I love sunflowers!

 

After all, who doesn't like sunflowers?  I was taught to love them by my mother who loved them, too.  She especially liked black eyed susans which I think are a type of sunflower, certainly similar to them.  We would stop along the roadsides in Oregon and California to look at them when I was little.  I have planted a number of different kinds of sunflowers over the years we have lived here in Utah where they grow well.  And I love to see where they pop up from year to year.  I have had one or two growing in the same window well for a number of years.  This year has been a banner year and I have them growing all over the place.  I love it although Gary doesn't always like them crowding the sidewalks and patio.  The best place they showed up is a rock garden that we have between our deck and patio.  I tried to grow three bushes there last year but it was way too hot with the cement, rocks and white decking. I thought it would always just be rocks.  This spring a green plant started growing and I really thought it was a weed because it branched out in so many places.  It grew and grew to the point when Gary was wondering why I was growing a weed.  I just liked the green plant there.  Then during my dad's birthday celebration, my sister-in-law assured me that it was some type of sunflower (Lea is a plant person.)  I decided to transplant a few other sunflowers into the same spot and now I have this awesome sunflower wall.  The flowers just begun blooming the past couple of weeks and I love to see it from my kitchen window.  This week the finches have arrived and I can watch them eat from the flowers along with thousands of bees.

 

The view from the patio
Our deck is behind it.  It is fun.

You are all invited to come and see it.  I will provide the lemonade and cookies!

"Fiddler on the Roof"

Do you see the theme of this summer---musicals!  And on Friday, July 19th, Gary and I headed to Logan with Gary's mom and his three sisters and their spouses.  We stayed at the same hotel we (the girls) had stayed last year and were able to walk to the Utah Opera House to see "Fiddler on the Roof" with Michal Ballem (a famous opera singer who now runs this opera house.  We have traveled with him on cruise and love to hear him sing.)  It was a great show and we enjoyed being together.  We ate at some nice places including Maddox in Perry on the way to Logan on Friday night.  We played games that night, had a slow morning on Saturday and went to the matinee of the play at 1:00. ate dinner at the Beehive Grill and then headed home.  A quick trip with no pictures, but a sweet time being together and a great memory.  (And don't remind Jena we didn't take her.  She loves plays and "Fiddler on the Roof" is a favorite.  But how many plays do we really need to see in three weeks!)

We appreciate our older kids who all took a turn hanging out with Jena.  Ben covered both afternoons, Jessica and Elessia spent the night, Tosha had the morning, and Scott took her to the movies.  Fun time for her as well.  The kids texted me pictures but I don't know how to take them from my phone text to my computer blog.  Jessica said she could teach me sometime so perhaps I will add them later.

We are home for now.  We might still try to add a few quick trips with the RV to the mountains but nothing set at the moment.  Maybe the painting can really begin in Jena's room (if I would ever catch up with this blog.)

Cedar Break National Monument

Karla had heard that there was a spot to see wildflowers between Cedar City and St. George.  We had never heard about it, but while we were at Zion's I saw a poster for the "Wildflower Festival" at Cedar Break.  We found it on our map and discovered it was about 30 miles east (and up) from Cedar City.  We were going to save it for another trip as we were trying to get home before the rush hour traffic, but Wednesday morning Gary and I decided to try it.  We are so glad we did.

I don't remember ever hearing about Cedar Break although I had heard of the nearby ski area of Brianhead.  I can't believe that more people don't talk about it.  It is awesome and amazing.  Everyone in Utah should see it sometime in their lives and July is a great time as it is wildflower season there.  I have probably told 6-8 people about it since I got home.

It is basically an overlook with trails and wildflowers everywhere.  There is a small range station with a shop, but the actual spot is small....the views are spectacular!  The pictures don't do it justice at all, but here they are to make you want to go there in person and see it.

They had a solor telescope set up so we were able to see the sun
and the sun spots and learn more about the sun form the rangers.
It was "cool".

Some of the wild flowers

The trail to the overlook..
you can see the break!

 

It is called Cedar Break---because of the cedars of course, but also because the ground literally was broken and created these amazing landscapes.  You look down into them from the overlook.


