We decided to spend Thanksgiving up at the cabin with Momo this year. We got a rather late start on Wednesday evening and after watching the car in front of us hit a deer round about Randolph, we arrived safe and sound at the nice warm cabin. We spent the next couple days eating, sledding and playing outside in the snow. The food was yummy as always and it was fun to spend time at the cabin after not having visited for a while.

Bright and early on Labor Day I drove out to my Dad’s house to get his new Jeep hauling trailer to haul my Jeep home from the base of Little Cottonwood canyon. Two days earlier Ben and I had driven to Snowbird to go mountain biking and in the process had blown a rather large hole in my radiator (it had been having some cooling issues for a few weeks prior). After coasting down the canyon in neutral, I had to leave the Jeep to be rescued later so Monday morning, we went to rescue it.

After spending the entire morning retrieving the Jeep, we all piled in the Yukon and headed down to Spanish Fork canyon with my folks and siblings to do some shooting and have a BBQ. It was good times. We took the shotguns and .22′s and everyone had fun shooting. Even Jack and Annie got into the rotation and took a few shots with my sisters 20 gauge. After turning half a box of clay pigeons into powder we pulled out the hibachi’s and had fun BBQing in the drizzle and wind. It only threatened to storm for about 30 minutes and then blew over and was actually quite pleasant weather. We all had fun.

Yes, I know it’s been several months since my last post and no, we haven’t died. We just got a bit blog-lazy over the crazy summer. We’ve actually been quite busy so I thought I’d drop a few posts to show off our summer picture album. I don’t remember the exact order of events over the summer so I’ll just post the albums as I get them uploaded.

First on the agenda is our Labor Day weekend hike to Silver Lake. After a long morning of mountain biking at Snowbird (for me) we decided to head up Big Cottonwood and hike up to Twin Lakes off the Brighton Silver Lake trail head. We went up with the Whitakers and had a yummy picnic once we got back down to the bottom. We hiked about 7 miles round trip and both myself and the children were glad when we got finished. I could barely walk by the end.

Last Saturday we spent the day at the park in Clarkston at the Clark family reunion. After discovering a new “shortcut” over the Short Divide Rd (closed winters) thanks to my relying too heavily on my phones GPS, we ended up being the very first family to arrive. I almost suggested that we drive back to Bountiful and then come back just to maintain my reputation but we decided to just stay and live with being first. Once everyone else arrived we spent time on the playground, playing ball, making crafts, and eating. We even got a tour of the historical Clarkston LDS Chapel. It was a nice relaxing day chatting with family that we don’t get to see too often and eating great food. I didn’t take nearly as many pictures as I meant to, but I was too busy sitting around not doing anything to take pictures.

In an effort to explain the following pictures a bit, the kids were playing with a Nerf-ish rocket launcher that was powered by jumping on an air pouch. I was able to get several action shots of the kids doing their best to get air to jump on the air pouch while I sat in my lawn chair sipping a chilly Diet DP. Too bad it feels like winter this weekend.

In additional to my golf tourney last weekend, we also went camping up North Willow canyon just west of Grantsville. Besides being a little bit rainy and a lot bit dirty, we had fun hanging out with my family and playing in the hills. On Saturday morning before I left to go golfing, we even got a nice family nature walk in. The kids threw lots of rocks into the stream and even managed to only hit each other with rocks a couple times. It’s crazy to think that our family is getting old enough to be able to go adventuring without strollers (even if leashes would be nice at times).

As usual, I didn’t take nearly as many pictures as I meant to, but you can see the results of our nature walk below.