Maxine's picture...

I'm amazed at what my children accomplish. Maxine painted this. DANG! I love her jeans. Maxine is good at drawing people, I never was. I could only draw animals or flowers. Crazy how our children grow up and become amazing people!

Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction...

Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction.  That's just a really fancy name for a pinched nerve with a ton of pain down the back of my right leg whenever I sit or stand.  I have been dancing around with this pain for at least a year but on Wednesday, it got really bad so I couldn't sit or stand.  I saw a physical therapist.  Turns out, running gives one tight hamstrings. My tight right hamstring has started pulling on the joint that hooks the base of my spine to my pelvis, which in turn pinches my sciatic nerve that runs down the back on my leg.  The solution?  Stretches, and lots of them.  

The good news is that laying flat is pain free!  However it's hard to lie around all day.  These stretches take forever and I go back to the physical therapist twice next week.  Hopefully I can get feeling a little better because right now I'm barely breathing through the pain!

Neighborhood friends...

The amount of bicycles on my driveway tonight was a little ridiculous. #idonthavethatmanykids

Homecoming game...

I'm a little ashamed but this was the first Hurricane Tigers football game that I've ever been to, and I've lived here for 13 years.  I had fun!  Maxine sang the national anthem with the chamber choir and did a really amazing job.  I didn't take a single picture because I was having such a nice time listening. 

It was the first time I was able to see the Hurricane "H" set on fire.  It was very fun!

It would have been a really great night except that I sent Julie and the little to the concessions to get sno cones with 25 minutes until halftime.  Julie wanted to watch the cheerleaders do their dance routines.  It took FOREVER to get the sno cones and I kept looking to see if they were coming back.  She didn't have a phone and I didn't know where they were.  She completely missed both routines and was upset.  We left right after that.  It was a bummer for Julie but I promised we'd come to the next home game so she could see the cheerleaders and dance company perform.  

Ren and Goongi!

Shota, Aya, Ren and Goongi came back to America for more cars and more visiting. Merril took them around California and then brought them back here.

Once they were back here, they stayed in the guest room! The bathroom was all finished so I was so excited to be able to host with an actual room!

The littles and I tagged along for a trip with them out to Horseshoe Bend. It was hot! We went to the Grand Canyon too.

That hike was a little exposed and high! It was a lot cooler though.

Merril took them to Zion with the other kids.

They took selfies with Maxine and sang the Japanese version of Moana. 

We took them to a real live rodeo. That felt like such an American thing to do. 

They really liked the sand dunes and wanted to go back to Snow Canyon.

We tried to take them to the lake but the boat wouldn't cooperate. It started at the top of the dock and then crapped out once we were in the water. It took us forever to get towed back. Bad fuel pump I think. We ended up just swimming in the water where people cliff jump. 

They invited us to come stay with them in Japan if we ever get out that way. 

Young Womenhood Recognition Award

Maxine worked hard over the summer and finished up a lot of her personal progress book. She finally finished it all up and received her medallion today!

It takes a lot of steady work and we are proud of her that she finished it!

Lake Life...

Can't believe that summer is almost over, and we've hardly taking the boat out at all. The first time we took it out, the steering stopped working and so we couldn't make it turn the direction we wanted. It took some finagling to get back to the dock but we managed to. We brought it home and it just sat there because we were busy. Merril fixed the steering so we went out the other day. It was the most perfect day to go to the lake.

 I don't know how much longer we are going to have the boat, it needs so many things fixed. I think we're going to sell it and get something different or maybe not have a boat for a little while. I think the kids would be sad but we can drive down to the beach if we want to go play. Anyway, it was a really, really nice day at the lake.

The basement room is finished!

This construction room was so full of garbage.  Why did I put this junk in here??  A lot of it should have gone in the garbage a long time ago.  The first step was to clean out the room.

I installed shelves, painted the closet white and installed shelf bars.

I painted the ceiling and the walls.

Installed the baseboards.

Painted the baseboards and finished the wiring.

I thought the power was off to the room.  It wasn't.  My gold wedding ring came in contact with a hot wire and shocked me.  I have a scar under my wedding band now.  I took it to the jeweler and had it fixed good as new for $100.  Ce la vie.

Then the carpet installer came!

I asked Merril to put up the fan because I was exhausted. And the carpet looks great!  All the kids had a sleepover in the room.

The bathroom had a transformation as well! I was mostly storing things in it. 

I found this shower curtain and built the bathroom around it. 

The walls were painted a blue/gray color.  I ordered the vanity from home depot.

Merril and I installed the mirror and I installed the light bar.

The cultured marble for the shower and the sink took the longest.  It came about a month after Emily visited.

Merril installed the shower finish pieces and it work. We had Brother Brinkerhoff, a plumber we know, come and take a look. He said he felt that a piece of solder had become trapped in the T in the wall. He tried to blow torch it out from the shower side but it wasn't happening. He said the best thing would be to cut a hole in the wall. The bedroom wall. The one I had just finished painting. 😩 Whatever. Cut a huge hole in the wall that I just finished and fix the dang shower. It worked!

Then I spent 2 days getting the wall patched, sanded, textured, primed and painted but you can't even tell!

But now that it's finished!  It looks so nice!  I'm really pleased with how everything turned out!

Little Candid Moment...

Peach Days didn't disappoint with yummy navajo tacos and delicious texas twister lemonade.  This is the only picture I took.  They were waiting for Juliet to finish her ride.

Canal Hike: Coolest hike ever!

During Peach Days in Hurricane, guided hikes of our historic Hurricane Canal are given.  I heard about this 2 years ago and have wanted to go ever since.  This was my year!  I walked every day for 3 weeks.  There are 3 levels of hikes, easy, moderate, and strenuous.  I was going for strenuous hike!  I met at 6:00 a.m. and off we went!  We drove over by Jem trailhead and started hiking down into the canyon.  It was the perfect temperature!  The old canal used to take off from the Virgin river by way of a little dam.

The canal went through some settling ponds to get rid of some of the muddy sediment and then started to mosey along the mountainside.  This was the first tunnel, just carved out of the rock.

If you look, you can see the canal line, half way up the canyon wall.

We are walking along the edge of the canal, where "ditch riders" would ride their horses every day to make sure that the canal was running properly.  If large rocks happened to slide down into the canal from the hillside above, they would divert water out to remedy the situation.  They would build a huge fire on the rock to heat it and then pour cold river water on the rock to cause it to split.  Once the rock cracked, they could use wedges to break the rocks into smaller pieces for removal.  

There was this cool pipe we hiked across.

This gate let water out of the canal when they needed to work on it.

This flume carried water across Chinatown wash.

This was one of the last tunnels.  I think we went through about 10 tunnels all together.  This one was shored up with cedar logs.

The canal made it possible for the Hurricane pioneers to farm the valley.  It took over a decade and dedicated volunteers to make this canal possible.  They had to work all winter because they had to tend to the crops in the summer.  Walking along the 5+ miles, I kept thinking these guys had grit!  They created this canal when surveyors said they couldn't.  They had shovels, picks and a level.  It was totally nuts! I was inspired so much that I put 3 books on hold at the library to read more about the history of this canal.  I can't believe those hard-working pioneers.  I want to take the whole family on it!