The Sad Sad Story of Liza and the Christmas Ball

“Uh, Oh, there’s Mom.  I’ll just walk by and she’ll never notice.”

   

“What?  Me?  No I don’t have anything behind my back.  In fact, I’m not even here.  Why are you always bothering me?”

”Oh, that?!  Yeah, I found this ball on the tree.  It was just sitting there not getting used at all by anybody.  It is the perfect ball for my thumb.  I’ve always needed a ball for my thumb.”

”Wait this ball isn’t supposed to be on my thumb you say?  How can that be?  Look at it.  Perfect fit”

”This shiny green ball is made of glass you say?”

”This one right here is made of glass.  Wow!  Yeah, I got it off the Christmas tree.  I know I’m not supposed to touch all the other ornaments that don’t fit my thumb perfectly. But this one here, this glass one here, it fits my thumb perfectly.”

“What is that you say?  This ball isn’t for playing?!”

    “Grumble, grumble, grumble"

***Although it would appear that the star of this story is upset by her caring mother doing her caring mother job of taking glass ornaments away from the baby, the truth must be disclosed that she is grumbling because she kicked her glass ball and it rolled under the bookcase while her (uncaring?) mother took pictures.  Her (caring? uncaring?  I don’t know anymore) mother did leave it there to prevent any further accident, you know, in case she forgot about the glowing 8 ft tree upstairs. 

It was a time of snuggles, who knew?

I don’t remember as much of that first little bit with the twins as I’d like to admit. The memories I do have mostly involve a lot of crying and balancing so when I ran across this photo that I didn’t realize existed while backing up my disks to a new hard-drive, I was delighted to see that at least one snuggly lovey time was documented.   

Dinosaur National Monument Day 3

We headed out of Vernal via Hwy 191.  It is such a crazy landscape with all the different rock formations seemingly competing for space.  It is one of the only times I’ve thought to describe a place most certainly craggy.  We stopped along the way to take in the view and then explored Flaming Gorge for the day.  It was completely desolated except the few quiet fly fishers which made it perfect for me.  I think a place devoid of people is the promising sign of a good vacation activity.  We skipped rocks on the lake and then found this amazing hike below the dam.  We took switchbacks down the side canyon cliffs with the view of the Green River the entire way.  Then once at the bottom we followed a wood walkway up the side of the river to the boat launch and then hiked back up a rock trail to our starting point.  It is a hike that I would do again and again.  Picture below brought to you by Alison.        Picture below brought to you by Stuart.  

Happy Halloween

 

           

Dinosaur National Monument Day 2

This is the quarry exhibit that just reopened after being closed for 5 years while a new structure was built.  It is crazy seeing all the bones and trying to wrap your brain around their age.  Scientists think this area was a logjam of dinosaurs after a long drought and then subsequent flood washed a bunch of dino carcasses here.  I think it is hard for kids to even appreciate the age of these bones so really once Alison and Stuart had seen a few they were ready to move on.  We hiked the trail close to the quarry wall and were able to find a bunch of our own dinosaur bones just surfacing from the face of the rocks.  The kids liked finding their own dino bones on our hike more, especially with our Peter to help explain to both the adults and the kids our geological travels. 

     

Dinosaur National Monument Day 1

We had a few days off school so we decided to go to Vernal and see some old rocks and bones.  It was so much fun.  The weather was amazing and it was good to get away together.  Aric, Peter, and Gavin came so we had great company and our own loved resident geologist.  We started off with the Field House Dino Museum in Vernal.  Liza had a hard time understanding the limits of ropes and fencing.  We followed the museum with a great hike on the McConkie Ranch looking at petroglyphs.  We haven’t hiked as much as we anticipated since Alison got sick but this trip reminded us again and again how strong she is after two years of hitting that gnarly immune system hard.  It made me so thankful as we watched her hike all over these mountains.  Stuart is practically a goat.  He hit a tree/rock/gravel pretty hard and bloodied his chin but was back climbing the next day. 

     See all that rope?  Turn for a minute to look at a butterfly and the baby is gone.