Pine Valley Round 2

     About a month ago, Paul and I attempted a hike in Pine Valley that we thought we would be taking the stake young women on. That trip was a complete failure. So I had to plan a new trip that would hopefully be a success. I asked my dad to come down from SLC to hike this hike with me. He is pretty much a professional backpacker, and I really wanted his expertise when it came to planning an overnighter for a bunch of girls. My dad was smart and brought my little sister along. She is not a fan of hiking, but the thought was, if Kessla can power through it with out a backpack on, chances are the young women could survive with a pack on.

      We hit the trail head early Saturday morning. It was too early to be up on a Saturday, let alone at the trailhead to a hike, but nevertheless hiking waits for no one! We started up the trail, and it was beautiful.     Plants and flowers were popping up everywhere. We even saw lots of wild raspberries, choke cherries and gooseberries! The trail wasn't too steep at the beginning and it was in the shade a lot of the time. We crossed a stream around 8 times in the first 3 miles. I was really excited about what I saw. This hike was getting better and better by the mile.
   
 When we hit around mile 3, we reached a gorgeous meadow. It was a perfect place to camp, except for the fact that there was no water. We would have had to hike down a 4th of a mile to pump from the stream then pack it back in. But, if that was as far as I could get the girls, it would work. about another mile up we hit a fork in the trails. Three miles up the left fork would take us to a meadow called further water. That was the wanted destination for camping. We took the fork and started up. This is the part where the trail got really hard. It was pretty much all switchbacks after that. Straight up the side of the mountain we went. My little sister was such a star. We had to push and prod her along, but she was able to keep up.


     Half way up the switch backs, we stopped to look at the view. And oh my, it was incredible. My picture doesn't do it justice because it was a little smoggy looking. But you could see for hundreds of miles around. You could see Snow Canyon, and St. George, Sand Hollow, Quale Creek, and even small glimpses of Zion's. We stopped on the side of the trail and had a small lunch just looking at the view. We continued up the switch backs until we got to what we thought was maybe the top. It wasn't of course, but there was another astonishing view. We stopped for our looks, then continue
d up to the top. Once we were at the top we were so excited. We just kept thinking, we are almost there! The meadow should be just around the corner!! But it wasn't.

     The trail lead downward. Strangely, we were hiking downward into... snow? Yeah, snow. Here we were, practically at the summit of the mountain, with out snow, and we were hiking down, lower, into snow. I am just as confused as you are :) Anyway,  it was actually really hard to follow the trail. We had to follow the trail markers through the snow. It was like an I spy game. If you found the cairn you got a gold star. Paul was the best at it. I only found a few before he did. Him and my dad teased about renewing their orienteering merit badge as we navigated through the snow. We finally hiked out of the forest and into basically a huge meadow. We had found the camp spot. It only took us five hours to get there, but hey, we made it.
     The meadow was great. It was huge, flat and very open. The only down side was that we couldn't find any water. I was kind of stressing out at this point. We had just hiked 7 miles in to what was supposed to be the perfect campsite and there wasn't any water. We sadly walked through the meadow on our way out and found water! YAY! Our trip actually turned out to be a success. As long as I can get the girls up and down the 7 mile trek anyway.
   
       The rest of the hike was just painful. Switchbacks up and down and down and down. My knees were killing me. I don't know how my little sister managed to do it because I was dying! We did pass the time by counting how many pine cones we could stab with our trekking poles. That was quite entertaining. Five painful miles later we had climbed up about 500 feet in elevation then dropped 3,000 feet again. We made it to the bottom of the hike. The biggest problem we faced now was not preparing for parking at the bottom. Originally we planned to hike up then turn around and hike back. Instead we followed a loop type trail that took us up one way and down another. We didn't have a car waiting for us at the bottom. We pretty much tacked on 3 extra miles to our hike trying to get back to the car. Our 12 mile trip actually turned out to be around 17. The hike was longer than we thought plus the extra milage at the end. I just have to give a shout out to my little sister Kessla for hiking 17 stinking miles when she didn't even want to come!

     I am really excited to take the young women on this hike. I think it is a perfect start to backpacking. It is close to home, but there are some amazing views and the terrain is just great. Hopefully more of the snow will be melted in two weeks when we all go. If not, we will just make the most of it anyway!

Its Garden Time!!!

