Oct-Jan

So I guess we haven't posted anything since Oct 5, and that was just Louisa and Darth Vader. It's been even longer since we've put pictures and described any of our goings on. Sorry. This post will be long to compensate. Or maybe not. Thanks to others for posting pictures of us as we've been involved in combined activities. I won't back all the way up because Halloween photos in January would be unsettlingly anachronistic.

On second thought, anachronism be darned. In October Rachel hatched a monarch butterfly. She caught the caterpillar herself, kept it in a box, fed it daily, and waited patiently for weeks while it sat in its chrysalis until one day there it was. For the first day or so it wasn't able to fly, so she lovingly carried it all over our yard and pasture introducing it to its new world.

Thanksgiving dinner was great at our house. Not rushed, not stressful, and delicious. 

 

Just another perspective on the chocolate dipping.

Even though we've had chickens for about 4 months, this picture from about a week ago might be the first one we have of them. If anyone wants eggs, we sometimes get a dozen a day. We started with 17 hens and a rooster (we may have told this story), but then we ate the rooster after it attacked Louisa. Then a bird dog got one of the hens because there was no rooster to protect them, so we were down to 16. Then just a couple weeks ago a hawk got another one, so we should be down to 15, but somehow I'm still counting 16 at night when I tuck them in. We may have inadvertently adopted one from a neighbor or something.

I did a presentation in Moab over the Martin Luther King Day weekend, so we made a trip out of it, stopping at Goblin Valley along the way and spending 3 days hiking through Arches. Sorry if there's too many pictures of this trip. It's hard to not post everything because it was so great. I'm sure you all understand.

James took this picture. We didn't just do a family picture without him.

 We had the world's greatest game of tag among the goblins with the occasional tackle and rest. 

Hiking (running) the 1.5 miles to Delicate Arch

What you can't see is that there were steep cliffs right in front of us and right behind us, not to mention the trail was covered in ice. I was a bundle of nerves at the top and wouldn't let anyone skirt around the edge of the bowl (right behind us) to walk under the arch. The kids chanted "Daddy's scared!" over and over.

Louisa's not much of a hiker and rode in the pack about 4 times as much as David did. She kept saying "I'm done hiking. Let's go back to where our beds are" (she couldn't remember the word "condo"). Consequently, she slept through the petroglyphs.

Landscape Arch, considered by most to be the longest in the world.

 This trail was a lot easier coming down than going up.

 Park Avenue trail

David is rarely not happy, which means neither are we.