Day 4

Thursday we drove a little ways up the road into Cache National Forrest to find the home of the Minnetonka Cave. It was way at the top of a mountain. We had a good time walking through the tour of the cave and climbing the total of 888 stairs round trip. We definitely were not wanting for exercise on this trip. It was 40 degrees in the cave, but once you got climbing all the stairs it actually felt really nice. Katelyn seemed to enjoy herself as well. There was another little two year old girl on our tour and she kept making noise and every time she would say something, Kate would say "shhh". It was kind of funny the back and forth thing they had going on. Gotta love our bossy little one.

The second picture is of a little ground squirrel up at the waiting area of the cave. There were tons of these little things running around and they would come right up to you and eat out of your hand. I wished I had something that I could have offered to feed it because I thought they were so cute.

I wasn't sure if I was going to like the cave or not. I was worried that I might feel claustrophobic, but there was actually plenty of space all around and it was well lit inside. We even saw a bat (see pic below) which actually looked kind of cute all snuggled up in its cubby hole. I'm sure I would have though otherwise had it decided to fly out of there.

There was only one rock that we were permitted to touch. If you touch the rocks (the growing stalagmites/stalactites) the oil from your hands with stop its growth. So there was one rock on the way out that we were able to touch. It was really, really smooth.

Later that night we went on a family bike ride along the scenic bike path that goes through Garden City. We only rode 6 miles round trip this time. It was a nice little trail for a family bike ride and Kate really enjoyed it.

Day 3

We stayed in Garden City, Utah this year at beautiful Bear Lake. This was the view from our back patio at the condo. We were on a bottom floor and were happily surprised that we still had a view of the lake from our unit.

















I barely have words to describe how much I LOVE this lake. It is the most beautiful lake I have EVER been to. The beach is sandy, not rocky and the sand continues into the water so there is a soft bed to walk on. It was fabulous! Bear Lake is referred to as the "Caribbean of the Rockies" because of its turquoise blue water. I was really excited to see it in person and it was just as amazing as I thought it would be. Maybe I need to get out more, but I thought the color of the water was stunning. We spent several hours on the beach on Wednesday and this was the last day of Justin's glowing white back. For some reason he thought he was immune to the sun and kept refusing when I offered to put sun screen on him. He got a nice shade of pink all over his back, but thought it would turn into a tan by the next day. Wrong! Poor guy! We loved hanging out at the beach, but didn't do much swimming the first day. The water is actually quite shallow for a long ways out. The farther out you went, the colder it got. At this beach, the cars actually drive right down onto the sand and park. As long as you stay 100 feet from the shore, you are good to go. We felt a little unprepared as we saw everyone with their beach umbrellas, sun tents, etc. All we had was our three beach towels. So Justin rigged up some shade for us with the rain fly from our tent, but we didn't end up using the shade anyway. Good job honey! So inventive!

Vacation Day 2

It was too dark when we finally got to the gate to try to bike into the cabin, so we set up camp here. I turned out to be a really great night for Kate too. Last year when we camped out it was miserable! She slept like a champ this year, but we definitely need to get her a sleeping bag of her own. Those mummy bags don't leave for a lot of extra room. Justin snuggled her real good during the night. We woke up around 6am to a lovely serenade of COW. There are tons of cows up in that area and we could hear them mooing when we woke up. Then the mooing started getting louder...and louder...and louder. And I even heard hooves right outside the tent. When Justin opened the tent door to tell them to get lost, there was a nice little heard of cow just on the other side of the gate. I wish I had had the camera with me to get a picture of them. I thought it was hilarious. If only I could add sound effects to this post....




After breakfast, we got ready to head to the cabin. Normally, I ride with Kate on the back of my bike, but we didn't have her seat attached, so Justin put her in the backpack carrier and rode up with her on his back. THANK GOODNESS! I would have died for sure. I'm not exactly sure the altitude we were at, but that ride (ALL UP HILL) was killer! It took us 40 minutes to ride up 2.5 miles.







It didn't take me too long to recover once we got to the cabin. I tried not too complain too much, because I knew it meant a lot to Justin for me to go up there. Sure enough there was a cabin, just as promised. I was glad I went, but am not too anxious to do it again anytime soon. Here is Justin with Kate by one of the creeks, or "cricks" if you prefer. :)








All of us in front of the cabin. His grandfather built this cabin a long time ago and used it when he came to his mine (farther up the mountain). It was pretty cool to see it still standing although we didn't go inside. Not sure if the floors would have held up.



