Squaw Peak

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I had a chance to do another nice hike with  my friend Jim yesterday afternoon.  Squaw Peak is the prominent peak above Provo, and the backdrop to those pictures of the Provo Temple you often see.  (Speaking of pictures, here’s a link to the whole hi-res slideshow on Flickr.)  After the trip up Provo Peak two weeks ago, I was a little gun-shy; that was more than I expected.  My conditioning is still not great, but I think it’s getting better each week as I keep lifting weights and working my heart at the gym.  Jim brought his dogs, who are a bit old and fat, so we were able to take our time.  Still, we made the 7-8 miles in just about 3 hours.

The trail starts at the mouth of Rock Canyon, which was one of my favorite haunts as a kid.  It seems like I was up there all the time once I was able to drive.  My best friend David and I even started to get into rock climbing a little bit, playing in some of the easier routes.  I don’t think I’ve been in Rock Canyon more than once or twice in the last ten years.

I forget what a remarkable place I live in.  Here is a terrifically beautiful place, right in my backyard, and how often do I remember to go and enjoy it?  It’s been great to get back in the mountains a little more.  Click the link below to see all the pictures.

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Happy Birthday, Son

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Today is Isaac’s 5th birthday and I’ve been thinking how grateful I am that he is my oldest. 

He is a very kind and considerate big brother.  6.13.09 Summerfest (12) On a recent morning, I found Isaac reading (from memory) a book to Charlotte.  Later that day, he didn’t want to leave the house until he had showed Charlotte how to spell her name.  He showed her where each letter was on the keyboard and patiently waited for her to push the right key.  He regularly encourages her to do things.  I’ve even caught him bribing her with some candy (that he earned doing chores) to do things like finish her breakfast.

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Provo Peak

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EvidenceI decided it was time to stop talking about mountains and finally hit another peak. It’s been long enough since my last peak.  I’ve been in pretty bad shape physically, letting myself get fat and lazy.  For the past couple of months I’ve been in the gym almost every morning, so I felt up to a bit of a climb.

The target was Provo Peak, and my gym buddy Jim and I left work at 3 PM so we could get to the trailhead.  Provo Peak sits behind Rock Canyon, and rises to 11,068 feet according to most sources.  The trailhead (such as there is) is at about 8600 feet.

To get to the parking area, you drive up the Squaw Peak Road from Provo Canyon, turning left to go towards Hope Campground rather than right to go to the overlook.  The road is decent until about Rock Canyon Campground, but then became a little bit rough.  In fact, an avalanche blocked the road at one point, and we had a bit of a crawl in Jim’s Tundra to get over it.2009-06-05 2009-06-05 Provo Peak 032 by you.

The path to the summit seems pretty straightforward: find the prominent west ridge, and go up.  In practice, this turned out a bit more complicated.  Click the image below to see details of the route.  We started out following an ATV trail, but that took us past the ridge.  We then cut back to the south, through mud and snow and brush.  After this detour, we were able to find a light use trail up the ridge.  This was quite steep, and we were exposed to high winds; I estimated sustained bursts at about 60 miles per hour.

Provo Peak Route

Not only was it windy and steep, but the terrain was loose.  I was glad to have my poles as we climbed.  After a couple of hours, we gained the summit.  With the clouds and haze, views were limited, but still quite good.  Nothing feels quite like standing on top of the Earth’s high places.  I called Kathleen to tell her I was fine so far, and not to send helicopters yet.  Then we headed down.  After an hour or so of steep, knee-killing descent, we were back at the truck and headed home.

Slideshow below for additional pictures, and take a look at the Summit Post page for more details on the peak itself.

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Grandma O’Bryant’s House, Part 3

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I have no pictures for most of the next few rooms, unfortunately.  Grandma’s bedroom was at the end of the hall. I remember thinking that she had the softest bed in the world. Her blankets were a light turquoise and she had a headboard with shelves. She probably had books up there, but I only remember an alarm clock and lotion. I remember thinking her bedroom light was neat because she had a dimmer switch on it and I’d never seen one before. She had a tall dresser on the wall between the door and the closet where she kept a TV. She liked to turn the TV on sometimes to help herself fall asleep. On the other side of the bed was a tall bookshelf and a tall spinning chair like the kind in the living room (curved wood with patterned cushions). She had a dog bed in her room while Mitsey was still around. Across from the bed was a long dresser with a big mirror over it. She kept pictures of grandchildren on the bookshelf and on the dresser with the mirror. She had a bathroom with a shower, sink and toilet in her bedroom.

