40 Years and Counting!!!

Saturday, August 28th, was our 40th Wedding Anniversary. Whoa, where did the years go??? Kinda fun to think back and remember what our world was like then and the events of that day. The place where we had our wedding breakfast is long gone, as well as the church/cultural hall where we had our reception in Bear Lake. Glad we're still hanging in there! Saturday afternoon, we went to the Salt Lake Temple and then out to dinner at The Garden. It was an enjoyable day full of happy memories.

What a nice surprise...I received this bouquet of dried lavender from Robin along with anniversary wishes. Thanks so much!

The lavender (what a wonderful fragrance!) came from the Sauvie Island Farm in Portland. Actually, it is a farm on a large island bordered by the Willamette and Columbia Rivers. It came with a little voile bag to fill with the "dried blossoms" and put in your dresser drawer, and also a lovely card with a photo showing part of the farm.

Here's the lavender in a vase. I had wanted to visit the lavender farm south of Provo this year for my birthday, but it ended up being closed on the planned day. I'm no longer disappointed...I got some lavender after all!!

The Salt Lake Temple where we got married 40 years ago...a beautiful and special place.

Here we are at the Garden Restaurant overlooking Temple Square.

One more photo by the fountain on the top floor of the Joseph Smith Building.

Oh, just for fun, can you tell what this plant is? Look carefully at the root.

Yep, it is a sprouted peanut that I pulled out of the rocks along the terraced walls! The peanut was hidden there last winter by one of our blue Scrub Jays. I've found several nuts hidden around the yard this summer...always a fun discovery.

Hummingbirds!!!

It is prime time for hummers. The "new batches" have learned how to eat at the feeders and now they are practicing their dogfighting skills. We saw maybe 4 at a time (their parents) earlier this summer, but now it's more like 8 to 10 and we are filling the feeders every day! These videos were taken on Friday, August 27th, just after a thunderstorm...sorry they aren't too colorful. But you can certainly hear them chirping at each other (turn up your volume.) These are Black-chinned Hummingbirds and they will be migrating to Arizona or Mexico starting in a week or two. Here are a few interesting facts:

Hummers consume half their weight in sugar each day. They feed for 30 to 60 seconds, five to eight times per hour from sun-up to sundown. They sip nectar at the rate of 13 licks per second. The sugar water is only fuel for catching insects, their main source of nutrition. The hummingbird's heart beats 1,260 times per minute. A resting hummingbird takes 250 breaths per minute. The metabolism of a hummingbird is equal to an average man who would eat 285 lbs. of hamburger per day to maintain his weight!

We certainly enjoy watching them while we eat on the deck. They hardly notice us, but sometimes they come over within 6" and stare us down.

August 2010

We lost another tree in a wind storm. This was a Chinese Elm on the berm. We lost it's other half earlier in the spring. Dad used a hatchet and quite a bit of time to chop it up. Even though elms aren't great trees, we miss it. (enlarge to figure this photo out)

The elm fell into the yard and it's top branches were almost in the pond. The resilient red twig dogwoods bounced right back and my pot of posies wasn't harmed.

We spent a Saturday afternoon at the Summerfest in Bountiful, watching the international dancers perform, eating (as usual) and browsing the booths. We stopped at the French one (they were from Dijon) and picked up a small jar of French mustard...Edmond Fallot...evidently the new and better Grey Poupon. It's good. This photo shows Mongolian Dancers...they were the best....costumes and music and dance (and cutest, Dad says).

I believe this group was from the Czech Republic.

The high-stepping Czech guys.

The Czech musicians.

Here is the country French group. They wore heavy wooden shoes (sabots). Their regular shoes were inside...quite a bit of weight to lift on the kicks and quite a bit of clunk-clunking.

Boys will be boys, expecially French ones. In this dance the boy with the stick is trying to peek under the girls' skirts!

The French musicians...3 accordians, a violin, a clarinet and a piccolo.

Last Saturday while we working in the yard and the heat, we heard the tune of an ice cream truck. I don't think one has ever come up our street. We couldn't help but flag him down. He was fun to talk to and it brought back some fun memories for both of us.