        Paul and I have done a garden the past two summers we have been married, and we planned to do one this summer as well. Last year we gardened at the SUU community garden plots. Our plan was to garden there this year again, but thanks to our amazing friends Ada and Dion Monk, we get to garden at a much bigger place. Ada has a coworker with a huge, unused back yard. We were told we could garden there as long as we promised it would look nice. He just wants his backyard to look decent. The  plot size that we get to use this year is about 6 times bigger than the plots we had last year. But its not going to be a walk in the park getting this place ready to plant!
         The first time we looked at the garden spot I seriously thought that they were joking. I didn't see how this could be a garden spot. It was just a huge space full of nasty crab grass and weeds and everything. But we decided that it was a free place to garden, (we would have had to pay $60 for our plots at SUU), and we could put some work into it without dying.
     Step one was to find a tiller. We borrowed a tiller from one of my fabulous co workers Jen and Matt Van Blaircom. They were so amazing to let us borrow their NEW tiller.
      Step two was to actually till the garden. Paul, my best friend Lisa Walters, and I spent about 6 hours tilling on a Saturday the 11th of May. Paul tilled lightly over the weeds and Lisa and I would take a rake and rake them into piles to be hauled off. About 3 hours later we got the first tilling done. That was just a light layer to loosen up the weeds, so as to not till them under. Paul did a second round of tilling to actually start mixing up the dirt. This round was a little quicker and we got it done in half the time. All the while Lisa and I are still finding lots of weeds and roots that we are trying to rake out of the soil.  Once the second round was tilled, we stopped for a lunch break. Jimmy Johns was great food and fast service! Then we went back for round three. This got the last little bit of everything all churned in and smoothed out. The change was a night and day difference from when we started to when we finished. After that long day, we were tired and sore and sunburned so we decided to take a break for a week or so.
       Step three required us to get mulch into the garden. The soil isn't exactly amazing. So these plants are going to need some nutrients from an outside source. Luckily, Cedar City is only 15 minutes away from 2 different landfills that both sell mulch. One land fill was out for a few weeks. But no fear the other landfill had plenty. Problem was that on Thursday may 16th at 2:00 PM was the only time someone would be there to operate the machinery. Paul had work, I had work, there was no way we could get there in time. Some how my charm must have convinced someone to stay at work a little longer because the amazing landfill guy said that we would make sure someone was there for me to get my mulch. What a great guy! I couldn't get off work in time, but Paul could, so he left work a little early to help us out. Paul didn't just get mulch. He also hauled off a truckload full of weeds to the dump. I can't believe he loaded a whole truck full of weeds by himself. You would think it wouldn't be too hard, but Paul had to carry them through a one car garage (it opens at both ends) with a car sitting inside of it. I can't believe he was able to get everything through and around and loaded. He is a superstar. After we got the mulch, we had to unload it. I will tell you what, it was a huge pain in the butt. Same car still in the garage, trying to unload a truckload of mulch a wheelbarrowful at a time. If we could get the truck closer it wouldn't have been bad, but we had to haul it from the front yard, through the garage, and to the backyard. Such a pain. But I guess it was worth all the inhaled dust and dirty faces afterward.
      Step four was to till the mulch in. Matt and Jen let us borrow their tiller again on saturday the 18th of May. Paul spent a couple hours tilling while I was working on a girls camp certification camp. He did a way good job too. When we came back later that day it looked amazing.
      Step five is to plant the garden. We planted squash, zucchini, and cantaloupe seeds on Saturday. On Monday, May 20th we planted the rest of our seeds. We have corn, lettuce, onions, beans, and cucumbers all planted. For the cucumbers and beans we set up a trellis for them to climb. The last step to planting is to put the tomato and pepper starts in. It has been a little chilly at nights so we figure we will wait one more week. The pictures from start to now show huge differences! I can't wait to see how are garden continues to grow!

Graduation Weekend!!

     Paul graduates this year! He has been so excited ever since the semester started. He has been working hard at keeping up good grades so he can finish his bachelors degree with as close to a 4.0 as possible. He managed to make it. He finished all his classes and kept good grades and now he is graduating! Sad thing about SUU graduation though is that it is still in the middle of my school year. Paul had a commencement ceremony of Friday that I didn't get to go to. I had to teach school! Thankfully his parents came down to support him so I didn't feel too bad leaving him alone on his graduation day.
     Paul's parents drove down from SLC to enjoy the graduation with us. They stayed at Peter and Jessica's, which was great. We didn't have to worry about keeping a crazy clean house while we were crazily trying to get ready for graduation and everything else. Friday I had to work. Paul went golfing with his dad and brother then they all went to his commencement. After they got back and I got back from work the girls went out shopping and then we all went to dinner.
     Saturday morning I went for a nice 5 mile run, then came home and got ready for the convocation ceremony. Paul had to be at the school by 11:00 for his 12:00 ceremony. We had a late breakfast with the family then all headed over to the SUU Centrum. We sat around for an hour and waited, then watched and celebrated as Paul received his bachelors degree in accounting. I am so proud of my husband for working hard and pulling through! After the ceremony, we of course, took some pictures. Then headed home to change.
     For the past few months Paul and I have wanted to get rid of our old falling apart couch and get a new one. We figured waiting until around graduation would be perfect because all of the college kids are dropping off their couches at the DI. Saturday after the ceremony in between everything else, we ran to the DI to look at couches. As soon as we walked in the door, the DI workers were literally bringing in a new couch. It was pretty warn, but it was a leather couch and in decent shape. As soon as the workers set it down, we jumped on it to see if it was worth buying. It was quite dirty, but with some cleaner the couch had lots of potential. We decided not to let anyone else sit on it and purchase the couch for ourselves.
      Now, Paul is graduated, and we have a newish couch. Life is pretty great right now! We basically spent the early hours of the evening hanging out with Paul's family. We had dinner together and then his parents left for SLC. After Rex and Julie left, we went to visit our friends Shay and Ray. They used to live right down the sidewalk from us, but have since moved to Ephraim. We got to be really good friends with the Martel family as well as Ada and Dion Munk (who also moved away). Since Shay and Ray were both graduating this weekend they HAD to come to Cedar. We spent the rest of our evening at Ada and Dion's house with the Martels playing games and just chatting with each other. I am so grateful that we have had times where we can all get together and do things. I have missed all the great friendships Paul and I have made over the course of our stay here in Cedar City.