Pat Brian

11

Happy Birthday Emerson!

I hope you come home from the ranch for at least part of your birthday.

You have been a joy in our family.

Dad and I love you so much!

We miss you already....

Yesterday morning Kurt's dad passed away at his favorite place on earth---the ranch in Grover. Our lives will be very different without him. But how lucky we are to know that we have the chance to be with him again someday.

We love you Pat.

Stewart Falls

Today our little adventure was a hike to Stewart Falls in Provo Canyon. It was a beautiful day!
We went to Sundance and rode the lift up the hill. From there we followed the trail to the falls and back down to Sundance.

Montana & Savy

Finn, Indy & Penn

You can see the kids at the upper part of the falls along the ridge of green. It was a pretty easy hike. You get uphill, downhill, shade, sun, hillside, meadow and water! And....you end up at Sundance where you can buy a yummy cookie as your reward!

The "Y"

When we came home from the ranch on Sunday, we brought Savy and Penn with us. So we decided to take them on the "Y" hike. Seeing as I have never been on that hike it was a great idea!
We got up early so everyone is looking a little bit sleepy.

On the way up.

Indy would not wake up so he wasn't there to enjoy the fun! What a party pooper.

Cookout at the creek (Grover)

It wouldn't be a trip to the ranch without a cookout at the creek. Duke always loves a trip in the car!

Pat took a little fall a few days before we got to the ranch----hence, the scabs on his face. Thanks goodness for nothing more than superficial wounds!

Hickman Bridge

One of my favorite parts about the ranch is being so close to Capitol Reef and all the fun hikes in and around the park. This day we decided to hike to Hickman Bridge. It's a short hike-1 mile up and 1 mile back along a pretty easy trail. You can actually see the bridge from almost the start of the trail but you might not see it if you don't know what you're looking for.
These cousins sure love to hang out together.

The boys found a perfect hiding spot along the trail. I thought they were way ahead of us. I turned around and there they were! They were trying to scare Cal but he knew they were there.

Ranchin' it

Last week we got to spend time in this beautiful place! Darin and her kids have been in Utah for a few weeks and headed to Grover on Monday. Emerson went along with them. I went down on Wednesday afternoon with the boys and Kurt came with Montana on Thursday night. There is still a lot of work to be done around the ranch but it is slowly coming together. Kam flew in on Saturday morning to work up the plans for landscaping. Pat and Sherry are staying down for a couple of weeks I believe. How lucky we are to have such a fun place to stay!

David Archuleta

Can you tell how excited these girls are?

Yes, that's the back of Emerson's head!

So, a couple of weeks ago, Paige asked Emerson to come with her and her cousins to a book signing at Deseret Book with David Archuleta. She wasn't too excited about it that morning and even had a little stomach ache when she left. Boy am I glad she went because she had quite an experience. I think she and her friends were quite starstruck! Since I wasn't there I can't really give you the full run-down. Needless to say, he signed her book!

Moving on.....

or at least trying to. I'm not usually one to wear my emotions on my sleeve. My friends tell me that I'm a pretty private person generally. But I feel like venting some of my feelings on this blog. It is supposed to be a journal of sorts. I am hopeful that maybe by expressing these feelings it will help me to move on.



These last six months have been some of the hardest months of my life. I think I have experienced every negative emotion possible---------sadness, anger, hurt, bitterness, resentment, shame, helplessness, fear-----and to a degree I never thought possible.



As I was running by our old house today, so many emotions came flooding back. And I thought I was getting over all this.... I suppose it will take a very long time to heal and move on. I miss our home----not just our house----our home. We had never planned on leaving that house. I miss our friends, our routine, the feelings we had living in that neighborhood. I miss walking out the door and watching Cooper and Asher riding their scooters in their pajamas. I miss Carter and Aidan asking to jump on the trampoline. I miss looking out the window and seeing familiar cars come and go. I miss being able to run to the Youngs and borrow anything.

