Upper Antelope Canyon

I've got to play a bit of catch up. This is the promised rest of Mom's BDAY Lake Powell trip. We toured both Upper and Lower Antelope Canyon which officially means that Q, M, and I have hiked the entire course from water's edge to tippity-top! We were lucky to do the lake up segment last year because is was impossible to get there by boat or wave-runner this year. The upper half of the canyon is divided into two parts (upper and lower) and you have to pay to see it. It was expensive but absolutely awe-inspiring. We couldn't believe we had been living at Powell every summer our entire lives and it took us this long to see one of the world's most famous sites!

In the canyon Quinn kept asking, "Did you get that? Are you taking pictures!?!?"

...I can reply in the resounding affirmative! Yes, I got it!!!

This is at the very "top" of Upper Antelope.
You have to reverse back into the canyon from here:

We were wondering how this outfitter ever got permits!

And that is only Upper Antelope! We had to drop Mark off at the houseboat before we hit the lower canyon because he was... well, not in a good mood (can you tell in all the pics? All of his poses are a direct combat to us saying, "Now Mark, can we please take a normal one for the Christmas card? Just smile." So I'll post Lower Antelope (which we loved even more) tomorrow.

Mark Attends the LDS Temple

Going to the temple is a big deal for any LDS (Mormon) member. Our temples are the house of the Lord, just as the temples during Jesus' time were, and we hold them sacred. Anyone can attain entrance into the temple but they must live high ethic and moral standards of integrity, honesty, and virtue to attend. When I attend the temple I feel a peace that I do not feel anywhere else, I feel total and complete joy and happiness. I'm not perfect, but I try to live righteously each day so that I might be worthy to enter this special place.

That having been said, you may now understand the HUGE deal it is when I say that my once rebel, wayward, and completely crazy brother was able to go through the temple for the first time! I must admit, it was a bit weird seeing him there, but totally awesome that he turned his life around and is... well, nice to be around lately. He will be serving a mission in Dallas, Texas for the next 2 years.

Brad's just back from his 2-year mission in Russia (so difficult):

The whole fam-dam-ily:

After words we went to Nelsen's for frozen custard...and that was the beginning of Quinn and my stint down the path of junk food/gym apathy/no return!

In other news:

Q and I visited his dad's grave in Ogden. It was actually quite odd to think that his body was there because we've been feeling him so strongly a part of our lives the last 6 months in SGU. His presence was so strong at the cemetery and it was an extremely emotional stop. We are so blessed and fortunate to know what we do about life after death. It is a great comfort, more so than I ever could have imagined before this happened.

Also, and may I add FINALLY, the backyard in Pine Valley is going in!!!

SUMMER 2009

Does anyone else feel like this summer totally sucks!????? Maybe it's just me but just seems like it's been way way lame! Anybody else with me?

The Last Dance

It has taken a long while to post this year's "last dance" but, for posterity's sake... and since I only have two weeks left before the absolute euphoric bliss of summer comes to an end, I decided to grace you with my end-of-school-year dance moves once again.

This year I went with something a little more somber as I completely fell in love with my students and had an amazingly productive and successful year (95% pass rate on EOLs and the DWA). I will miss them and my coveted schedule of only 1 prep (regular old 9th grade English).

The dancing is a tradition. Every year, on the last day of school, after the last student has left the building and I'm just about to lock things up and head into the joy of summer vacation, I get my groove on. I'm not saying my groove is great or even desireable to see, but it is a groove none-the-less.

Want to see last year's "DANCE"? Go HERE! I must warn you, however, it is quite a bit more celebratory as my first year of teaching middle school English was absolute hell.

P.S. I'm at Lake Powell and my phone is off. That's why you haven't seen or heard from me all summer.

Attention All American Cloggers!!!

I am so excited to announce that I finally created the AAC website we've been talking about all summer! It took me two days of html craziness, but I have now learned several blogging tricks of the trade and have come out of it with a fabulous new blog with bling!!!

Just click on this button and check out the new site!
While you're at it, there is a place at AAC to steal this button for your own blogging sidebar (I'm so proud that I now know how to do that). Please steal away because we're trying to find the thousands of cloggers who double stepped their way through the ranks for the last 20+ years!

The purpose of the site is to document AAC history and celebrate old times,
but the best part is the BIO section! If you clogged or were a fan of the AAC in any way, you can send some information about yourself and any photos and memories- we'll post it to the site!!!!

How fun is this going to be!

