Timpooneke Trail

Ed and I went up American Fork Canyon this morning to hike Timpooneke Trail. We were surprised it wasn't spelled Timanooke, because that's the way everyone pronounces it!

It was loaded with beautiful flowers, including these purple fireweed.

We made lots of new flower friends, including this thimbleberry!

The baneberry was a beautiful bright red, but apparently, a month ago it was covered in bright white flowers that contribute to the red, white and blue we've heard about up here!

The horsemint was just about finished, but still provided some pretty purple color!

We turned around in this meadow at the two mile mark.

It was a nice place to rest and enjoy the panoramic view on all sides!

There were plenty of small springs where Coda could stop for a drink.

We took 1 3/4 hour going up and one hour coming down, stopping to take plenty of pictures. We loved the hike, but are determined to come back earlier in the season next year to get the full wild flower effect!

Wasatch Wildflower Festival

We went up to Alta this morning to see the wildflowers! And there were plenty of them. There is some beautiful fireweed in front of a small stream here!

The festival organizers had some suggested hikes for all age groups, and activities for children! Mabel made a flower!

Clementine looked cool in her shades! Grandpa got to hold her for a while, but in general, she wanted her mom to do all the work of carrying her!

We made some new flower friends--the Alpine Paintbrush and silky Lupine were beautiful and plentiful!

The red elderberry was very similar to the blue elderberry in Lambert Park!

There was some white sagebrush to the right of this yellow flower. It didn't look a lot like our local sagebrush in Alpine, but John sniffed it out with his superior senses!

We learned about this monument flower (Grand gentian) that has basal roots for 20-60 years, after which it blooms, releases seeds and dies!

We also saw a moose, so all in all it was a pretty good day!

Mabel suggested we ride the ski lift, but was amenable to a pretend one, as we ran out of time! We had to hurry down the canyon for lunch at Everest Curry Kitchen in Sandy! (Yum!)

Pinyon Rats at Springville Food Truck Roundup

The Pinyon Rats (Ed, Brittany, John and Judy) had their debut yesterday at the Springville Food Truck Roundup! It was only 100 degrees in the parking lot at 6 p.m. when we started!

We were happy that so many of our family showed up to see us!  Between John's relatives and my relatives, it made a very friendly group!

We were also happy that Thiep's Eats let us plug into their generator for our sound system! The generator was a mixed blessing, as it also competed with us sound-wise!

We were overall happy with the performance and rewarded ourselves with Aloha Shave ice afterwards!

We didn't take a video of the performance, but recorded ourselves at practice last week. If you'd like to see the songs we did on Youtube, here is a link! 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoWvU5tEqI_pitZLPU0g4HbV3ZvMwSGaS

Fairview 24th of July Parade

Parade day! After a year of planning, we were thrilled with the actual event! Seven members of Mom's graduating class rode on the float! They have been friends since first grade, and have met regularly for reunions over the years! They looked beautiful and luminescent as they waved to the crowd lining the route. There were 70 entries in the parade, and we thought ours was the best!

Annette and Barbara made a special quilt for the backdrop, and we draped the benches with quilts!

All the Bush girls came up for the parade! Mom ended up with about 50 people in just our family coming to support her!

Ed drove the truck, and had Rachael to help load the trailer. The two Kents walked alongside the trailer and threw out candy!

The kids loved picking up candy thrown from the floats! Clementine LOVED putting it in the bag! It was so fun watching her intently picking up candy!

It was also fun watching Mabel shake it up with John and Brittany! They loved to dance when the musical floats went by!

But the highlight of the parade was seeing our radiant mom waving to the crowds as they drove by!

We all met back at our rental unit for a great taco dinner!

We also had a cake to celebrate Mom's birthday, and a second one for Lacy, who's birthday was really today!

We had a special program where Mom told her life story through her children's birth and life. Each of my siblings had a few minutes to talk about Mom after she finished telling our individual stories.

Annette and Barbara had prepared some bubble fun for the kids in the afternoon.

We also had a lot of fun playing with the parachute, which was also the topic of conversation--the great camping trips we had where we slept under the parachute!

And if that wasn't enough fun, we also took the kids for a ride on the float in the late afternoon!

Mabel was in seventh heaven getting to ride on the float! Aunt Barbara even let the kids keep the pinwheels from the float!

Even clean-up was fun! Jon enjoyed doing a little hula dance with the fringe!

Ed said it is a little let-down now that it is all over with! We'll have to find something else to look forward to!

We Made a Float!

When we agreed to build a float for Mom's high school friends last year we had no idea it would turn out so nice! We took several hours this morning putting our float together, and we are ready for the parade tomorrow.

This is us relaxing with pride after completing our masterpiece!

After lunch we stopped over at the Fairview cemetery where we visited gravesites and listened to mom tell us stories of our ancestors!

Barbara and I bought plots in the cemetery last year, and together with Ken and Ed, we tried them out for size. We'll be buried facing east, so this will be our first view when wake up on resurrection morning!

We had just enough time afterwards to stop by Jon and Sara's cabin at Fairview Lakes. It was so beautiful and there were wild flowers in abundance!

We ended up our day with dinner in Manti at Dirk's Farmhouse Restaurant. It was worth driving 30 miles for, especially, since there is no restaurant in Fairview!

When the Family Gets together

My siblings descended on the little town of Fairview this afternoon! It is always fun (and a miracle) when we all get together!

After dinner we went for a walk along the peaceful streets of Fairview!

It was nice being out in the cool evening weather just in time to watch the sun go down!

We stopped to take a picture of the house my dad grew up in! We had to wonder what our lives would have been like if we had grown up here!

Then we got back to the Reunion Center. Mom was the only one who didn't go walking with us. But she was spry enough to stay up late talking with us! This trip is about Mom's 90th birthday, (really in September). But we're so excited that we have to celebrate it early! Tomorrow we decorate her float for the parade!

Bush Family in Town

Crystal showed up very late Friday night in preparation for our big do this week in Fairview.

My sister, Verlene, also  came out with Crystal. We took a look at our borrowed trailer and decided 90-year-old people might not be able to load up on our parade float via the ramp!

Our banner, however, is going to look terrific!

Crystal got a good work-out being a good auntie to Mabel and Clementine!

Crystal even got to ride in the lawn mower train with the girls!

It was so fun having our three girls and our three grandchildren in town for the day!

In the afternoon we put the kids down for a nap, had a babysitter come over and went for a walk in Lambert Park. We had fun learning about all the berry trees in the park!

It was a pretty hot day, so we cooled off with some great Hawaiian Shave Ice from Huli Boys!

We ended a relaxing day with a BBQ in the back yard! It was so fun having everyone together in the summer, rather than in the cold of winter!

It was also fun having Hugo visit our house! He's getting to be so much fun!

It was also fun seeing Hugo interact with his cousins! This picture was taken right before Mabel got a little too rambunctious and tipped Hugo over! Fortunately, he was no worse for the wear!