Animals at Gardner Village

We went to see some animals Saturday with Mabel (and the rest of us)! We started in Alpine with the parakeets along the trail near Healey Park. She loved them (as did we)!

Then we moved on to Gardner Village in West Jordan where she enjoyed riding a real pony!

Clementine, who can sit up quite well by herself now, was just a little too wobbly to put on a pony by herself. We just settled with a photo op for her!

It was fun watching Mabel feed the animals in the petting zoo. She wasn't a bit afraid of them!

She would have happily climbed in the pens with them if that had been allowed!

She reminds us of Amanda in this picture. I wonder if Amanda knows why!

One of the sheep was half goat and half sheep. A geep. They are pretty rare, so it was fun seeing it!

We enjoyed lunch at Archibald's and walking around perusing the shops afterwards! It was a nice way to spend Crystal's final day with us! She went home to Colorado today! We miss her!

Sweet Daughters

Brittany and Crystal spent the afternoon cooking yesterday. They have perfected the art of the hand pie, making blueberry, cherry and rhubarb pies. Just for the fun of it!

Brittany finished the last and best of her trial cakes for John's birthday next week. This one was a winner!

It was a vegan lemon curd cake with blackberries in the filling. We all had a piece and gave it the Bush stamp of approval! We're looking forward to getting it again on John's birthday next week!

BFFs

While I was in Layton yesterday I stopped in to see Louise Pearson Sabin, one of my two best friends in high school. We hadn't seen each other since 1972! Forty five years is a long time! We had to talk fast to catch up on everything--parents, brothers and sisters, children, husbands. I think we just brushed the surface! It was so fun seeing her. She hadn't changed at all (in the ways that matter)! We talked about big dreams of getting all the Billings girls together someday. That would be something!

Steve Smith Funeral

My friend (and missionary companion form 1976), Elaine Smith, lost her husband last week to a heart attack. I attended the services yesterday in Layton, UT and enjoyed getting to know more about her husband.

It was wonderful hearing three of their sons give a loving tribute to their father. They told stories of their interactions with him, many of them told in light of their sureness of meeting him again in the next life. It was a beautiful service to a congregation the size of a stake conference. It was a real tribute to the impact he had on his family friends, and the community around him!

Timpanogas Cave

As part of Crystal's continuing celebration of her dad's birthday, yesterday she took us to Timpanogas cave! It has been about a decade since we've been there!

The path is occasionally shady, and paved the entire mile and a half up the mountain. But it is steep! You never get a break from walking straight uphill!

At the 1/4 or the way mark, we stopped to comment that we were doing better than we thought we would do!

When we reached the cave entrance in 43 minutes we thought, "We're in better shape than we were 10 years ago!" They allow you an hour and a half to get to the top before your tour time. Unfortunately, that meant we had to wait a while before we got into the cave!

We enjoyed the guided tour and the cool temperature in the cave!

There was a good deal of crouching involved, but happily we avoided any painful encounters with low hanging cave rocks!

We were able to relax and enjoy the views on the way down the mountain!

In the evening Crystal was a special guest at the Alpine Slow Jam. We enjoyed hearing her play a few tunes for us on her mountain dulcimer. We also enjoyed having her play the viola with us. We are seriously lacking a solo instrument in the group!

Playing with the Girls

Wednesday afternoon we took out some of our classic toys for Mabel. She was gentle with the castle and respectful of the fact that I had to clue all the flags back on it!

Clementine also got into the fun! She is now grabbing toys and smacking them up and down!

Crystal and Brittany did some baking in the kitchen. When Crystal asked why my sugar was all clumpy, Brittany pointed out that I didn't bake enough to keep it fresh!

We finished up the evening with dinner at Rodizio Grill. I'm sad to say that Mabel and Clementine didn't enjoy that nearly as much as we did!

Ponderosa Campground

We took out the tent trailer out again last night. This time to the Ponderosa Campground just 10 miles west of Nephi, right off the Mt. Nebo Scenic Loop.

We had a beautiful, private, shady spot! We loved it!

It was right next to Salt Creek, and we enjoyed falling asleep to the murmur of the water!

We took a short (1/4 mile one way) hike to an onyx mine across from the campground.

The nice campground hosts even lent us a pick to try our hand at mining.

I found a really nice stone with lots of "bacon" striation in it. It was about 30 pounds, but being as it was downhill on the way back, I decided to bring it home with me!

It was fun to show Crystal our very spacious tent trailer.

In the afternoon we drove the Mt. Nebo scenic loop, which was fun despite the fact that some of the peaks went in and out of the clouds. It was nice to be up in the mountains out of the heat!

We played Mormon Bridge in the evening. What would you bid on my hand of four cards if you had my deal? Green was trump.

I bid two. Crystal and Ed bid one. Everyone was a winner!

In the morning we took a 3 mile (round trip) hike up the Salt Creek Trail.

We turned around when we got to a very pretty little waterfall.

We saw a LOT of cows. They were even up at the top of the scenic loop!

We also saw a few deer, but they didn't hold still for photographs.

We managed to cross the river without falling in the water.

But we did not escape stepping in some fresh cow pies! Ugh!

We were happy to have Crystal with us for our family's traditional top of the tent trailer picture! We wish Brittany and Amanda could have been here for it, too! Coda stood in for them!

Brady Hootenany

The Brady family met in Burgess Park in Alpine yesterday for an evening of old time music. This is the ones who made it in time for the group photo. In the end we had over 40 people!

We had an incredible array of food for the pot luck dinner! Some of the family members are better cooks than musicians, thank heavens!

This was the food before the sprinklers came on and caused us to move the tables to the center of the pavilion!

Brittany invited Zam, her Ugandan friend to join us. We're hoping to give her a glimpse into different aspects of American life!

Joan's family is the one that cooked up the idea, choosing Pioneer day as a great day to get together.

The also started the program with an eclectic set of numbers with different instrumentation.  They performed:

Sweet Hour of Prayer in Nakoda

Mary Don’t You Weep

Sew ‘em on the Mountain

O Saviour Thou Who Wearest a Crown

Sing Sing Sing

Jambalaya

The Stevens family performed:

You Are My Sunshine and

Hallelujah (Ricky Skaggs song)

The Pinyon Rats (with Crystal Bush) performed

Glory Bound

Amazing Grace

The Fox

You’ve Got to Walk That Lonesome Valley

Will the Circle Be Unbroken?

The sprinklers in the background were disconcerting, but didn't really reach us. The entire evening was an exercise in moving tables out of the sprinklers' reach! It made the evening more memorable!

We had a nice crowd to cheer us on!

My mother drove all the way up from Salem for the occasion! She was amazed to have so many descendants in one place!

We were glad John Nuttall's parents joined us as well. Marti had no problem taking care of both of the babies during the performance!

We finished up with a few group jams. We were happy to have lights in the pavilion, but we had to loose the sound system, as the electricity wouldn't work with both on at the same time! Joan said our hardships were a fitting way to remember our ancestors on Pioneer Day!

Pioneer Day in Provo

Yesterday we went to Provo to celebrate Pioneer day with Brittany and the girls. We enjoyed the visit to Pioneer village, which had lots of demonstrations of how the pioneers lived. We enjoyed the photo booth!

It always amazes me that there are people left in the world able to demonstrate blacksmith work!

The museum had some nice exhibits, including old organs still in working condition.

We all got a lollipop for posting our picture on Instagram. Mabel learned how to lick it very quickly!

Afterwards we came home and baked my grandma's raisin filled cookies to share with the extended family in the evening!