Pics from the hike

Sunsets

We've had some incredible sunsets the last few days.  Here's a couple.

Derek and his CAR

Sona

Derek took some good pictures of Sona while he was in Armenia.  Isn't she cute? 

Derek and Sona, officially engaged

Beaver or Bust

** Updated **  7/16/12
Since everyone frequently glances at the blog for the latest story or picture, I figured the blog is the best place to outline plans for the week of July 24th. Derek, Amanda, Kristin and I will arrive in Beaver on Saturday July 21st. Kristin, Amanda and I will leave for Texas the morning of July 27th. I’m not sure when Derek will return to Bountiful, most likely the 27th. Plans are as follows:

Meals
July 21 – D: Alison will provide dinner for her family, Mom, Dad, Derek and Amanda
July 22 – B: Omelets, L: Sandwiches, D: Hawaiian Haystacks - all meals provided by Steve & Kristin
July 23 – B: Buttermilk pancakes (Steve), L: Picnic (Ron), D: BBQ Chicken (Ron)
July 24 – B: Muffins/etc. (Alison), L: at park, D: Picnic at swimming pool park (Alison & Mom)
July 25 – B, L, D - meals provided by Kelseys
July 26 – B: Cereal, L: leftovers, D: from the garden (??)
July 27 – B: Cereal, L, D not planned yet

Planned activities – work in progress
July 21 – Randalls (sans Jeff), Lowes arrive, Class of ’77 reunion,  socializing/games
July 22 – Church in Beaver – Derek/Josh musical number, LARGE family dinner
July 23 – Hike - leave Cedar at 9:00 AM, picnic lunch, BBQ at Rons, Aladdin
July 24 – Beaver festivities (DYN-O-MITE), traditional lunch at the park, dinner at the swimming pool park
July 25 – Swimming 10-11, Golf 1-4, Dinner/volleyball at Ponderosa park
July 26 – Hike to the Big Tree or trip to Bryce, Kelseys attend Shakespearean play – anyone else want to join?
July 27 – Happy Birtyday, Mom.  Break camp for my family – plans for everyone else????

I appreaciate everyone's feedback so far.  Plans are taking shape.  Next week should be fun!!

On to France

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But first, we had to stop by King's Cross station and take a picture.

This is what it looks like to travel at 180 mph on a train. We went from London to Paris in a little over two hours.

Some Highlights of our 5 day stay in Pars

Notre Dame Cathedral

From the top of the cathedral. As Christi called it, "A gargoyle's view of Paris."

At the Louvre. Recognize the Mona Lisa off in the distance? The crowds were CRAZY.

The Eiffel Tower, of course

We climbed the stairs as far as we could, then took the elevator the rest of the way. 

Here's the view from up top. The tower is almost as tall as the Empire State building.

A bridge over the Seine where people lock their hearts.

The Arc de Triomphe and, below, the girls at the top of it.

Tamsyn loves this picture.

A handsome family. Do you see the word "American" on their foreheads? I don't either, but somehow all the native French seemed to know it. They began speaking English to us before we'd even opened our mouths. Imagine their surprise when we answered in French.

The best part of the Paris stay was seeing some old friends. This couple, the Piquets, was in the ward I served in for six months in the suburbs of Paris. They came to visit one evening at our villa and we had a wonderful time catching up.

The next day we met Vincent--remember him?--his wife, Celia, and their two kids at a park. Here he is with 3-year-old Hugo.

The girls, astride a hippo, with cute Lola.

We went to their apartment after the park and they fed us a typical French meal, with pate, and other meats, baguettes, some salads, lots of different cheeses and pastries for dessert. Delicious.

Megyn looks a little undecided about the pate, doesn't she? But she liked it.

Josh with Celia and Vincent in the background. Josh got a chance to practice his French throughout the afternoon and evening. Even Tamsyn got a few words in.

We had a great time with the Jajolets. We're hoping they'll come to visit us someday and you'll get to meet them, too.

Confession of a City Slicker

It’s official. I have turned into a city slicker. Evidence: 1) I can’t see myself ever hunting, let alone shooting Bambi or anything that flies or has two to four legs (I can still fish). 2) I hate camping – the payoff isn’t worth the massive effort. Of course, camping in 100+ degrees doesn’t help. 3) I am conditioned to expect traffic delays where ever I go. 4) I enjoy having ready access to museums, an international airport, pro sporting events and performing arts. Number five is what prompted my confession. I’ve turned into an “off road” wimp.

