Some More Cool Pictures Taken in St. George

I am very proud of these pictures so needed to add them.  I forgot when I was actually posting about the trip that I had planned to have a separate post with these pictures.

Looking in the window of the old school house...
you can see the reflections of Gary and Jena and the home
behind them.

I took lots of pictures of gates and fences, too.
It goes along with my interest in bridges.

The benefits of digital cameras.  I took 10-12 shots to get one of the bee
on this flower, swaying in the wind, to be focused correctly.

Gary saw this lizard posing in the window sill.

Reflections again of the nearby cliffs.

Snow Day

And then on Wednesday the 24th we woke up to snow on the ground....crazy...

Early for us and it cleared up by the next day.  It makes you very grateful for heaters and houses and power when you watch the news and see the terrible results of the "Super Storm Sandy" in the days since then.  I have watched the aftermath even more intently now that I have responsibilities for Emergency Preparation within my ward and my neighborhood.  It is hard to know what is the first best things to prepare for when you don't know what is ahead.  It was crazy to see people buying tarps, flashlights and water on the Saturday before the storm hit.  They live on the eastern coast and how many times are they hit with these type of storms.  You think they should have that stuff already.

However, I am sure when an earthquake hits Utah people will say the same thing about us living near fault lines and not being ready......Hopefully we can be a bit more ready in the future than we are today.

Advice for the day:  Make sure you have enough water for 3 weeks.  :)

The Medallion

We headed back on Sunday so that Jena could make it to her interview with the Bishop for her Young Women's Award.  On the following Tuesday she received it along with three other young women in our Ward.  The bishop asked them to take a couple of minutes to talk about Personal Progress.  I wish that you could have all heard Jena's comments.  It was very sweet.  She said the program was great.  That everyone should do it.  She bore a brief testimony of the Church and then showed her quilt with the help of the YW President.  I cried, but I wasn't the only one.

She has worked hard to achieve this award.  She wanted to work on it and she was proud of her accomplishments.  It was great to see her so happy about it.

A camel and Snow Canyon

Saturday was another great weather day.  After a slow quiet morning, we headed west of St. George back to Tuachan for their Saturday Flea Market.  I am not much for flea markets but we did get Gary a nice hat.  The reason we went was so that Jena could ride on the camel which was used in Aladdin.  I don't think this was really Jena's idea of fun, but I have a favorite picture of the older four kids sitting on a camel at the Ft. Worth zoo and I thought it would be fun to have a camel picture with Jena.  Gary voted that he was the camera man for this adventure so I got a ride as well.  Now have ridden on both a camel and an elephant, I would choose an elephant. 

That's Gary's new hat on my head

 

Entering Snow Canyon State Park
This is a very fun place with some very interesting scenes and hikes.

Sand dunes

Rock Climbing-
this is not one of us by the way.

Heading up the trail to the Petrified Sandy Dunes!!

The top---at least for as far as we went--
these dunes covered a lot of ground and
you could hike on them
for a long time.

What they looked liked under our feet.

View from the top.

I would definitely go again to Snow Canyon.  There were lots of trails to take and things to do.  The sand dunes were fun.  Just a few inches under the surface the sand gets wet and it molds just like the sand at the beach.  Families made huge sand castles on the hills.  It is strictly a walking sand dune...no motorized vehicles allowed.

And actually, we are planning to go again next year over UEA weekend.  Tuachan is doing "Mary Poppins" and "Camelot" two of my favorite plays.  Make a plan to join us.