Nature's StairMaster

How was you memorial day?

Did you do anything fun?

We had a blast.

We met our family at Mr Bird's mom's grave in the morning. We also visited Mr Bird's grandparents graves and had fun listening to his dad tell fun stories about his parents.

For lunch we all came back to our house for a potluck lunch.

We played in the sunshine with cousins for hours.

Look at our baby chicks. They are not quite babies anymore. I guess now they are considered pullets (hens under a year old). have you ever seen a chicken sit so happily in a cup holder before?

My little niece, marina was fascinated with the little birds.

Of course grandpa could not let our horse, Shadow, sit in the corral all by herself.
He so graciously offered to hold onto her so she could join the party too. She did a wonderful job of mowing our lawn which, by the way, is shamefully long right now.
But hey, who has time to mow when there is so much fun to be had?

My niece Jordana's philosophy is that life is a photo shoot. She is always posing for a photo. I think we finally caught her off guard with the chicken on her shoulder.

What's the matter Jo, afraid she'll poo on your cute outfit?
Michael was determined to get her to fly.
She was perfectly happy to roost right where she was.

Baby Cakes was so funny with the birds. He'd barely touch them them giggle and hide his face.

How about a chicken hat?



Doodle had so much fun with her cousins. Moriah loves horses almost as much as Doodle.


After we were done eating and playing we all loaded in the car and headed for my favorite hiking trail.

Waterfall canyon is gorgeous this time of year.

Most of the trail goes right past the river. At the very top is a beautiful waterfall.

We call this section nature's StairMaster, although this is much steeper than most stair cases around. Talk about a good bum work out.

My kids love their aunt Lisa. She has the most beautiful smile. We were looking back at pictures from about 4 years ago, when Doodle was just little. Lisa was holding her but had sunglasses on. I asked Doodle who was holding her. She looked for a while then finally said,

"LISA! I can always tell it's her by her pretty smile!"

This really is a tough hike, but as you can see we stopped often to take pictures.

The kids did awesome.

They had so much fun with their cousins and climbed those rocks like little troopers.

At last, the falls. The spray from the waterfall was so nice and cool on our hot tired bodies.

This is the biggest I've ever seen these falls. I think it's the earliest in the season we've ever gone and all the spring run off is still coming down fast.

The view down the canyon of the Ogden valley was also breathtaking. This photo does it no justice.

We had a few bumps and scrapes along the way. Here are my little troopers showing off their battle wounds.

Kid quote of the day:

Beano: Johnny got two mosquito bites today.

Dubs:Two?!? Well I got 51 mosquito bites today.

Beano: Dubs (insert his real name), if you had 51 mosquito bites you would be a mosquito bite!