The Park and the Canyon

I'm sure Caroline has been soaking in bubble baths, reading good books, and enjoying her time by herself while Jeff finishes up his rotation here in Utah. We know she's luxuriating, so we're trying to get in some fun stuff ourselves. I think it was last Friday that Kanien invited David and his girlfriend Rosalee down to have a picnic with us. So we each made a sandwich, crammed some cookies in a plastic bag, and headed for Sugarhouse Park. Since Marcella gets a kick out of anything that moves on its own, we thought it would be fun to feed the ducks with her.

We were watching the ducks and geese all swim to the shore.

Our computer is out of commission, so I'm not using my usual post-processing method..hence the washed-out picture here. The power supply went bad on my machine, but luckily it's still covered by warranty, so newegg.com is sending us a new one.

David and Rosalee haven't wasted any time since he's been home. They're set to get married September 16th. If anyone is interested in doing their wedding video, I'll let you use my stuff to record it, then edit it myself. Okay, they're not really engaged, but we all know they will be soon. :)

Owen has many skills, but one of his most proficient is Dust Throwing. Any one of us might just walk right by an excellent throwing pile, but Owen is quick to recognize the potential of each dust mound he sees. Kanien snapped this right before he launched it into our eyes and sandwiches. I was nervous at first, but then realized the pulverized goose droppings actually helped the flavor of my 3-mustard-PLUS-wasabi ham sandwich.

That's all we took of the park, which is really a shame. Marcella was extremely cute on the swings. She's only 10 months old, but she still gets a kick out of sending her foot on a collision course with my schnoz. We also played Frisbee and slid down the slide. I also skinned my knee on the big toy. It doesn't hurt anymore, but it does have a scab still.

Our next great adventure was a trip up Millcreek Canyon. I think we did this on Friday...so the park was probably on Thursday or something. It's been so fun to have Jeff here that all of my memories have sort of mashed into one big funsystemthought. Greg rode his bike from Kaysville to Grandma Noni's house, where he hitched a ride with us up the canyon. His ride was 32.1 miles in length, and he averaged 16mph. He thought he'd only average 15, so he's faster than he thinks. He held Marcella while I messed around with the tinfoil dinners.

This was before Marcella got sick...she was happy the entire time we were up there.

Her dust throwing capabilites can't even approach Owen's, but she's really good at tasting it. If Greg hadn't held her, she would have cleaned out the entire picnic site.

Here Greg was on the verge of an amazing discovery...

Our camp chair has a foot rest that doubles as an amazing Baby Prison! It helped Marcella stay away from the fire while still giving her access to all the dirt she could eat!! I wonder if this is why she got sick?

We had some dilectible tinfoil dinners. I've always been of the "less is more" persuasion as far as tinfoil dinners are concerned. My rule is if you put more than five ingredients in (I'm talking main ingredients, salt and oil/butter don't really count for these purposes, but other spices do), it won't taste as good. So we used potatoes, chicken, onions, carrots, and peppers. The peppers were pretty tasty. I'd say they're probably the tastiest item I've ever eaten inside a tinfoil dinner. It gave me a good idea for what to do next time...Tinfoil Dinner Fajitas!! It would be super tasty, and you could give different people different packs...Kanien would take Chicken, I'd take Pork Loin, and Jeff would take Octopus, I'm sure.


We went farther up Millcreek than I've ever been, to a picnic site called "Pine Ridge". It was an excellent area. Up here the sides of the canyon are closer to the road, so you feel closer to the mountain. All around you the cliffs shoot straight up. Also, there are no beer bottles in the fire pits, and there is less traffic on the road, so you get an amazingly solitary canyon experience. We crossed a small bridge where I snapped a couple of 20-second exposures...