Utah Trip Day 6

Today we went out to the Kennecot Bingham Copper Mine. This is near West Jordan, Utah. This mine is the largest open pit mine in the world and is the only man made thing you can see from the space shuttle. The mine is 2.5 miles wide and .75 miles deep. It is HUGE. Visiting this mine and going on a tour there was one of the requirements for Grant's Citizenship in the Nation Merit Badge. The requirement was to visit a national landmark. So we figured while we were in Utah, this would be an easy one to check out.

If you look to the left on this picture, there are some tiny blue port-a-potties. That should give you some perspective of how HUGE the truck is parked next to it.

The best way to view the copper mine is through binoculars.
Grant is checking all of the machinery out down in the pit.

In the center of this picture to the right side is a building in the mine. The dumptrucks bring their loads to this "building" and dump it in. The machine inside crushes the rocks so they are no larger than 10 inches. Then they send the crushed material onto a conveyor belt 5 miles to the next spot that processes the rock.

Mitchell and Grant are standing in front of one of the dump truck tires. Each dump truck has 6 of these. Each one costs $25,000 and needs to be replaced every year. So I guess tires are a large expense for the mine since there are a few dozen dump trucks in the pit.

When we left the mine we headed over to Mitchell and Grant's great-grandparents home. This is the boys with their great-grandpa, Ray Ward. He is almost 88 years old and is fun to talk to. Betty, Mitchell and Grant's great-grandmother, had dementia but she really liked to see our puppy Max. She picked him up and talked to him. It was very cute. We are glad that the boys can see their great-grandparents at least once per year while we are in Utah visiting.

Utah Trip Day 5

This was the day of our big adventure! We planned a trip to Preston, Idaho, home of the famous movie "Napoleon Dynamite" and hometown of Brent's mom and her parents. Preston is about 140 miles from Alpine, UT. I have never been past Salt Lake City so I was very excited about heading north. It was going to be a long day of driving. However, the scenerey, once you get to Brigham City, was breathtaking!

Our first stop on the trip was in Logan, UT. The Logan Temple is where many people in Brent's family had been sealed.

It is a beautiful old temple built with stone.

We also visited the Logan Cemetery where Brent's grandparents, great-grandparents and other members of his family have been buried.

Next we headed out of town up toward Richmond. Richmond, UT is famous for the Pepperidge Farms factory. We just had to stop to see what was so exciting about the little "thrift" store.

They sell huge bags of reject goldfish crackers. The boys chose to purchase some maroonish/purple goldfish. It was close to 3 pounds. They enjoyed eating them throughout the rest of our long drive. I picked out some cookies. I love cookies!

Next we were off to our intended destination of Preston, Idaho. Our first stop in Idaho was at Brent's grandparents old house.

This house is right across the street from the famous Napoleon Dynamite track. Mitchell made a goal of riding his bike in every state (news to me!) so he went bike riding while we were there and even road on the track.

This is Mitchell riding in front of the track. Since the town isn't very large, Mitchell rode his bike behind our van as we went around town to other sites. We checked out Brent's grandfather's old store.

This store is right next to the DI Thrift Store that was used in the Napoleon Dynamite movie. Remember the scene where Napoleon went shopping for some sweet threads to wear to the dance? Yep, that scene was shot next store to Grandpa Smith's store! We visited a few more places in Preston and ate at Big J's Restaurant. The food was great and the service was fabulous. Its like a fast food restaurant with really nice people working there and they even come to your table while you are eating to bring you candy.

The next part of our trip was to go to Minitonka Cave. This is a wet cave by Bear Lake off of the little town called St. Charles.

To get to the cave, we had to walk down this wooden bridge/trail.

The entrance of this cave had to be enlarged so tours could go through. There is a door on the cave further in that has slats in it to let the bats in/out and to keep people out when they aren't giving tours.

The cave had all of the traditional stalactites, stalagmites, helectites, and soda straws. This stalagmite was damaged by looters in the early 1900's. If you look closely, you can see lines where they pieced it back together.

We were able to see a few bats in the cave. None of them were flying around. They looked pretty small. The tour guide said that they were full grown though.

The cave stays 40 degrees all year round. Which to an Arizona girl is pretty cold. We all bundled up to go on the tour. The name Minitonka means many waters. This cave has two "waterfalls" in it. The pictures didn't turn out to show you the little waterfalls but it was pretty cool. I would definitely recommend touring this cave if you are ever in southern Idaho.

On our way out of the park, we saw a family of skunks.

