Christmas Break

I need to take more pictures. These are just quick shots from my phone. 

At the Park with Grandpa. Playing follow the leader

 Rachel, Rob and Ely came for Christmas.  Ely came sick and I think we got his bug and spent the last two days throwing up.  I can't imagine how terrible that would be with a little 18 month old... sorry Rach!

 Ella loved a princess dress she got from Grandma H.

 Driving to Logan to spend two days up there.  Ella was eager to get there!

 The kids gave movie tickets to Grandpa H. so they could go to the movies with him!  They chose what kind of treats they wanted to take with them.

 Tyler ate 4 doughnuts at one time and hot cocoa for dinner one night at Grandma B's house.  This was him after he finished off the 4th one.  He was DONE!

Toby Balls

On Sunday December 11th, 2011 Toby got to go back up to Heaven.  

We had taken him to the vet 13 days prior.  The vet told us he had Lymphoma. 

He had two large lymph nodes pushing on his throat.  He also had two large masses pushing on his lungs.  This made it hard to eat and hard to breath.  

He started on pain pills and was able to eat dog food for a few more days.  

But after a few days we had to cook his food for him.  

These are some fun time we will remember with our Toby dog.  

Swimming in Logan

His cute little face

When he was younger he loved to chase his tail .

At one time he was a little tiny puppy.  That was 11 year ago. 

We took these two days before he died.  He was having a hard time breathing. 

 We love you Toby. 

 My sister in law sent us a beautiful book called Dog Heaven.  The kids keep asking to read it over and over.  It is about all dogs going to heaven and being able to run and run and run and swim and get loved by little angel children.  We know these are the things Toby is loving about Heaven right now.

Darren and I wanted to know when the best time to put Toby to sleep would be.  On my birthday, Saturday night, we came home from the Neighborhood Christmas party and Toby couldn't walk any more.  He had been having trouble.  I slept with him in the kitchen.  Darren and I would have to carry him out several times in the night to let him pee.  Then in the morning we called my Dad who came over to be the kids.  The clinic we took him too was beautiful.  It was 7:30 in the morning, we were the only ones there.  It was quite and peaceful.  It was the right time.

Kids Cyclo Cross race

Darren just finished his last bike race of the year.  This was his big finally... pounding it up to the finish line that was just around the corner. 

Tyler did awesome in his race.

In this video he yelled to Darren that he was passing other kids.  He was super excited. 

Ella was awesome.  She was the only racer in her 3 and under division who could pedal. 

She should/could have done the big kid race. 

Our happenings thus far...

Here are a few pictures I want to remember 

We had to put Toby to sleep last Sunday morning.  I would  like to right a short post about that later.  

But he had one good day right before he died. 

I was so excited to see him eating real dog food I had to take a picture of it! 

 For the most part he was only able to eat soft foods for the last week of his life.  Ella made this meal.  She peeled the sweet potatoes.  Then Toby gobbled up the sweet potato, scrambled egg, tuna meal.

 Toby love to eat tuna but inhaled the vienna sausages.

 One after noon I ate the most delicious calorie free meal.  Ella and Tyler were in and out employees.  They served me all kinds of good food.

 We had a neighborhood party.  Ella is front and center in the blue outfit.  Tyler is up there too but out of view.  Ella can't wait to go to primary on January 1st and be with the big kids.

This is poor Kyle... actually this is not poor Kyle.  He is good at getting the kids all riled up.  Then he gets pounded on for a while.  

 This is one of Ella's favorite things to do.  She can paint her own fingernails and toenails pretty good.

Our Toby Dog

Darren and I have had Toby for almost 11 years.  I often joke that our honeymoon phase didn't exist because we got a puppy 6 weeks into our marriage.  Responsibility!

Toby has Lymphoma which is progressing very fast.  

He enjoys walking to school with us in the morning. But just in the last week he cant make it any more. 

The kids love him a lot.  

 I told Darren last night as we gave Toby some extra love... I hope in heaven Toby will tell us we were good owners.  I hope he has a good life.  but I could have always done more ...

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend. We went for a mountain bike ride at Wheeler Farm.  

A great way to burn of a few extra calories before dinner right!

 Ella still loves to wear a skirt all the time. Even when biking!

 After biking we grabbed some lunch at home and went up to Alta for their free skiing.  Tyler got in 4 great runs and Ella did well with two.  I am delighted to see they both remember how to ski from last year.

We had a wonderful family dinner at my mom house. We even got some nice game time in after dinner.

Then we drove to Logan the next day.  Ella loves her babies right now.  She also loves to "get ready for the ball".... "hurry we cant be late.".... anyway. Here is her baby headed to Logan.

 After Logan we went to the aquarium in Sandy.  We had our Clark cousins there.  The highlights... besides the cousins ... were petting the sting rays in the tank and seeing the penguins.

