Navajo Trails

One of my greatest friends, Miss Jenny Sampson and her hubby Dan own and operate an adventure camp for kids in the gorgeous but small town of Bicknell, Utah..if you can call it a town. I believe the population is around 350 people. A couple of weeks ago, I sent Connor and Jackson to this camp to spend a week rock climbing. Yep, rock climbing. Connor tackled his fear of heights all week and came out a winner. His instructor said he tackled every one of the climbs without too much hesitation. Jackson also did great except for the little incident where he dropped his instructor. Oh well, I'm pretty sure insurance is provided..we hope.

The boys bought themselves a disposable camera and took these beauties...they went to a cliff by Moroni and learned to belay and rappel down cliffs during the day. At night, they layed out their sleeping bags and slept under the stars. The camps motto is work hard play hard..they definitely did.

They have a zip line on their 112 acre property over a little lake. The boys loved it!



I drove down Wednesday morning to spend some time with Jenny. We also worked hard and played hard. Thursday morning Jenn woke me up at 6 in the am and we went on a hike through the gorgeous red rock cliffs above her house..what a way to wake a girl up!




We then decided to paint her living room and fireplace...



And I whipped out a frame to go on her newly painted wall...




When the boys got back Friday afternoon I had to take a couple of pictures of them actually working "hard".. Gotta love a 12 year old washing dishes with bright yellow gloves on.



The ranch also offers weeklong horseback riding trips...




Kevin drove up with Dan on Thursday and on Saturday we took a drive into Capital Reef National Park which is about 10 minutes from the ranch.

Thanks Jenn and Dan, the boys had a great time and made memories to last them a lifetime. Now hurry home..we miss you!!

Photos by Carrieshinphotography

My sister Carrie bought herself a new camera and has decided to start a little business doing photography. She asked if she could take my boys out to Wheeler Farm last week and take their pictures. I knew I would get some great photographs but I had no idea that they would be so amazing. My problem now is deciding how big I want to enlarge these and which ones. Thank you Carrie, you have an amazing gift!!

A day at Snowbird

Last weekend we decided to get out of the blazing heat of the city and we headed up to the lovely and gorgeous and cooler Snowbird. If you haven't been up there this summer, do head on up, it is absolutely gorgeous. Last year we took the tram up to the top of the mountain and hiked back down with a backpack of food and water, it was fantastic. So last week we decided to do the same little trek.





Anyone want to take a guess which one of my children is afraid of heights? hmmm...

When we got to the top of the mountain we realized that there was still snow on the easy trail so we debated on whether to make the trek down using a different trail that follows the ridge of the mountain or take the tram back down. I voted for the tram but I was quickly struck down by all four boys who felt like being the Von Trapp family climbing the Swiss Alps.. so off we went.

Happy Von Trapp boy number one

Happy Von Trapp boy number 2

Happy Von Trapp boy number 3 who's fear of heights suddenly goes out the door when he's scaling a mountain...go figure.

The view and the hike was fun and gorgeous and quite relaxing for the first hour...until...

our trail suddenly came to an end at the ridge of a steep cliff...a very steep cliff!! Well...the boys decide that this is not a problem and proceed to make their way down...straight down...the side of this steep ridge. Rocks are sliding from underneath us and I cannot seem to get any sort of footing to keep me on this mountain. At this point, I proceed to have a major panic attack, start crying, and yelling at everyone to get their butts right back up that cliff cause I am not taking one more step. Connor then proceeds to call me a wuss, Jackson sweetly gives me a sympathy pep talk and Kevin seeing that I am not joking proceeds to climb back up holding tightly onto Ethan.

After that little incident, we realized that the only other option was to turn back around and hike back up and up and up to the tram and take it back down....which is exactly what we did. I know that at times I am a definite girly girl stuck in the middle of 4 adventurous boys and I do act like a friggin wuss, but i must say that I really don't care. If I'm going to chose my demise it will not be rolling down a mountain, screaming and cussing all while praying to the almighty to save my life. Oh well, I like to think that I gave my boys an excellent workout hiking back up that trail and my thighs can always use the extra mileage!!