Last fall, we needed to replace our broken down Honda Odyssey. With the dwindling family size, we no longer needed a minivan, so we opted to downsize. We purchased a Subaru Outback. The vehicle is equipped with all-wheel drive and “paddle shifters”, a feature that allows the driver to manually shift the car when necessary. Due to a very warm winter and the flat terrain that surrounds D/FW, we haven’t been able to utilize either feature. Last week during our Yellowstone vacation, the perfect opportunity presented itself. I was conversing with a fellow tourist and he told me I ought to take the family to the top of Sawtell mountain for a spectacular view. I jumped at the chance. I loaded up the family and off we went. The paved road soon gave way to dirt and gravel (which, by the way, fits my city slicker definition of “off road”). The incline was fairly steep, so I switched the transmission mode from automatic to manual. The scenery was as advertised, very beautiful and spectacular. I was having a great time, doing the manly manual shifting thing and treating my family to an off road adventure. I found myself thinking back to the teenage days when I accompanied buddies Jeff Lee and/or Alan Wood on real off road adventures. After reaching the halfway point, the road narrowed and the incline steepened. We rounded a sharp turn and found ourselves pointed upward toward a fairly lengthy stretch. The road was wide enough for one and a half vehicles. The mountain was on the left, a cliff was on the right. There wasn’t a place to bail. The only choice was to proceed up. About half way up the incline, I noticed my palms were sweaty and my heart was racing. I steered the vehicle as far left as possible, hoping we wouldn’t encounter an oncoming vehicle. Luckily, we didn’t. After successfully navigating this stretch of road, we continued our trek up. After navigating two more switch backs, we reached a turn that was wide enough to park the car and fully take in the view. The top of the hill was in sight, only two more switch backs to go. Sadly, the city slicker mentality kicked in and I made some lame excuse about needing to get Jared back to the resort so he could drive back to BYU. The family readily agreed and we began our descent back to the resort. What an off-road wimp I have become! I hope Ron and Brendon don’t think any less of me.

Europe Trip, Days Four and Five

On days four and five, which were Friday and Saturday, we did bus tours that took us outside of London. Day four began at Winsor Castle. I didn't get great pictures here because it was rainy outside and we weren't allowed to take pictures inside. Security is tight there because it's the residence of the queen. We didn't see where she actually lives, but we were allowed to tour the state rooms where she sometimes receives visits and hosts state dinners. W e also saw some of the changing of the guard before getting back on the bus.


We stopped briefly at Stonehenge. As you can see, the wind was blowing and it was cool.

Lunch was at a pub called The George Inn, in the little village of Laycock. Walking through its streets is like stepping back to the 17th century, except for all the tourists and cars there. Since it's so well preserved, Laycock is used for filming TV shows and movies, like, you guessed it, Harry Potter.(Are you sensing a theme to our England trip?). The abbey in Laycock was the setting for some of the inner scenes in Hogwarts. The red brick house pictured here was Slughorn's house.

Last stop of the day was Bath. Here I am in the place where Grandma was baptized. I couldn't help but wonder where they stepped into the water, and if it was so slimy back then. She always said the water had to be cooled down for them. I wonder how they did that?

These lead pipes date back to Roman days. Pretty amazing. The Roman baths were fascinating. We also discovered delicious clotted cream ice cream in Bath.

Day Five

First on the itinerary was Warwick (pronounced Warrick) Castle. It was bought by the Madame Tussaud's company, who restored it and added some wax works to show what life in a castle might have been like. They also had lots of stuff going on on the grounds, like jousting and a huge trebuchet. This is a place where you could spend all day, but alas, we only had a couple of hours.

We were soon off to Stratford-upon-Avon. Here is it, The Birthplace of William Shakespeare. You could hear the capital letters when they talked about it, too--The Birthplace. Again, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but the house was all furnished in the time period of his day and we learned some fun facts about life back them.

Here's Megyn shaking hands with the ghost of Shakespeare. We ate lunch in Stratford and had treacle tart and scones with jam and clotted cream for dessert.

I didn't get any pictures of the cottswolds as we passed through, but it was beautiful--green countryside dotted with sheep and bordered by low stone fences or hedgerows.

Then we came to Oxford. I felt like we barely scratched the surface of this town. We just had time to visit Christchurch College. Here's the great hall where the students dine. Can you guess what other great hall was based on this one?

And here we are climbing some stairs that appeared in Harry Potter I. We're wondering if Professor McGonagall will greet us at the top.

Two whirlwind days, as you can see, with lots of driving in between. We've decided that tour buses were a good way to see a lot of things in a short period of time. We were able to skip some lines and we got an interesting tour from the guide as we went. And now we know what we'd like to spend more time seeing if we ever make it back again.