Here's the menu on the truck/van. You can't see the prices but they ranged from $1 to about $4.50...rather pricey. Dad bought an orange creamsicle ($1) and I got a chocolate-coated vanilla bar ($1) and we bought 2 Blue Bunny Ice Cream Sandwiches ($2.50 each...ouch!) and saved them for later. Our neighbors across the street came out and bought a bunch, too. We're all kooks.

A nice shot of Bear Lake. Dad went up for an afternoon to close the house and change the locks, again. This renter (who signed a 3-year lease at her request) only stayed 4 months...getting married. At least she left it clean. We'll be going up again this weekend and hope (I'm not sure why) somebody else will want to rent...

Hiking Adam's Canyon

We just had to be the FTF (First To Find) for the "Adam's Eden" geocache, placed by our friends the 6Wackos. (They helped get 2 of our travel bugs..."Talmage the Beetle" and "Sydney the Caterpillar up to Portland and close to their goal of Hillsboro.) This cache was rated 4-1/2, 4-1/2 (we've never attempted one of this difficulty) and true to our name, we were Idiots to try it, but try it we did and WE DID IT. Plus we got a full day's worth of exercise out of doors enjoying Mother Nature. We arrived at the trail head at 8:30am (a small miracle for us) and trudged through those hot sandy switchbacks to enjoy a great walk in the trees along the stream. It took about 2-1/2 hours to get to the waterfall...what a welcomed sight! Part of the difficulty of this cache was the GPSr jumping around all over the place because we were boxed in between the canyon walls. We tried a number of different places before succeeding in finding the cache. The last 50 feet was a steep climb up a rock face, but Dad made it and signed the log. Awesome reward for persevering. Yeah, we're The Geo Idiots. We had fun talking to some other hikers...there were quite a few. We ate our lunch and started back down, looking for 7 other caches. We spent more than 1/2 an hour on one that we never found and some time on one that had obviously been muggled, but we did find the other 5. We got out of the canyon around 5:00pm pretty tired and hot and out of water, but pretty pleased with ourselves. Fun Day.

I don't think we've been in Adam's Canyon for about 20 years when we hiked it with all the kids, at least up to this spot where the stream rushes under some big boulders. You probably remember...it's called The Refrigerator and it's a nice, cool-spray spot. We ate our lunch here.

The Falls.

Around 3:00pm my feet were in dire need of cooling off, so into the stream they went. Dad caught me splashing more cool water on my cheeks. Ahhhhh!

This is a photo looking back down the canyon to Layton from a geocache called Adam's Vantage, the one we didn't find, but we really enjoyed the view.

We did find a cache at this location, though, called The Heart of the Forest. Someone must have carved their name(s) in this tree a long time ago.

From Dinosaurs to Birthday Dinner

The whole kit and kaboodle...It's a rare but great occasion to get the whole family together, and we did it today for some fun times at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi and at The Cheesecake Factory.

The day started out with Clara reminding us of the exhausting, but fun, day before at Lagoon.

Just one more Peanut M&M before departing.

It's another sunny July day along the Wasatch front...good for a Hillsboro Family Photo. We enjoyed your visit!

We all met at the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point.

Building a dinosaur...I think we attached every piece and part.

The water and sand attraction...creating islands and rivers and such.

Sydney and a BIG Shark.

One more photo of my favorite spot.

Grandpa and Clara.

Brielle and sand at the excavation site.

Colby at the computer station, of course.

Outside at the Children's Garden...Noah and the Ark.

Playing in the pool with Aunt Autumn.

Clara by the Ark.

Cooling Off...was this really fun?

My feet are feelin' fine, thank you.

Classic stance with the rhinos and zebras.

Climbing the ladder in the lighthouse...I can do it myself!

Sydney in the window.

Brielle in the other window.

Walking around the garden with Uncle Abram and Aunt Airie.

Afternoon stroll.

Looking at the lilypads.

Inside a caterpillar.

Brother and Sister and Wisteria.

On to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory...what's not to like?

Birthday Plate and Key Lime Cheesecake.

Birthday card for the Birthday Boy.

Happy Birthday Baron, #34. Clever handmade gift from Airie.

Goofing off.

The Kids and Grandkids.