The rest of our way back to Utah was unbelievable. Bear Lake was huge and so blue! We went through Logan Canyon and the Logan river ran along the road the whole way. Unlike Arizona, the rivers in Utah actually have lots of water in them. We stopped in the canyon at Ricks Springs.

Although you can see a circle in the water at the back of this cave where the water is coming up, it is not a natural spring. It happens to be apart of the Logan River. Somewhere underground there is a diversion from the Logan River that pops up in this cave. The water is actually moving very fast.

It was an amazing day. We didn't make it "home" until close to 10pm.

Utah Trip Day 3 & 4

On Saturday we planned on taking a trip to Big Cottonwood Canyon to check out Silver Lake, go hiking and have a picnic with Brent's parents, and siblings. However, when we got up Saturday morning, it was raining. It's summer so I figured it would stop raining soon and be a nice sunny day. So all of us headed to Lynda's house to convene before going to the canyon. Unfortunately, it never stopped raining. It rained ALL DAY LONG! I couldn't believe it. So we hung out at Lynda's house for a few hours and had lunch there. The boys didn't seem to mind the change of plans. Mitchell played Rock Band with Kyle and Benjamin.

Grant had fun on the trampoline with Amy. Grandpa Jensen was throwing a tennis ball to them high in the air. The two of them would jump up and try to catch it. The fun lasted until one time when the ball ricoched off of Grant and hit Amy in the eye. Then Grant went and played Rock Band with the other boys.

Sunday was Father's Day. We went to Barb's ward since it was earlier than Brent's parents' ward. After church we all met up for a big Sunday meal. Mitchell, Grant and I, took Brent away from the action and gave him a little Father's Day surprise.

Brent got a couple of shirts and a card signed by the boys and I. Mitchell and Grant even wrote something nice in the card. It was a fun day. However, we were ready to go on another adventure around Utah.

Utah Trip Day 2

On Friday our adventure began in the evening. Barb's ward was having an activity near Utah Lake at a ropes course. She invited all of us to attend because many people in her ward were out of town or not going. The ropes course was situated in a grove of very tall cotton wood trees next to the river. It was beautiful and very green. In Utah, when things are beautiful, green and next to a river, that means MOSQUITOES!!!! These bugs were viscous! We put on bug repellent not only on all of our exposed extremities but also on our clothes. Brent said the mosquitoes could bite through your clothing. I didn't believe him. It just didn't sound possible. But he was right. Grant didn't get his shirt sprayed and he had a half a dozen bites on his back. Brent had several bites through his thick socks. Isn't that crazy!

Well, the ropes course was amazing. There was a zip line, rock wall, a swing that you would swing about 30 feet off of the ground, a leap of faith jump, canoeing and more. We participated in all of it.



Here is Grant going down the zip line. The video is sideways. I didn't realize that I was shooting it sideways and there is no way to rotate it 90 degrees. BUMMER! All of our videos are like this. So just turn your monitor 90 degrees and it will look normal!

We also went canoeing on the river. Mitchell and Grant had their own canoe and had trouble steering.

Brent and I had Matthew and Benjamin come with us in our canoe.

I was at the front of the boat but I wasn't in charge of steering, Brent was. It was pretty easy to navigate down the river but much more challenging to get back up the river when we were going against the current.

The first thing Mitchell did when we go there was the leap of faith. This is an activity where you climb up a tree to a landing. He was about 20 feet or more from the ground. Then you leap off of the platform to try and grab a metal ring that was suspended in the air. Many people miss the ring or are afraid to jump. Mitchell, however, caught the ring on his first try and second try. He was pretty cocky about how easy it was so one of the instructors told him to do it blind folded. This means that when he reached the landing on the tree he would put on the blind fold and jump off this high platform and try to catch the ring. You will need to watch the video clip to see if he made it!

Utah Trip Day 1

Our Utah family trip started at 5:30 am on Thursday morning as we left the valley. As usual, it was a very long drive. By the time we reached Kanab, UT, Grant was suffering from severe car sickness and needed a break. He rarely gets car sickness so we were surprised he was feeling so bad. We stopped and gave him some motion sickness medicine but that didn't curb the nausea immediately. The next part of our drive took longer than anticipated because of needing to stop for Grant's impending vomit attempts. Thankfully, after a brief lunch in Panguich, UT, he started to feel a little better.