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Posted in Kathleen's Personal History

A special memorial day experience

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8.18.07 Grandma O'BryantLast August my dear grandmother passed away, so on Memorial day I wanted to visit her grave.  When she actually died, I was too emotional to talk about it with my kids so today was the first real experience I had to tell them about my grandmother and her death.  Charlotte didn’t say much, but Isaac was full of questions.  I told him stories about her one-eyed dog, Mitsey and about drinking root beer floats and watching movies.  He asked me questions about her and about death and resurrection in  general.  I wish I could have recorded every word because we had some very special touching moments and I felt good to be able to share my love of my grandmother with him.  He wants to make a flag to put in front of our house today that says “Grandma O’Bryant” because then everyone who sees it will know that we are remembering her today.

Posted in Kathleen's Personal History, Kids

A few of her favorite things. . .

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IMG_1689-1As we walked into the grocery store today, Charlotte was listing things she likes.  She said “I like chocolate, cats, and spiders.”  By the end of our short shopping trip her list had grown from three to six.  As I bucked her in the car she said “mom, what’s five plus one?”  She was holding up five fingers and a thumb.  After I answered her question, I asked her to list her six things for me.  This is what she said “I like chocolate, cats, spiders, sticks, rocks, and lemonade.”  The last one I assume she added when she saw me purchase a lemonade drink mix that was on sale (discounted from $3.99 to $.99—I love a good deal).

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Zion, Part 3 = Isaac

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Isaac is at the perfect age for adventures. 5.13.09 Camping trip to Zion's (6) He gets so excited about everything.  Even driving down the freeway is exciting for him.  He loves looking out his window and talking about what he sees or asking questions.  One of his favorite games lately is finding letters in the alphabet. When he sees the letter he’s looking for he’ll say “got it” then figure out the next one.

He wanted to be involved in everything.  He enjoyed helping his dad set up the tent doing everything from bringing stakes to his dad to holding the poles of the tent.  He thrilled to see the fire and when Zach gave him a rule to stay 5 steps away, he committed to stay 8 steps away.  He got to cook his own hot dog and his own marshmallow.

image The first site we went to see was The court of the Patriarchs.  He was very excited because one of the peaks was named Isaac.  As we rode the shuttle to the site, he heard them say his name when they were describing the next stop—his eyes got wide and he exclaimed “they said Isaac!!”  He was very proud to have a mountain named after him (or someone with his same name).

He hiked himself to exhaustion on each trail.  5.14.09 Camping trip to Zion's (18)-1He loved to be the leader and would run up ahead if he got behind.  On one walk he helped me name some rocks that we thought may have been overlooked when they were naming everything.  He wore himself out so thoroughly that at the end of one hike he said “give me some food and put me to bed!”

As we were preparing a meal at our campsite we suddenly heard Isaac shouting “Mom, Mom!!” and running toward us.  When he got to us he pointed to the road and said “What is that thing?!”  It was a little white golf-cart type vehicle.  What I thought was interest turned out to be fear.  He was actually scared of it!  He can be a bit of a chicken.

You really couldn’t ask for a better camper.  He went to bed on time and slept well.  He loved every adventure and didn’t turn down an opportunity for a walk or a hike or to help make food.  At the end of our trip as we were packing up camp, Grandma’s tent started to blow away and Isaac grabbed hold of the tent.  He was very proud of himself for saving it from “blowing over the mountain”

Posted in Adventures, Kids

Zion, Part 2 = Nicole

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Taking Nicole camping with us turned out not to be our best idea.  5.13.09 Camping trip to Zion's (9) Our first problem was that since she couldn’t walk she became filthy very quickly if allowed to crawl around.  She spent most of her time either in someone’s arms, in her high-chair, or in the stroller.  She seemed happy enough most of the day.  She was a little wiggly on the bus at times, but in her stroller along the paths she would either sleep or ride along contentedly.

