Happy Anniversary to Us

For our 6th anniversary we actually left our baby behind and went for a 3 day backpacking trip. My mom and Ian and  Laura were so nice to watch Madelyn. 

We went down to Southern Utah to a place called Coyote Gulch. It was an out and back trip.

Starting out.

After walking through a wide wash for a bit we dropped down into a canyon.

There were a lot of stream crossings. The first day we built ourselves lots of little bridges and did lots of hopping. I was loathe to get my feet wet. 

We made ourselves a base camp so we didn't have to take our packs with us the next day. It was a gorgeous little spot. Plus I found 5 dollars. 

(I'm checking out the canyon walls in this picture… not just staring vacantly into space…. er, I promise.)

Our second day took us further down the canyon we'd been following. Our goal was to get to the confluence of this little stream and the Escalante River.

Still building bridges. This didn't last too long that day. We ended up hiking bare foot for most of it. That way we could walk where ever we pleased and not have to worry about wet shoes! I have a weird thing about wet shoes. Yuck.

Swiss Cheese Falls.

There were tons of these little lizards running around and Rory went running around after them.

Poor Rory got sucked into the mud. I was going to just leave him but he managed to get himself out.

Yay! We made it! The nice blue water is the big Escalante River. After a little snack break we turned around and headed back to camp. If you notice I am actually wearing my shoes in the river at this point. It got too rocky to hike bare foot. I was grimacing in my mind.

Walking up stream made me feel a little car sick. The world was going the opposite direction from me.

A little toad(?) Rory found on the way back. 

We didn't take any pictures the last day but it was gorgeous too. We made it out just fine and even made it home for Pete's wedding! 

Hogle Zoo

We went to Hogle Zoo this weekend with Jolene and the Stodds.

Madelyn loved everything except the slide. It was too scary and dark.

Happy Stoddy family.

The bears were pretty cool. Madelyn sat there for a while watching this one feed. The polar bear was also right up by the glass swimming around and that was so exciting Madelyn had to squeal…a lot.

I never actually got a picture of Jolene but if I had it would have been of her and Madelyn holding hands and talking and walking. It was pretty cute.

Florida

Rory went down to Florida last month to present at the Society of Range Management national meeting. These are a few things he saw:

The blobs are manatees, which he didn't swim with. 

This picture is dedicated to Rory's favorite father-in-law.

This starfish regenerated a limb! Can you see which one?

On Saturday

I ran a 10K with a friend Saturday morning. We kicked butt! Sort of… She came in 4th in our age class and I came in 5th. We were both pleased with our times.

After my run Rory took Madelyn and I on a picnic up the canyon. There's a cute little park and Madelyn had a blast going down the slides.

We also walked a little way up the canyon trail.

The creek was a never ending source of amazement.

Plus we saw a downy woodpecker! And a river otter!!

A Few Things

Rory has been jumping for joy lately. He got his official acceptance letter to Kansas State University for his PhD. Bring on all the Wizard of Oz jokes.

We finally took a ride on the new train system. Madelyn loved loved loved it. No carseats! She spent the majority of the ride with her face pressed up against the window saying "weeee!". We went up to SLC and wandered around all the fabulous shopping!

We also made it over to Temple Square.

See how much fun she's having!

I gave Madelyn her first hack job haircut. Her bangs were always in the way so I took some scissors and chopped them off... unevenly. Oh well, first times don't always go well. She's too young to care anyway. 

Madelyn's Dresser

I've been keeping Madelyn's clothes piled on the shelves of her changing table. Most days she'd rip them out at least once. I finally got tired of putting them back and went to D.I. where I found an ugly little dresser to spruce up.

Before:

During:

After:

Now her clothes stay where I put them! (usually)

Quick Trip to Moab

For the three day weekend we sped down to Moab and hit up Arches National Park. It was one of their free weekends! Yes!

Delicate Arch.

Delicate Kathleen.

It was Laura's first time to Moab and her catch phrase for the weekend was "this is sooo COOL!!!"

It was Madelyn's first time to Moab too but I don't think she was as impressed.

Rory doing his crazy monkey thing.

He even convinced Laura to be a crazy monkey. (Check out his new hiking shoes!)

Kipp and Kathleen at Delicate Arch.

We also did the primitive loop at Landscape Arch. I struck a pose on top of the world.

View from the top.

Kathleen makes a flying leap.

We called these the organ pipes.

Classic Kipp.

Laura in the womb.

This was one of the sketchy parts of the hike. Slippy slidey! 

Madelyn was super excited to get out of the car and run around. She hiked a whole 1/2 mile by herself!

They were excited too.

Milling in the ranks.

Ummm... who are the couples here?

Elephant on parade.

In the evenings we roasted hot shmo's and talked about deep things.... like toots.

Squeee!