the U(tah)L(ake)C(entennial)E(pic)R(ide) again this year. I didn't have time to train as much as I would have liked. I rode with my bishop (who is also my next door neighbor.) I made quite a bit better time this year, but I didn't have to deal with a blown tire this year. You can find official ride photos of me at this link. There are quite a few of them.

RS Pres

On one of our training rides, the bishop started asking me about Marsha. It wasn't outside of normal neighborly conversation. He started probing deeper. Finally I realized something was up and said, "If you are asking if I think Marsha would do well in a presidency of some sort, the answer is yes." He was quiet for a minute and then he said, "We are going to call her to be the Relief Society President." OK. She has done an outstanding job already.

Ordination

In preparation for attending BYU, we ordained Mark an Elder in the Melchizadek Priesthood. Grandpa and Grandma Lindsey were in town for a wedding (Stephen Dearden's.) Grandpa and Grandma Sorenson came down for the ordination. It was a great experience. Here is a picture of Mark with the grandparents right after the ordination. Congratulations Mark!

School Starting

Here are our FDOS pictures

Joseph starting 1st grade

 Joseph started a Chinese immersion program this year. He has a half day of class in English (reading, social studies, etc.) and a half day in Chinese (math, Chinese, etc.) We are excited about it. We will see how it goes. Ryan was disappointed that he couldn't take it as well. They are currently only offering it starting in first grade. They may expand to other grades in the future.

Ryan starting 3rd grade

 Ryan has tons of homework already. He does pretty well at it, but he'd rather be outside. He love, love, loves being outside.

Lauren starting 9th grade

Lauren is excited to be on the yearbook staff this year. She really loves that kind of thing.

Starting BYU

We drove Mark down to BYU the day after school started for the other kids. He is living in Carroll Hall (Old Heritage.) It is right across from campus. He's got 5 roommates. He was friends with one of them in HS. He says he gets along well with all of them.

Mark moving into his dorm

I think he's having the time of his life. He gets to study a lot and do stuff with friends all the time. We don't see him much less than when he was living at home, but it's strange that he's out of the house. Wasn't he just 5 years old?


Topaz Mountain

Ryan has been bugging me for months to go back to Topaz Mountain. You may remember our earlier blog post about going there. I finally caved and took him and Joseph. To get there, you drive to the middle of nowhere, turn left and drive for 40 more miles. You can actually find pretty nice pieces of topaz there. We found several pieces. Most are pretty small. The largest is probably about 1/2 inch long. Joseph had a decent time, but Ryan thought he had died and gone to heaven. He could have stayed there for the rest of the month.

Waiting out a rainstorm at Topaz mountain

Overhanging rocks provide a nice umbrella

Searching for topaz

We also went to a place not too far from topaz mountain and found a bunch of Apache Tears (small round pieces of obsidian.)

The most outstanding part of the trip (according to Ryan) was that we were able to catch a horned lizard to bring home. Ryan has had two lizards in the past, but both have died. He was ready for a replacement. Ryan is hilarious with his lizard names. He names them as if they were human. The last one was Trevor. This one is Gavin.

Gavin in his new home

 BTW: As is our Labor Day tradition, we went to Payson and picked raspberries and blackberries. Delicious.

It's been a fun summer.

We Know the Way

This post is a little late in coming, but better late than never.

We went to San Jose for a visit the second week in July. On the way down we stopped in Lodi to see Marsha's aunt, Marlene. We had a fun visit with them and then continued on to San Jose.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, this will be a long post.

Monday we went to San Francisco.

Mark and Afton present Alcatraz

Mechanical Museum at Fisherman's Wharf

The crew at the Grant Street entrance to Chinatown

Grandpa and Mark with a lion in Chinatown

The fam at the Golden Gate Bridge

Ghirardelli ice cream shop

How good is it? Joseph knows

Thanks for the wonderful day to our great tour guides, grandpa and grandma (and of course Aunt Stef)

Tuesday we went to Santa Cruz

The weather was awesome. The water was cold.

Look out BYU, here comes Mark!

Joe in the waves

Ryan in action

It feels good to get buried in warm sand after the cold water

Joe with a personalized burial

Tuesday happened to be dollar night, so we did some rides as well. Sorry we didn't get pictures of those. Mark and Lauren rode the Giant Dipper a couple of times (best roller coaster ever!) Ryan even rode it, but didn't want to go again. Joe wasn't tall enough to ride the Giant Dipper, but liked the log ride.

Wednesday we lazed around for a while. Marsha and Lauren went shopping while I took the boys to the discovery museum.

Thursday we headed down to Monterey and Carmel. In Monterrey we went to the aquarium.

Guess who loves the aquarium more than anyone?

That would be Rayn (here with the rays)

I though this picture was hilarious - both for Ryan's expression and the fish eating his head

After a long day at the aquarium. Derek looks like he is about 150 years old

I thought this picture of my favorite people was fantastic

In Carmel we went to shops and then the beach. It was a bit foggy and cold, but we love the beach.

On the beach in Carmel

Ryan was excited

Joe and Lauren display the seaweed they captured in Carmel

We then drove up the coast to Asilomar. We had so much fun at the rocks/tide pools during the family reunion we decided to make another trip.

Ryan at work in the tide pools

Lauren preaching from the rocks

We have lots of pictures of Lauren and Grandpa together. The camera is a permanent fixture

We had an awesome dinner at Meyers afterwards. Thanks guys.

Friday we went to Castle Rock

The hills are alive...

Mark and Ryan in a cave in the rock

Joe and Lauren in the same cave

We topped off the vacation with a trip to Sweet Retreat

It must have been a successful vacation because the kids said they didn't want to go home when it was time. Thanks Mom, Dad, Stef, Brad and Afton (Brady was at EFY) for the great time.