Our biggest challenge came at bedtime.  Typically I read her some stories, sing her a song and then lay her in bed where she cries herself to sleep.  She usually doesn’t cry too much, but in a strange place I 5.14.09 Camping trip to Zion's (18) thought her crying might be worse and I didn’t dare annoy the entire campsite by letting  her try.  First I walked her around until she fell asleep, but she woke up as soon as I tried to lay her down.  Then we thought we’d see if she’d be content laying in our bed with us.  She just wiggled endlessly and became quite unhappy.  Frustrated and tired, I put her back in the stroller and walked around in circles until she fell asleep.  It was too dark to go far and I didn’t want her to wake the campsite while I found a flashlight. I carefully removed her from the stroller and laid in my bed with her in my arms and she was awake within five minutes.  I put her to sleep again by holding her close and rocking her as I paced around by her bed and once I felt that she was sufficiently sleeping I laid her down and she stayed asleep, sometime after 11:00 PM.  She woke up a little after 4:00 5.13.09 Camping trip to Zion's (28)AM ready for breakfast and play.  I grabbed a few things quickly and found my way to the bathroom which was lit and had a floor not made of dirt.  I fed her and let her crawl around on the bathroom floor until about 6:30 AM when I could see that the sun had come up.  At which point I could see well enough to take her on a walk in her stroller.  She actually fell asleep, but I only got a 10 minute break on my bed before the other kids started waking up and woke Nicole up in the process.  We decided we didn’t want to try another night like that and so instead of sleeping one more night in our tents and then leaving in the morning, we packed up our campsite and left after dinner.

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Zion, Part 1 = Charlotte

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I thought I’d start with the middle child for once.  I really think the best way to describe our recent trip to Zion National Park is to tell the story child by child. 

The way we have our car seats arranged, 5.13.09 Camping trip to Zion's (2)Isaac and Nicole sit in the middle and Charlotte sits all the way in the back by herself.  This seems to be the best arrangement because it allows me to easily buckle and unbuckle the two kids who need help and the hardest seat for me to reach is Isaac’s and he can buckle himself.  I do sometimes feel bad when we go on trips or long drives because we have a hard time hearing little Charlotte all the way in the back.  She does well to entertain herself, mostly by singing and sleeping.  In fact, I can’t think of a time that she complained about her seat, unless you count the non-verbal complaint about Zach’s music choice pictured above.

As a girl who loves to play in the dirt, She couldn’t have been happier to camp. image She was constantly playing in the dirt and finding sticks and rocks.  Even the threat of spankings couldn’t keep  her hands clean for 5 minutes.  She did receive a few spanks and often when Zach called out her name she’d stand up and run away with her little hands covering her bottom as she yelled:  “don’t spank me.”  Ironically, when we got home I asked her what her favorite part of the trip was and she said “playing in the dirt.”

She was a good little camper.  She loved watching the fire, although she was sad that it was orange instead of pink.  One of her other favorite things seemed to be the “silly bus” which was “a bus attached to a bus.” 

We went on lots of little trails.  5.14.09 Camping trip to Zion's (14)She walked most of each trail, but often insisted on holding mommy’s hand or held onto the stroller that I was pushing.  Charlotte and I often trailed the rest of the group as she walked along the dirt next to the path and would stop to pick up a rock or stick.  Once she had collected a stick she’d trace the dirt along the path with it and poke any small stream of water she saw along the way.  When she got to tired she was hoisted up to Zach’s shoulders where she happily rode along wearing her father’s adventuring hat.

Posted in Adventures, Kids

Happy Birthday Nicole

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My little Nicole turned one on Wednesday.  So I thought almost a week late, I might write 4.22.09 Nicole a little bit about her.  Being a third must be hard. Number 1 is naturally spoiled with attention, on number two you try really hard to show them as much attention as number one, but by the time you get to number three it gets even tougher—especially when one and two are still home with you all day.  In some ways poor little Nicole gets the short end of the stick.  For example, I recently discovered that Nicole really likes to look at books with me. 

Nicole is at the age where her personality is really starting to bloom.  She loves to dance and yell.  She yells when she’s happy and when she’s mad.  If she likes a doll or stuffed animal she usually growls and buries her head in it.  I even saw her do this to a cat once.  She squeals with delight when she sees an animal,5.9.09 Nicole particularly a cat or dog and giggles when a dog jumps up on her and licks her face.

She loves to climb the stairs, especially at grandma’s house.  She crawls up a few steps and then turns around to make sure you’re following her.  Once she sees your face she laughs and climbs a few more steps as fast as she can.  Unfortunately, she hasn’t mastered the proper down technique. 