We stopped again in Beaver to pick up some cheese curds. This was Mitchell's request. Mitchell and Brent enjoy eating the curds and hearing them squeak. Fresh cheese curds are the best. The Cache Valley Cheese factory story was swamped with a bus load of senior citizens when we arrived. The store is smaller than a Circle K store and was packed with people. As we were leaving, two more bus loads of senior citizens arrived. I'm glad we got out of there when we did. Who knew it was a tourist spot.

By the time we made it to Alpine, UT, and to Brent's parent's home, we were running behind schedule. We had just a few minutes to unload the van and get ready for the Strawberry Days Rodeo. We had quite a large family group go with us to the rodeo. Three of Brent's sisters, Brent's brother and all of their families went plus Brent's parents. We had pretty good seats at the rodeo to enjoy all of the action.

The first event was Mutton Bustin'. This is where small children under the age of 5 ride on the back of the sheep for as long as they can. The kids wear helmets and protective gear so they don't get too hurt when the fall off. But it is super cute to watch them ride the sheep as if it is a buckin' bronco. Once they fall off the sheep, the sheep kind of congregate together out in the rodeo arena.
The dazed and confused sheep of Muttin' Bustin.

The next event was called the "Cash Cow." This event was for kids under the age of 12. Unfortunately, Grant didn't get out there in time to participate. During this event, all of the kids line up on one side of the arena. Then they let a calf out of the gate with money taped on it. The kids chase the calf around the arena trying to get the money. This was a very funny event. We felt bad for the calf who was attacked by the mob of kids.

The rest of the rodeo was pretty standard. There was the bare back riding, steer wrestling, barrel racing, bull riding and others that I can't remember the name of. This was Mitchell and Grant's first rodeo and they enjoyed all of the events. The also enjoyed the food at the rodeo. Since it was the Strawberry Day's Rodeo, they served lots of strawberries and cream. Everyone, except me, had to have some.
Grant is finishing off his strawberries and cream. Mitchell doesn't want to be photographed.

According to most of the kids that were in our group at the rodeo, the best event was not a standard rodeo event. They had two young men on motorcycles there doing insane jumps. Mitchell just had to record it. Grant did a commentary the entire time of what type of moves the motorcyclists were doing. The clip is four minutes long. The ending is the best part.

Too big to load the video today. I'll try again another day. Bummer!

It was a great first day of our trip.

Living for the Bike Park!

Chad on the yellow bike & Mitchell on the orange bike. These two boys have so much in common!

Everyday this summer Mitchell wants to go to the bike park to practice his jumps and other biking moves. He loves to stay there for hours. He tries to convince me to let him stay there until the lights go out on the park which is at 10:15 pm. He hasn't been successful in getting me to let him do that.

Since we recently purchased a van, I have become the bike park driver. Mitchell and 2 or 3 of his friends load their bikes in the van and I drive them the 7 miles to and from the park. Every once in a while, one of the other moms takes the group home. Usually, the drives are hillarious. I just can't stop laughing at the goofy things these boys say. A lot of the times they talk to strangers on the street or in other cars while they are in the safety of the van. The things they say or the animal sounds that they make won't sound as funny if I write them here. You will have to come and experience it yourself.

Mitchell practicing his jump.

Mitchell & his friends bike together.

Grant Speaks in Sacrament Meeting

Grant was assigned to give his first talk today at church. He chose to speak on praying with faith. He did a great job, used some humor and made some good points when he spoke. He had quite a bit of anxiety this morning before he had to go to church and felt sick to his stomach. The amazing thing was that when he was done, he felt great and spent the rest of the meeting making faces at one of his friends. 12 year old boys are so strange!

Black River

Last week Mitchell and Brent went on a fishing trip to Black River with my five brothers and one of my brother-in-law's. The trip started early Thursday morning with a long drive to the San Carlos Indian Reservation. The road is very rugged so they drove as far as the could. The rest of the trip down to the river and to their fishing spot was done on foot carrying all of their supplies in a back pack. I am told that this was a good 3 mile hike. From this point on until Saturday afternoon, all they did was fish, watch out for bears, gut fish, watch out for snakes, eat fish, and sleep. They had a great time!

Mitchell's big catch of the trip.

Brent has a lot of gear at his disposal and a little fish.

Daniel and Michael caught some pretty good sized fish.

Jacob had the largest catch.
One of the rattlesnakes on the trip. Watch out!
Joe is gutting his fish on the rocks. I guess he's not worried about sanitary conditions for food preparations!

Mitchell is just following Joe's lead to gut fish on the rocks. I'm sure he would be happy to come to your house and make a meal on the ground in the backyard!