We Is ERT!

Translation from Redneck speak: We are ART! Here's another picture we took with my camera's timer in Snow Canyon State Park, near St. George. The original picture was a little overexposed, but with my good friend Snapseed I edited it a bit, then had it made into a gallery canvas print. Voila! We is ERT!

You might remember that we painted a lot of our house last year. I never found anything I liked to put over my family room couch and it's been a blank wall since then. Well, I found something I liked: US!

Sunday Saying

Star Wars Snow Flakes

So it's Christmas and you want to be crafty with your family, but your family is all grown up. What do you do? You make Star Wars Snowflakes!

This requires a lot of concentrated cutting,

But the end result is amazing!

On The Rock

When Bruce and I went to St. George in early December for his meetings, we found a new restaurant that we knew we had to bring the kids to. It's called the Anasazi Steakhouse. There are 2 things that make this restaurant fun.

First is The Fondue!! Cheese Fondue to start the meal and Chocolate Fondue for dessert! Here we are indulging ourselves on melty, gooey cheese:

 Who would have thought that raw carrots dipped in melted cheese could be so good? (Sorry about the picture quality- mood lighting is not so good for picture taking.)

Number 2 fun thing about this restaurant: The chefs can cook your meat, or you can cook it yourself on your own 700 degree hot lava rock! Here's their picture:

 Here's mine:

Peter ordered lamb, which came out looking like brains, but he talked me into trying some and it was actually good. Besides the lamb, we tried steak, fish and scallops. It was fun to slice off pieces of raw meat and cook them on our hot stones.

And as I mentioned, we had chocolate fondue for dessert. To dip: marshmallows, pretzels, cheesecake, pineapple, strawberries, grapes, cream puffs and rice krispie treats! Here's their picture, because I was too busy eating to take one:

Yeah, it was quite a feast and very hands-on. I'm hoping to make it back here some day!

The Slickrock

 After we hiked the Narrows at Zion, we drove trough the famous tunnel to the east side of the park. Bruce's grandfather actually helped build this tunnel, so the family connection was neat.

 The east side of Zion is mostly petrified sand dunes or slickrock.

 We hiked to an overlook of the canyon. No one told me there would be cave trolls lurking around corners!

 Big Horn Sheep live on this side of the park. Brian is doing his best imitation of the sheep that you can kind of see in the top right corner of the picture.

 Five minutes later, there was a goat right next to the trail.

On our way out of the park we stopped to see ancient Indian petroglyfs.

By then we were tired, but hiking had been a great way to spend some time together!

The Narrows

Our family took a little holiday trip before Christmas this year. We went to St. George and had fun hiking, eating and sitting in the hot tub. We went over to Zion one day, and hiked up The Narrows. The last time I was at the Narrows, Bruce and his shattered ankle were being rescued by the rangers. He was being loaded into an ambulance while Japanese tourists snapped pictures of him with their Nikons. This trip was not as exciting, thank goodness. There were still leaves on the trees and a recent snow storm had coated the red rock with white. A herd of deer were grazing in the wind-protected canyon.

 My family, being who they are, ignores warning signs.

 The melting snow had made icicles on the canyon walls and frozen sheets of ice next to the river.

 We were cold too, until we turned the corner of canyon where the wind couldn't reach us.

 Bruce couldn't resist a walk in the water. I'll be that water was maybe 40 degrees.

 There was a re-enactment of Bruce's rescue.

 It was a beautiful day!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Our family hopes that yours has a great 2013!