She has a bit of a fearless streak in her that is very different from her older siblings (who are both big chickens).  In the bath she splashes and lays on her stomach and tries to lay all the way down on her head sometimes.  When she climbs onto a chair she immediately grasps the back of the chair and starts shaking it.

Some of her favorite foods are pickles and grapes.

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Inside Grandma O’Bryant’s house, part 2

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**I could only find pictures of one of the rooms that I describe here, so I scattered pictures of that room throughout the descriptions of the others**

OBryant 0305 Through the kitchen was the opening to the hallway. I loved grandma’s hall. She kept giant bullion boards filled with pictures. She had an assortment of pictures old and new that she rotated and changed regularly. I must have spent hours in her hall just looking at pictures. She had framed pictures of all of her children when they were young and of all of their families as they got older. I loved to see how everyone grew and changed and to find treasures among the old pictures. It was fun to find pictures of my family scattered about in her collection. She had a wall hanging in the hall that listed all the birthdays in the family by month I used to study it to find out whose birthdays were close to mine and to see who had been added most recently.

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Inside Grandma O’Bryant’s house, part 1

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playing Dr with Grandma OBryant (2) The door that we used most to go in and out of Grandma’s house was probably the back sliding door. As you walked in the door you were instantly surrounded by the dark wood paneling that covered the walls. There was a stone wall to the left with a fireplace and a stone ledge in front of the fireplace. In the corner where the stone wall met the wall with wall of the sliding door was grandma’s TV. It was the  kind that had a door that could cover it and big built in speakers. Grandma had a big collection of VHS movies that she had taped off of television. OBryant 0230My family didn’t get cable television until after I was married, so it was always amazing to me that I could watch a cartoon any time of the day at Grandma’s house. I thought Nickelodeon was wonderful. The living room furniture was unique. She had a wood coffee table that was rounded and curvy and the chairs and couch had an old log furniture style to them. The couch was made of rounded dark wood pieces that resembled logs with green stripped cushions. Our favorite chairs in her living room were a set of chairs made of curved log style wood with patterned cushions on them. They sat on a rounded base and could turn completely around. We loved to spin on them or spin siblings or cousins on them and I’m sure we were regularly cautioned about spinning them too fast or too recklessly.

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Posted in Kathleen's Personal History

Laundry makes me tired too

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Charlotte wanted me to play a game with her.4.20.09 Charlotte, so tired   I told her that I needed to unload the dryer first.  As a form of protest, she climbed into my laundry basket as I was pulling the clothes out.  I just continued my work and pulled clothes out on top of her.  Soon she thought this was fun.  She stayed in the basket as I unloaded the washer and loaded the wet clothes into the dryer.  She said she was going to wait until the next batch was dry so that I could pile them on top of her too.  I walked out, only to return a few moments later and find her sound asleep in the laundry basket.

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Adventures with the Toads

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I took some days off this week, so I thought I’d spend a day with each of the older children.  When I asked them what they wanted to do, Isaac wanted to go to a mountain far away, and Charlotte wanted to look at fish.

So Thursday morning, Isaac and I set out for Arches National Park.  It’s not the best for mountains, but it’s accessible in this cold spring.  When we set out, we had a solid foot of new snow; I had to put Grandpa’s truck in four wheel drive to get out of our driveway.  Things were sloppy on US 6 through Spanish Fork Canyon and on into Price as well.
  2009-04-16 April Snowstorm 004

That little Toyota is probably the finest piece of 20th-century automotive technology.  While it’s a little underpowered and noisy at any kind of speed, it’s pretty near indestructible.  With 275,000+ miles on it, it’s still sporting the original clutch, transmission, and motor.  On top of that, any trail I’ve thrown it at (and I confess I haven’t gone too nuts) has been no problem.  There are some quirks; as we hit Soldier Summit, the right side wiper popped off.  A helpful clerk at Checker Auto in Price got us the right part (these pick-ups don’t have j-hooks for the wipers, so you need an adapter) and got us on the road again.

When we got to Arches, Isaac and I headed up to Delicate Arch.  Isaac is a chatty kid when he wants to be, and he had questions and thoughts about everything.  I use a pair of trekking poles when I hike, and when they’re not extended, they’re just the right size for him to use.  He calls them “hikers”, and talks about how the help us not to fall over.  Any time we’d go up a hill or along a ledge, he’d talk about how we were helping each other not fall.  We would look for the cairns of stones

Isaac is a good hiker.  Delicate Arch is 1.5 miles each way, and he did just fine.