That night Tyler got to sing with his Kindergarten class at the local Zions bank.  Then the bank turned on their Christmas lights.  We ate cookies and drank milk.  We were delighted our cousins came to cheer him on. 

Tyler also continues to build legos.  This is his tow truck.  

The Titan with the Climbing Club

I need to type up this post and be done with it... 

I have been putting it off. so here goes

We drove down to Moab to the area know as Fisher Towers.  We hiked in 3 miles to an amazing camping spot.  We set up camp in the dark.  Slept and got ready for the next days adventure.  

My pack weighed 70 pounds.  It had food, water, camping gear and lots of climbing gear in it.  It was interesting to feel that extra weight crushing my knees, my back... It was eye opening.  Don't carry extra weight around... it hurts!

Our campsite. 

This is what we were going to be doing.  We had to place little cams in the rock... expect them to hold and then climb on.  We were secure with a rope attached to us but I was not ready for this.

Luckily I wasn't hauling up this much gear on my back for 900 feet 

but I still had plenty and it WAS heavy!

There is me in the purple coat... don't I look nervous!  My rope tied to my back would slowly come loose ( I didn't realize it until it was slipping from my back) and at 400 feet would fall to the ground. At that point I started to get really scared.  I had just watched  a movie clip of the Vertical Limit movie right before I came and instead of a rope falling in the movie it was a person dropping to the ground... I started to shake.  I should not have watched that silly movie clip....

This spot where the people are sitting is 600 feet up.  That is where I lost it.  Ang is amazing and brave. I am not so much.  I thought I was... but I am not!  I had just watched my rope fall of my back.(yes I was still tied in) and I had seen two people take some good falls and heard some scary screams from others who had fallen.  No one was too hurt. In rock climbing you just fall but being up so high was not good for me. 

I started to cry and wanted to go back down.  Thanks to Ang and AaronWhite, I kept going but only using my ascender to go up the rope and no rock climbing skills. 

800 feet above the ground.. I was shaking.  A LOT!  (another guy had just fallen here)

That is our camp site down there. 

This was the top.  I was so glad to get there.  Sadly I had left our head lamps in our back back at the duck- 300 feet down. so since it gets dark at 5:30 we had to descend down 300 feet in the dark.

Once my head lamp was on it was fine.  slowly rapping down 600 feet takes some time but when you cant see the ground it doesn't matter.  

Aaron was my hero.  He and Ang got me down.  Because of my loosing it... Aaron hauled down all my gear... which had a bad ending.  He accidentally dropped it 600 feet to that ledge in the picture below.  It fell in the dirt which was good but it fell on a ledge of another tower.  Not to the ground.  

So on Saturday morning Aaron was amazing... he climbed the whole Titan Tower again. Then he did a 650 foot repel down to this tower, got the gear, then repelled down that tower to get our gear safe.  If you look up three pictures to the one with a foot in the left corner, you would look down on the huge repel Aaron did to get the gear.  The gear dropped a  LONG way!

You can see a little tiny white helmet by the big crack. Aaron coming off the 650 repel, got our gear and now coming down the second tower. 

This is the picture zoomed out.  

So .. wimpy me stayed on the ground Saturday.  Ang in the center of the photo, went up with our friend Jennifer.  I was so relieved.

Here is the Titan.  900 feet of glory.  Those are carpet squares on the tower so our ropes wouldn't ruin the soft sandstone.  There were 22 of us on this on Friday.  High traffic!

It was a beautiful place. and an amazing campsite!

But I liked the campground from this view at the base instead of 600 or 900 feet up.  

The day ended great.  Aaron saved the gear that was dropped.  It was at least 500$ worth of gear. So we were so happy.  This is Ang with her arms up celebrating Aaron safely getting our dropped gear...

People were coming down in the dark again on Saturday which meant we hiked out in the dark.  That burger in Green River was amazing!

So for now.. I will keep my feet on the ground for a bit.  I seem to be getting soft in my old(er) age!

The boys at my house

Tyler is still all lego.  

He is so creative it is amazing.  He says he might want to be structural engineer like his Uncle Nolan.  He builds something amazing then wrecks it right after because he says he needs the pieces for his next project.  So we take pictures, document his hard work and move on to the next thing. 

This is a car shop where they fix up your car.  

(we have been at lots of car places lately)

It includes a place to sit on the left, a tree in the middle, a building that the roof comes off.  You can look inside and see tools, etc.  Then a car to work on and a red ramp for the cars to drive up on. 

Here is his crane he built.  

Here is a boat that includes a satellite on the left side.

This is the 33 year old man I am married too.  

He likes to play in the mud.  Thankfully he can do his own laundry and clean his own bike.  

That is mud all over him. 

Notice his shoes, and his chain, and his gears.... oh my

He says this is fun.