ZION NATIONAL PARK WITH GRANDMA AND KEITH

In September Grandma and Uncle Keith came down to vacation in Saint George for a couple weeks of much needed rest and relaxation (this was right after mom's worst time with her brain issues). The kids and I were able to come up for a weekend to play with grandma at her hotel and the next weekend before they went home, we were all able to meet at Zion's National Park for a day of fun.

Standing in front of the Three Patriarchs (from left to right Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) Most the peaks in the Park have biblical names or significance.

We went on a couple really short hikes. This was the beginning of out biggest one which took one hour round trip.

The kids loved exploring the neat geological features of the park.

A very short hike at the end of the day brought us to this little waterfall.

We had a GREAT TIME!!!

THE GRAND CANYON WITH THE COLEMANS

In July Jenny and the kids stayed with us for a couple days on their way home to Texas from there summer vacation in Idaho. We went to the Grand Canyon (less than 2 hours away) and had a great time. Unfortunately Trenity had to work that day and couldn't come with us but we live close enough to take him later.

I wish I could put all the pictures on here but there's too many. We saw ancient Indian ruins, the kids all earned there Junior Ranger Badges, and we saw the Canyon from every angle (even at Sunset!)

The Watchtower at Desert Point. We had fun climbing up to get our first view of the Canyon from the top!

Goofing around after our picnic lunch.

Getting sworn in as Junior Rangers. They had to complete lots of fun educational activities about the Canyon's geology, wildlife, and history throughout the day to earn these. They had a blast and learned stuff too!

Sunset!

Canyon at the Grand Canyon!!! And both Canyons are just as AWESOME!!!

Lions, and tigers, and DINOSAURS?...Oh MY!

This area is rich in dinosaur history and fossils. The kids have had a great time discovering all our local treasures and Trenity and I have had fun finding so many wonderful free things to do with the family!

This is at the museum in Big Water just 10 minutes north of Page. It's a small museum/ranger station for the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.

These dinosaur tracks are not from any museum. We found these still out in nature! We'll the tour guide showed us anyways. We thought they were just as cool as if we'd discovered them ourselves. There were huge chunks of the rock cut out in sections where scientists have removed the best tracks to display in museums around the world, but these ones were left behind.

Dilophasaurus tracks. This is a smaller dinosaur only 15 feet tall, 30 feet long, and 1500 pounds (I still wouldn't have wanted to run into one). There were hundreds of these tracks. We could see adults and tons of babies running around. Sometimes the claw marks were very defined it was pretty cool.


The T-Rex! I wish I had a picture of this one with a kid in it so you could see just how big it was.


Fossil bones by the track area.

LONE ROCK BEACH

In July and August this beach is stacked five deep with camper trailers and families right to the waters edge. But the rest of the year we can enjoy a semi private beach.

We had a campfire weinie roast this evening and had the entire beach to ourselves!

Canyon's absolute favorite place. He could play in the sand for hours.

LIFE ON LAKE POWELL

One of our favorite things to do on the lake is to go swimming at Antelope Point. There's always a private cove just for our family with lots of fun rocks to jump from and snorkling.

Canyon is a climber and he loves it here. I however have to watch him like a hawk so he doesn't get himself into trouble because he can climb really high sometimes.

LOTS OF PICTURES COMING!

So the other day I FINALLY got around to downloading my camera pictures onto my computer. There were over 1400 pictures. I did not add a lot to my blog last year because I did not have these pics off of my camera but look out now because here they come! These next several blog posts may be late but better late than never. So here is what our family was up to last spring until now. Enjoy!

Online and Open for Business

As most of you know, along with being a terrific pilot, Trenity is also a Flight Instructor. But what most of you don't know is that he is also an online entrepreneur. He just started his very own online Flight Training website. We just launched Phase One a few days ago and are currently working on the next phase. It is a work in progress and will eventually host complete online ground school training courses to fully accompany any local flight training and count towards receiving a pilots license. Check us out at flighttrainingnow.com. And wish us luck for a profitable venture!

Since we are on the subject of aviation, I thought I would add some more photos of what Trenity loves about his job!

How many of you would love to see this kind of view even once? Trenity took these at work one day. The other plane you see is his buddy Derrick who also flys with him on the tours. In fact Derrick was one of Trenity's first students when he worked for the flight school in Cedar City. We love seeing his own students suceed at getting jobs flying and loving it.

I realize it has been ages since my last update and this one is kinda old too but here is a view of our new hometown of Page, Arizona (Lake Powell). We have lived here for about 9 months now and I have still not updated any pictures from our time here. But these are definately better than a poke in the eye right?

I am enjoying the mild winter. It's a big change from Idaho. We have had some snow but it never lasts long and usually it is in the low 40s. It's sunny almost everyday.

The kids are doing great. Harley just started playing basketball for school. Natalia chose to wait till spring to play softball. Canyon is starting to talk up a storm tho i'm sure that the mom translation is still very much needed, and Joselyn is having a blast playing the new Wii that Santa brought us for Christmas when her sisters are at school and she doesn't have to fight for a turn (don't worry, I got her educational games like Jumpstart Pet Resscue and Big Brain Academy).

Trenity and I are keeping busy with a few new projects. Trenity has a full time security guard job at the Dam and is flying lake tours on the weekends. The flying will pick up to full time again in a month or two when the tourism picks up again. In his free time he is designing a new web site for flight training materials and online ground school courses that he will teach. And that leaves me. I keep busy with the kids of course but I've decided to try my hand at writing, a novel that is. But don't hold your breath it will probably take me 5 years to write it at this rate. But who knows mabey it won't be too terrible in the end.

So that's us for now and hopefully it won't be so long before our next update.

Love, Us =)