The Grotto

Last week Andy wanted to go Mountain Biking in Payson Canyon, so I looked up a trail to take Kylee hiking on while he was out. We found this one called "The Grotto." It said it was .3 miles each way, and we should expect to spend 45 minutes round trip, including looking at the waterfall. We figured that was perfect, since Andy wanted to ride for an hour. We got there and started walking...and 10 minutes later, we were there. Apparently Kylee is not as slow of a walker as whoever made up the website imagined. We played, then walked all the way back down (taking every scenic route we came across, and stopping to throw leaves in the river), then walked all the way back up, played some more, then walked 1/2 way back down, at which point Kylee realized she left her water bottle up there, so we walked back up, then walked back down...and we ran into Andy almost at the bottom. The moral of the story is: The Grotto Trail might take 45 mintues round trip if you hop on one foot, backwards...blindfolded...but it's a pretty trail, and a pretty little waterfall.

Kylee liked that they had 4-5 of these log bridges that she got to cross.

At this spot, there were three log bridges in a row (you can see the other two behind her). This is where she tried to throw leaves in the river. When I say "tried" I mean: I think ONE of the dozens of leaves she threw finally actually landed IN the water. The rest landed on rocks, or by the side of the water, or on her shoe. She's either the worse aim EVER, or those were some really stubborn leaves that had no intention of getting wet.

This is one of the scenic routes. There kept being little trails that would branch off, go up the mountain a little bit, then come back down onto the main trail a few hundred feet past where they branched off. Kylee called it the "forrest way" and we took turns. One of us would go the "forrest way" while the other one had to stay on the main trail, and then at the next one, we would switch. It hogged up like 5 additional minutes of our hiking time.

Painting with Shaving Cream

Last week at Kylee's school they learned how to paint with shaving cream (they were learning about Primary Colors), and she really wanted to teach Andy and I how to do it. We kept telling her we could do it on Saturday. Saturday morning, first thing when she woke up, she said, "Okay! It's Saturday! Let's go buy some shaving cream!" I asked her what else we need and she said, "Primary Colors." I should've guessed. We went to the store and got some shaving cream, and she carried it around all day until finally we were ready. We made some beautiful pictures, and a HUGE mess!

Writing Letters

At Kylee's school, they've been working on writing their letters. I decided we should start working on it more at home, too. This week we worked on uppercase and lowercase "A". Now she can write her whole name (I love that in "Ann" one N is backwards and one is right). And how about that sideways "S"?
Now that she knows how to write the letter A, she can write daddy's name. She was pretty excited. She says she wants to work on "Q" next, because "that one's tricky, Mom."

12 Hours of Sundance

Yesterday Andy participated in his annual "12 Hours of Sundance" mountain bike race. It actually ended up being the 10-hours of Sundance this year, because it rained so much the night before that they had to wait a couple hours for the course to dry out. Here he is warming up for his first lap. Gotta love the neon green socks!
Heading up the hill on his first lap.
On the final stretch! His team ended up finishing in 4th place, but it was definitely a close match. They were in 3rd place for most of the race, and it came down to the last couple of laps and just a few minutes difference at the end. They did a really good job.

The kids brought crayons, coloring books, and jackets. It was pretty cold for most of the day, but they didn't complain, which was good! I brought my secret weapon for Kylee...fingernail polish. Towards the end, when she started getting grumpy, I told her if she could just be good for one more hour, I'd paint her fingernails and toenails while uncle Pat rode the last lap. I never heard another peep out of her! She is now the proud owner of neon pink finger-and-toenails, plus purple sparkles. In the afternoon, when the sun came out for a little while, grandma Karen took us for our annual ride up the chair lift. The leaves weren't nearly as colorful as they were last year when we went, which says a lot about the weather we've been having lately! It was really relaxing though, and the views from up there are great. Kylee thought she was going to be scared a couple of times (hence the eyeballs keeping watch on what's coming in the first picture), but we told her she wasn't scared...and she believed us.

The kids also really loved riding the shuttle bus from the Sundance base up to the parking lot where the race was. It's amazing what kinds of things will keep kids entertained!

Oh What Do You Do in the Summertime?

This summer, aside from building our house, we went to the Spanish Fork demolition derby...
...made apple smiles...
...and perfected the art of wake surfing...as much as can be expected from people who go twice a year and haven't ever done "real" surfing!