I believe we have trials in this life for a purpose. And I definitely believe that I will learn something valuable from all of this. And, most days, I feel happy and see the good in the changes in our situation. As long as the good days outweigh the bad then I think I am doing alright.

Cold, wet and tired

So, unfortunately, the prayers for warm, dry weather didn't work! Pouring rain, howling winds and cold temperatures accompanied these trekkers every day of their experience. They probably won't be interested in going again any time soon but I think they had some spiritual experiences and memories that will last them a lifetime.

I wasn't able to get a picture of Montana as she came home. But the boys were looking a little worse for the wear. As I was unpacking Indy's things, I noticed that his toothbrush was still in the plastic packaging. No, he did not brush his teeth the entire time! Gross!

Day at the Museum

This week, with the older 3 kids gone on trek, Emerson and I did a few fun activities. She and Paige spent one whole afternoon at the Lindon pool. Then we spent one afternoon at the BYU Museum of Art. What a cool place. Who knew there was this great art museum right in our backyard? We saw some Andy Warhol, Minerva Teichert and lots of others. There were also quite a few works by Mahonri Young who was the grandson of Brigham Young who, therefore, is a relative of Paige's! The girls studied him a little bit during Knowledge Bowl last year. So it was fun to see some more of his work.

My phone camera wasn't fast enough to catch any good action shots.

Trekkin'

It was a 4:30 a.m. wake-up call for these guys this morning!
Finn's Pa (Uncle Cody) arrived at 5 a.m. to shuttle them off to the church to board the buses for the 5 hour drive to Martin's Cove.

They looked great in their kind-of pioneer attire. Indy was pretty excited as you can tell.

I know they will have a great time. I wish Kurt and I were with them actually. We were supposed to go as media support but Kurt had a work trip scheduled (which got cancelled, of course).

Pray for warm, dry weather!

Hershey Track Meet

Today these girls had the Hershey track meet at Mountain View. They all participated in 3 events each and did a great job. Emerson even did the softball throw---which she has never done before---and did well.

We have had a fun season of track. I wondered how fun it would be when the first track meet was held during pouring, freezing cold rain! And that was in May! The second meet was sunny but had a really cold wind. We missed the third. And the Hershey meet was hot! One more this week and we are done for the season.
Good job girls!

Sugar Tour 2010

Yesterday we had to go to the airport to pick up Austin Williams (son of Dave and Shawneen Williams----good friends from BYU). He's in town for a BYU football camp. Since we were going to be in Salt Lake, I decided we should visit some places we have wanted to visit for a while.

Hatch Family Chocolates was first on the list. There is a show on TLC called The Little Chocolatiers about the people who run this store. It's a little couple and they make the craziest things out of chocolate. We bought some chocolate-covered apricots for Grandpa England. Montana and Austin had some chocolate-covered raspberries. Finn had chocolate-covered pineapple. Emerson had a HUGE caramel. And I had the most delicious turtle I think I've every had!

Next on the list was the London Market. Aunt Jodie has been a fan of this store for a long time. She has taken the kids there several times. The store is filled with all kinds of products from England. We especially like the candy. Hob Nobs were always my favorite cookie when I was living in London. I didn't buy any this time but we bought SoftMints, Kinder and pastilles.

Next, a new Red Mango was opening up in Sugarhouse and they were giving away FREE yogurt. At least the yogurt was good for us!

Finally, to round out the evening, we went to Kaci and Aaron's house for dessert. They blessed baby Ethan and had the family over.

I made these chocolate scotcheroos------my personal favorite!


Grandma England stopped by Smart Cookie and picked up these yummy delights.

After having all that dessert, we stopped by Costa Vida on the way home. No wonder I had such a stomach ache last night!

Party at Outback

There's nothing like a good steak on your birthday!
Mo was able to join us for the birthday dinner



Emer really DID like her food----it just doesn't look like it.

Dad finishing up what everyone else left.....isn't that always a Dad's job?

Birthday Girl

Happy Birthday to our 17 -year old! She was obviously quite excited about the new Juicy bag she got! And a much-needed new iPod.