catching up part 2 -- william's baptism

w got baptized a few weeks ago. as you can imagine, it was an exciting day. the service was nice. brian baptized him, whitney played the piano, the three of us and some cousins sang "army of helaman" (william chose that song because i sang at my own baptism), don and ron were the witnesses, all of the family men (brian, don, ross, kyle, matt, duane, ron) joined the circle, and i gave the closing prayer.

we didn't have the biggest group of family and friends at the stake baptism, but there were a lot of people who came to witness the special event. to those who came, thanks! afterwards, we had people over to our house for snacks, chatting, and playing around.

it was really neat to see brian perform william's baptism and to give him a blessing. he did a really good job. it would be sad to not have a husband/father who could do those things.

we are proud of w for making this great choice and for being such a good boy and son.

catching up part 1 -- escalante

we made our way down to escalante again this year. it's a pretty amazing place--rugged, beautiful, remote, hot. i can't imagine how scorching it would be down there in the middle of the summer.

this year there was no rain, which meant we got to hike more. we actually made it to some very narrow slot canyons, like we had wanted to last year. we caught some fish this time and found a fair bit of petrified wood (outside the monument of course). like last year, we went to the sons of the pioneer breakfast in town and the community play at the high school.

william really liked the slot canyons, the lizards, and the fishing.

each night we backcountry camped at a place along a roadside (which isn't too backcountry, but there were no facilities). we were usually setting up our tent around 11 or 12 at night. there were a few close calls with some cows walking across the roads, but we had no major problems this time. no crazy rainstorms and no almost getting stuck in the middle of nowhere. although last year that was part of the fun.

snow

it's snowing today. it started as rain last night, then sleet this morning, and now it's full-on snow. it's coming down hard and sticking to everything. i'd guess we have an accumulation of about an inch already. maybe we'll be able to make a snowman for fhe tonight.

tomorrow it's supposed to be sunny and 71.

hummingbirds

w and b gave me a hummingbird feeder for mother's day. it took us awhile, but we got it set up last week. this morning, though, was the first time that we've actually seen a hummingbird at the feeder--and boy this hummingbird really likes our feeder. it's a black-chinned hummingbird.

i caught a picture of it at the feeder. i love hummingbirds--so it's so fun to finally have a feeder and see them (or at least one very hungry black-chinned bird) all the time!

9 years and 1 day

yesterday was our 9th anniversary. much has changed since may of 2001, but many things are still the same too. brian and i are still best friends and love being together.

to commemorate our love we went out to a nearby canyon and hiked up in it to do some high-adventure trout fishing and hiking. it was a lot of fun. the weather was beautiful, the canyon was beautiful, and the trout we caught were beautiful too. we caught 8 fish and then cooked them up over a fire. then we hiked/fished some more. once we had 8 more we cooked those up over another fire and ate them.

eating 8 trout each sounds like a lot, but these aren't huge fish. honestly, it was just a nice, light lunch.

the high-adventure part of the fishing expedition was a lot of fun. we both ended the hike dirty (from sliding, falling, ect) with a lot of scratches, a little sunburnt, and wet.

two other cool things were (1st) brian found a wild morel that we ate with our fish. we looked around for more, but could only find the one today. second, we saw a male and female western tanager. if you don't know what they look like, look them up. they're beautiful--especially the male.

the morel brian found. we cooked this up with the second batch of fish--very delicious.

the scenery.

the adoption

yesterday was the big adoption day. we all woke up early and enjoyed a "special" breakfast of nutella on toast and then drove up to the court house. i figured we'd have to wait awhile there, and we did. william did a good job of waiting though. my mom and brother kyle came too.

the actual court proceeding was pretty easy and quick. brian and i both got to answer a few questions, and there were a few other testimonies, but that was it. it was all over very quickly. at the end, the judge welcomed william up to her seat. she gave him a present, let him sign his name on the official document, and let him bang her gavel. he loved it all. then, of course, we took quite a few pictures.

then there was paper work that needed to be sorted out. the paper work stuff is the un-fun part of all of this, but eventually it will be over with. eventually as in probably a few months from now.

once we were done at the court house we went and bought william a bike. the plan was to go out for lunch after he rode his bike around for awhile. but after realizing that all of his friends were at school (and wouldn't be out for 4 more hours), william came into the house and asked if he could go to school. we couldn't say no--so we took him to school.

later that afternoon, he rode his bike around a lot more and showed it off to many people. then we took him out for all you can eat shrimp with one of his good friends.

all-in-all it was a great day. william is a great kid, and brian and i are very lucky that he is our son.

going to cville

so i'm going out to charlottesville in a little while, and i'm looking forward to it. it's been almost 2 years since we left--so it definitely feels like it's time to go back even if it is for work.

i'm planning on bringing my running stuff so i can get out on my own in the morning before i need to go to conferences/meetings. i always love running in the mornings, ans since it's supposed to be in the 80s (even around 90 one day) while i'm out there, an early morning run is about the only time i'd want to go out anyway.

one thing i'm looking forward to seeing while i'm there are the dogwoods. i love the dogwoods out there. they have become one of my favorite trees and seem to really represent the things i love about virginia. i love how scraggly and wild they often are.

oh virginia.