Karen, Lisa, Dianne, Colleen, Julie
We are all so different from each other. We differ in personalities, temperaments, and lifestyles. We fight. We gossip. We annoy and get annoyed.
But…
For better or for worse, we’ve got each others’ backs. No amount of bickering and eye-rolling will ever change that.
We are sisters and we love each other.
My sister Dianne got hitched to Steve. I don’t know him that well since they both live in Arizona but he is so kind and loving to her which makes me really happy. While they were visiting Utah last month there was an open house held in their honor in my parent’s backyard.
Dianne with her oldest son, Greg.
Dianne with her youngest son, Vance.
Two of her girls, Sarah and Brianna, with Vance.
Food! Glorious food!
The day after we got back from Trek, Rob had a work assignment inspecting bridges in the Escalante area of Southern Utah. We were so excited since we’ve been meaning to go back there for the last few years. I’ve said it before here and here, and I will say it again, GO! Not enough people venture off the I-15 corridor when traveling through Utah, but they should. It’s beautiful. It’s magnificent.
I’m going to skip writing about the drive down and save that for Rob. He is the one who took those pictures and I’ll let him tell you about it. So skipping ahead to the next day, the kids and I went to the grocery store and got some meal supplies. We then ate breakfast at the picnic area outside our motel.
After that we decided to explore Escalante Petrified Forest State Park. The weather was just beautiful and so the first thing the kids wanted to do was throw rocks into the reservoir. They love doing this and it will keep them occupied for a very long time.
Afterward, we started the hike to the petrified forest. We didn’t make it the whole way because we hadn’t planned on hiking so we were all wearing sandals and didn’t have sunscreen or water. But we had a nice walk up part of the trail and the kids loved seeing all the different colors of sand. They played in green sand, white sand, orange sand, and purple sand.
Then we walked into the Petrified Wood Cove which was basically some large chunks of the rock next to the sidewalk. Good enough for us!
The kids were excited to stop at The Rock Shop. It is basically an older couple's house with a little shed and tons of different types of rocks, fossils, and petrified wood for sale. My kids are huge into rocks. Obviously going to blame Rob for that one ;). It wasn’t very fun there with Caroline as she would pick up and mix up all the different stones the man and his wife had so carefully sorted. I had to hold her the whole time and it was a struggle as she kept reaching and screaming and trying to break free. My other kids were fine with the rocks, but just their presence made the wife nervous and so she turned us over to her husband to handle. Nate wasn’t shy about asking questions about the different things he was looking at. He had a hard time deciding what souvenir to leave with but finally decided on a native shark tooth. Native to Florida, that is. A perfect souvenir ;) Madeleine chose some quartz. I decided to get a piece of petrified wood which now adorns my bathroom countertop. I’ve actually always wanted a piece of petrified wood, so maybe I can’t entirely blame Rob on the rock thing.
So here’s a cool story, the first thing the rock man says to me is, “You’re an August birthday, right?” I’m like, “Huh?! Uhhh, yeah. How did you know?” He said, “I can just tell.” Bizarre! So he showed me a bunch of peridot stones that he had and thought I should buy since it is August’s birthstone. I thought it looked pretty cool and it had some meaning to me so I picked out three smallish rocks and asked how much they would be. He weighed them in his hands and quoted me $100. Hmmm. Not exactly the price point I had in mind. So that’s when I got the petrified wood instead. After paying I was trying to get all the kids buckled in and he came up to me and handed me a chunk of the peridot rock and said that he just couldn’t bear to have me leave without my birthstone. Awwww! Sweet.
Later on that day when I was telling Rob the story, I showed him my peridot and how much it was cost and that there was no way I was going to buy one. He had the rock in his hand so then asked, “Well, how did you get this rock, then?” On a whim, I blurted out, “Well, I stole it!” He looked at me like, what??? Haha. Anyway, I thought it was funny to see him react. When I told him the real story he told me the old guy had the hots for me because no business man would ever just give away a $40 rock for no reason. I think a business man would because he also gave me his card and told me to come back and visit again and tell my friends about him and his shop. Maybe we’re both right ;)
My nephew, Vance, was baptized.
Here is a picture of him with his family.
One with his dad.
And an impromptu picture of his sister, Liz, with her husband Zach.
We are so happy Vance made his own choice to be baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Love you, Vance!
By Rob:
A continuation of this previous post during a period of loneliness spent in the mountains of east Arizona near Morenci, Clifton, and Safford. I was in town on business working long hours and trying to stay connected to my family using Facetime (so grateful for this). If I'm in this area again I really want to catch up with family and friends that are living in Phoenix.
I stayed in Safford (seems the most clean) so I wanted to share a little of the town. I went out one evening looking for something interesting to photograph. It was getting dark and the windrows on the prepared fields right next to the main drag caught my eye. A nice man stopped to see if I was alright (not enough photographers I suppose).
I found this poor fellow in the middle of a road and thought Nate would get a really kick out of this one. I think it is a wild pig skull.
And now for the rest of the photos I made on the old main drag in Clifton. This place is so strange and worn down. Almost like a ghost town. During one of my first shots I saw a man parking is ATV right in the street perpendicular to the flow of traffic as seen below. Strange I thought.
Turns out he was preparing to pull into his parlor! I had to move fast to get this one.
I have no idea what happened here....
No Stairway? Denied!
A few more shots of the street. So fascinating.