This is the two-seater out house that was built. Kinda cool, but that's getting a little too personal for me :)
















Luckily the smell of out-house was no longer present.


















The last picture here is of me on the way down. It only took us 17 minutes to get back down. It was pretty much all down hill on the way back, but there were tons of rocks and we got shaken up pretty good. I think my wrists are still recovering from all the vibrations.

Vacation Day 1

FAMILY VACATION 2008

This is the second night Kate slept in her toddler bed.

This particular picture was from the morning we left

for vacation. I'm not sure how she ended up this way,

but she was sure sleeping well. Onto Utah!

We left on Monday morning last week and headed down

to Challis National Forrest where Justin's grandfather has an

old cabin. Since we weren't to check into our condo until Tuesday

we decided to camp out up at the cabin the night before, which

also split the trip up nicely. Challis National Forrest is down in

Idaho somewhere. The pavement ended and we were on dirt road

for quite some time. Justin was driving pretty fast so we could get to

the cabin before dark and we ended up getting a flat tire.

Here are a couple of views of what was around during our

flat tire incident. Oh, that's right...NOTHING! I'm so

glad that my husband is mechanically inclined. He had that tire changed

in no time at all and we were back on the road.

Unfortunately, we were driving at about 30mph and it took us

another hour to get up to the gate where we were going to park our car

and bike into the cabin, which was another 2+ miles.

Tid Bits

It's been almost 10 days since my last post, so. Quick update on my hormonal situation. Last Monday I went in for what would be my last blood draw of this long and drawn out miscarriage ordeal. My hCG was at 4, which is considered "normal". Phew! Glad that is over.

I have barely gotten through Pride & Prejudice, which I am bugged about. I admit, I did get side tracked when "Breaking Dawn" came out, so I read and finished that first. P&P just takes a lot more concentration for me. I still get a little hung up on some of the language and find myself having to go back sometimes and re-read certain passages over, to make sure I really got it. I am determined to finish it though.

I have been wanting to jot down some of Kate's 2 year old details. I won't remember all the funny things she does or says forever.

Kate's 2 year old vocabulary:


"ohgurt" (yogurt)
"waiter" (later)
"sacament" (sacrament)
"gup" (get up)
"bays" (berries)
"lishush" (delicious)
"uhmaid" (mermaid)
"feeming" (swimming)

Kate's common phrases:

"gup mommy" (get out of bed)
"c'mon" (with hand gestures)
"stop it" (rather new one)
"let go" or "let go of me" (also new)
"don whike it"
"no want"
"hey, mine!"
"do-ut" (little miss independent can "do-ut" herself mommy!)


Kate's favorite movies:


Mary Poppins
The Little Mermaid

What's great is that she loves to sing along with the songs and later after the movie is over, she will pretend and act out different little scenes from the movies. The past few days she has been acting out one particular part of The Little Mermaid (which is sort of an immodest show, I have noticed) when Ariel is in human form and she has her knees curled up to her chin and is crying. The other night Justin came around the corner and found Kate curled up like this fake crying and saying "sad". At first we were like, "oh no! why is she sad?" I felt better once I knew what she was doing. Now she does it regularly, like when she gets in trouble. It's kind of funny.

Things Kate loves to do:

Swimming
Coloring
Reading books
Watching movies
Going on bike rides
Going on walks
Give hugs and kisses


Anyway, that's all for now. More to come in the week ahead.

Bear Lake

Thanks to Dad and Brandi, we will get another spectacular vacation week this year. We are going to Bear Lake in Garden City, Utah. We will be staying in a World Mark condo. I have heard that the water is very pretty there and I am excited to see it. I found this picture on line and I liked it because the water looks so blue and beautiful. Soon, we will have pictures of our own to share. I am so excited to get out of town for a while and relax in the sun!

hCG levels

YES! My levels are almost back to normal. I had my weekly blood draw today and my hCG was at 15. It dropped 45 points in the last week so I am hoping that at my next draw that it will finally be back to below 5. Finally! I was talking to someone about all of this and they were saying that maybe this has been natures way of forcing me to wait to start trying again. Back at my appointment in June the nurse practitioner told me I should wait for about two months essentially, before trying again. I was thinking in my head..."yeah, right, whatever!" So much for my plan I guess. Lets hope that next week brings good news!

Pictures

I forgot to mention our new family picture here. These pictures were taken by a gal I go to church with. Her name is Sarah Turner and I really love the pictures. I wish I could show more of them, but she was nice enough to email me a few so I could post them on my blog. There should be one more of Katelyn coming.