Now remember, it's brand spankin' new as of today so there isn't a menegerie of content... yet anyway- keep coming back and having fun remembering times like clogging on a galcier in Canada, for elections in Japan, at the PCC in Hawaii, and even being in the newspaper in Germany! Anyone else remember Mr. Clean? The cake castle in Disney World? Nearly killing three tour bus drivers in Europe- one tried to pull a U-turn on a small one-way street in Amsterdam!

Soon all of these memories will be documented for the taking... Oh, how I can't wait to here from everyone, Mom and I are even making blog cards to pass out to cloggers we run into on the streets!

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So proud of my new HTML skills...speaking of that, time to give Hadley Enterprises an uplift!

Powell - family trip

Antelope Canyon

Last October Q, mom, and I hiked from the lake up as far as we could go in Antelope so this summer it was our goal to finish it from the top down so we could see it all. Wo, I can't believe I've been going to Powell all summer my entire life and hadn't done this until now! It is breathtaking, worth the fee, and a MUST-SEE! We did upper and lower Antelope in the same day so we wouldn't have to double pay the Navajo Nation fee. More pics to come (because I took about 300) but for now, let these very few tide you over.

Mom's Bday

We spent Mom's big day at Powell (per her request) and did everything she wanted to do- that included Antelope and driving all the way up the San Juan arm as far as we could go in a ski boat- which was AWESOME. Sorry- you'll have to wait for those pictures too.... In the meantime we did this:

...Matt and Mark also doubled on the knee board (and when I say doubled, I mean it: two guys to one board).

Where NOT to camp:

Apparently they had beef to dinner (hehehe :)

Meg in Warm Creek.

Pretty hot mom! ... and agile too- look at that form!

Glass!

FUN FACTS ABOUT MOM:

• She has NEVER colored her hair- yep folks, that is %100 perfect natural amazingness.
• When asked what she wanted for her big birthday, she requested a Magic Bullet and pencil sharpener.
• She has been at Lake Powell for a solid month and there is no food in her house when I go over :(
  

Garden Dinners, Meree's Bithday, and...get ready for this: more UNDERWEAR PURSES

Our garden has done swell this year! In fact, I'm watering the dang thing as we speak. So far, my fave garden meals are thus: Shredded zucchini and tomatoes (freshly picked) fried in organic EVOO with organic Azure Standard basil, topped with Orange Roughy or Salmon sprinkled with organic lemon pepper (Azure Standard freshly dried herbs). Oh yum!

I also splurged and ate real live pasta! But it's mixed with all the good stuff:
Tomatoes, grapes, pineapple, spinach, artichokes,
and a really yummy sweet vinaigrette I whipped up.
I served this at the family reunion.

We have some new prototypes... now the trick is going from A to B: Design to Production (which is really more difficult than it looks). Q is worried that if I post these, someone will steal the idea. We def need a patent. Check out the diaper bag:


Meree is now 23! Wo, I wasn't even married when I was 23... I was out of college and living the good life of leisure. It's hard to believe how different her life is! ...and how amazing she deals with "it all." She is pretty much perfect... and my hero- but then I think you already knew that.


I made the cake:

Chocolate zucchini sour cream on top, vanilla yogurt on bottom- the standard cream cheese frosting. It took forever to make and was good and dense, but really dry. Overall, not a repeat.

It's Official: ...and we need your advice.

We have booked our plane rides to Brazil!!! It took me about a gazillion hours in front of the comp but I managed to get a great flight over peak times during Christmas for under $700 round trip! Sheesh! We are going for a whopping 2.5 weeks (December 17th-January 1st) with much much thanks to DAN who is taking Quinn's time so he can leave. THANK YOU everyone at Q's work for making this happen for us!

Unfortunately we had to opt out of the Amazon jungle portion of the trip due to the fact that Brazil is HUGE and we simply can't see it all (drat); but we will be going to the areas of Salvador, Sao Paulo, Porto Alegre, and Iguasu.

Advice would be SO helpful if you've been. We want to go sailing, hopefully down the green coast- maybe to Paraty... my dream would be to make it to Fernando de Noronho if we can afford it, and I've heard amazing things about bominhas. Also, we are planning on staying in the Argentina side of Iguazu. TIPS PLEASE! This trip is going to be a monster to plan- especially since we are taking the bugdget version. I'm having trouble finding charters for sailing. Do we drive (rent a car) or fly everywhere???

Come what may, the vacation days are on the map, the plane ride is booked, and we are super excited! You know it's true, after losing a great deal of $$$ (economy)-more than I can bare to say- the only thing that is making me feel better is finally spending some $ on a much needed and long awaited trip!

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P.S. I joined facebook today. I had to have something to do while I was searching flights. GASP, that thing is a black hole!!!