After we hiked to Delicate Arch, we went down and roamed around in the Double Arch area.  He was a pretty fearless climber there, and scrambled all over the rocks.

The GPS recommended the Willow Springs road to get out of the park, and I figured since we had the truck, we could give it a try.  It was very bouncy, and by this time, the boy was very tired.  Even going slow there were a few obstacles that tilted the truck a lot or bounced it.  Once we hit pavement again, though, he got a nap in.  Then it was off for home.

Charlotte wanted to see some fish, so we went to the aquarium in Sandy.  It was very crowded, and while they had a few nice displays, it was just a little underwhelming.  Charlotte still liked it, though.  She especially liked one of the Amazon displays, where they had little caiman, turtles, and fish swimming together.  I showed her an octopus; it made her very nervous, though.  When we were done with the aquarium, I took her to Cabella’s so she could look at a lot of fish without a crowd.  She fell asleep on the way up and on the way back, so I didn’t push it; we’ll have lots of times together if I have my way.  Unfortunately, it was really dark in the aquarium, so my pictures didn’t work out well.  Here’s one of Charlotte helping me admire a spider.

2009-04-17 002

Posted in Adventures, Kids, Spiders

Bubble Rocket, need I say more…

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4.12.09 Bubble Rocket I got Isaac this bubble rocket for Easter.  I had some fear that it wouldn’t be a great gift, but it was a big hit.  First they played with it inside (with no bubble solution) and had lots of fun torpedoing the rocket into the air by stepping on (or jumping on) a plastic pouch of air.  After dinner we took it outside and tried it out with bubbles.  All the kids had a ball running around chasing bubbles.  The only issue with the bubble rocket was that as we used it with bubbles the bubble solution acted as a lubricant in all the different parts of the rocket so that soon it started to come apart each time it was jettisoned into the sky.  Luckily it was easy to put back together and to clean out after we were finished.

See it in action by clicking here.

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Easter

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Does anyone else think it’s weird that we celebrate Christ’s triumph 4.12.09 Easter Morn (9)over death by saying a bunny hops around hiding candy and colored eggs?   Were still at that stage where we are developing our traditions and I just didn’t have it in me to hype the Easter Bunny—I need more justification for his “existence” I suppose.  We tried to be simple this year, we hid a bag of jelly beans and a bag of Reces Peanut Butter cups and gave each kid one gift.    We decorated hard-boiled eggs, but then I just fed them to the kids instead of hiding them. 

I tried to put more emphasis on Christ by talking about the Crucifixion and showing them a few movies about Christ and his Crucifixion.  Charlotte and I watched “To This End Was I Born,” and talked about the events at the end of Christ’s life.  I’m grateful for the special moments we had together as we watched that film.  After Church, we went to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for dinner followed by a short Easter devotional.  Krista helped me fill 12 plastic eggs with scriptures and items surrounding Christ’s Atonement, Crucifixion, and Resurrection.  I hid the eggs around the living room and the kids found the eggs and delivered them to family members who read the scriptures contained therein.  We followed that activity by watching our Church’s Easter message (given my one of my very favorite Apostles).

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Teething Bologna

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She must be teething,  there’s no other explanation for her mutilation of this package of bologna.  I had to pry it from her cute little hands so the cashier could ring it up and Nicole cried until the bologna was returned to her.  The cashier said she’d never seen a kid do that with bologna, but I suppose I’d be more concerned if it was a common occurrence.   You may also notice that someone had second thoughts about buying that bleach in the background—not really an impulse buy.4.6.09 Nicole's bologna (2)

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Hard-boiled eggs

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When Easter comes around, I’m glad that my kids actually like to eat hard boiled eggs, 4.10.09 Isaac and Charlotte (5) because I don’t like them in any form.  I boiled the eggs today and one of the eggs cracked, so I gave the cracked one to the kids while it was still hot.  They enjoyed it so much that they asked for more.  I gave them one egg at a time which they took turns taking bites of.  Before the eggs had even cooled down, the kids had shared 5 eggs, they might have eaten more, but I feared we’d have none left to color.

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