Gary called this "The Temple"
It is hard to see it but the area in the middle
reminds us of the Salt Lake Temple

The edge and the break



Jena and I posing on the bench near the beginning
of the trail into Cedar Break.

More wildflowers
 

 The festival goes throughout the month of July.  We missed the day when you could register for a class and go on a wildflower hunt.  They would teach you how to sketch the flowers you saw and to make a plant journal (they promised that you did not have to be an artist to learn how to do this).  I would love to do that so I have added "Wildflower journaling" to my bucket list and hope they offer it again next year.  Karla said she would go with me.  Anyone else want to go?

It made us a bit later getting back to Salt Lake and then home to Syracuse, but we got Gary to the bowling alley to help with the league and Jena to Young Womens.  However we were a bit too late to get to the Davis Chapter Swim party which I had wanted to go to but we were all tired and Jena wanted to go to Young Womens anyway.

Cedar Break---you don't want to miss it! 

Merry Christmas, Dad and Karla!

You might wonder what Christmas has to do with July 15th, but we were heading to St. George as part of the Christmas present we had given them last year.  We had given them a choice of a number of plays to see and they chose to go to St. George to the Tuacahn Outdoor Theatre to see "Mulan" and "Thoroughly Modern Millie".  Despite being St. George in July (which is almost like being in AZ in June--Hot), it was a great trip and I think we all enjoyed it.

Gary, Jena and I left Syracuse Monday morning and picked up Dad and Karla in Midvale in our motor home.  We had a nice trip down which seemed to be quite short since Gary did all of the driving and I just talked to Karla and Dad.  We stopped at Cove Fort on the way down to eat lunch.  Here is a picture of the lovely hollyhocks along the picnic area.  I love hollyhocks and it made me determine to find a good spot so they can grow in my yard.  Mine is not doing well.

We arrived in St. George and dropped Dad and Karla off at their hotel and then we went to the Templeview RV park where we had stayed last October.  Jena and I got a quick swim in before we had to get ready for dinner (at Kneaders) and then off to see "Mulan".  Now since I am the one recording this, I could totally leave off the next part but Gary would tease me about falsifying the record so I might as well admit to my mistake.  When I got there to pick up our tickets from Will Call and order dinner for the next night, I grabbed them and headed over to join the others at the door.  ("Mulan" was being performed in their indoor theatre.)  It wasn't until I got to the door that I realized that I had only four tickets for the play....and it wasn't their error.  For some reason I had only ordered four tickets for each play.  I ordered them back in March but I must have been half asleep, because apparently I had forgotten about Jena although the plan was also that she would come with us.  I headed to the nearest box office and was able to get another ticket for each play (and in both cases the tickets had just become available).  Gary (the good sport that he was) got to enjoy "Mulan" from the back row (we were on row 2) and sat behind us at "Thoroughly Modern Millie".  We were so lucky that it worked out.  I would have felt really dumb if we couldn't have gotten the additional tickets.  Oh well, these things can happen!  Both plays were enjoyable and we enjoyed the buffet before "Millie" as well.

Pictures from Tuacahn:

The SHOWS!

Karla, Dad, Jena, me, and Gary
(names are for my descendants who might not know us)

Although the menu items don't change much from
night to night they have different names depending on
the production.

They are also doing "Mary Poppins".  I think Jena is
sad we didn't see it, but we recently saw it at the
Capital Theatre in a Broadway production so that was
good enough for me.

Some of the cast from "Millie"

We wondered about what to do during the day on Tuesday because of the heat.  We decided to head to Zion's National Park.  Even though we had just been there last fall, it was still enjoyable to enjoy the beauty of the park.  We mostly rode the shuttle and looked out the windows although we did get off at two spots and look around a bit.  I know I posted a lot of pictures last fall from Zion's, but here are a few more.  It is an amazing spot of the earth!

The rocks

The Virgin River which makes this all happen.

In the water

Karla (Nana), Dad, Gary and Jena

We did manage to swim three or four times while we were there.  We headed back home on Wednesday morning with the goal of beating the rush hour traffic in Salt Lake City.  We might have made it but we took an awesome side trip---next post!

And Merry Christmas, Dad and Karla!