Bradley Backpacking Trip

I had a camp out scheduled with the scouts this weekend but due to another activity conflicting with it I was only going to have two scouts come. So the other leader and I decided to bring our 3 year -olds. It wasn't very far from the cars to the camp spot so we thought they would enjoy it. For the most part they really did. Bradley had a lot of fun. Here are a few pictures of our adventure.

Bradley, contemplating life at three...

Trying out the trekking poles

When I found him like this I figured it was a hint that it was about time for bed.

Sleeping soundly

What a beautiful morning. It was a little windy during the night but didn't rain. It also stayed pretty warm. The low for the night was only 50 F.

Waking up slowly and warming up in front of the fire.

Our view from camp.

Bradley checking that he had all of his toy cars before heading out for a hike.

"Pack-Pack" checked and in hiking position.

Heading out for the hike.

The trail we were going on wasn't matching the map we had so rather than getting lost we decided to turn back.

Blogging Rut

Both Lesa and I have wanted to blog, well maybe that isn't true. We kept saying to each other that we should blog but just didn't feel like it. So I thought maybe one way to break out of our rut is to just go ahead and post some pictures. So here are some recent pictures we have taken, enjoy:

Thursday before the start of the Memorial Day weekend we decided to go camping. We drove up Highway 39 and stopped in most of the campgrounds. We kept going farther up the canyon trying to find one that we liked. We finally stayed an the Upper Meadows Campground. We liked it most because it wasn't near the road and the river was also quite a walk from where we stayed. It was a lot of fun even though we got some rain.



I just can't get enough of these three!



I have been going on a lot of night hikes lately. I really need to get in shape but just can't seem to catch the running bug Lesa has. I do enjoy hiking but due to work and wanting to play with the kids after work I don't usually get to leave until just before sunset. This first picture was taken about 1,000 feet above Ogden at 10 PM.


I went on another hike tonight. I got home about an hour ago which explains why I am still up. This was taken near the same spot as the one above but looking up the canyon this time around 11 PM.


This is a stairway in one of the twin Boston Buildings downtown Salt Lake. I am getting to design the lighting on a couple of the floors and just thought this stairway was amazing. This is from the bottom looking up.



I have been helping a lot of the cities in Utah to change out their old street lights to LED fixtures. Here is an example of what they look like at night. The main thing that is obviously different is the color temperature of the light. The most amazing thing about it though is that the older (yellow) light behind the LED fixture uses 450 Watts while this LED one uses only 55 Watts. The biggest difference I see is how badly the older lights shine light into the windows of the houses while the LED doesn't waste all that light. I could go on about these all day but don't want to kill anyone by boring you to death so I will stop...


This was just a test picture while I was trying to get the camera setup before heading out later that night to take the street lighting picture above. It turned out so well with Daniel smiling I had to keep it.


Daniel likes to grab my glasses and so I decided to let him wear them for a few minutes. He thought it was pretty fun.


That's it! I am falling asleep now so goodnight.

Fun Outside

Since it is raining right now, I thought I would do a quick post with some pictures of Bradley and Daniel having fun OUTSIDE! We are so happy for nicer weather, with the exception of right now that is. Bradley asks everyday to play outside. Here are the boys actually playing together last Thursday.

The Story

On Friday last week, the boys and I played in their room in the morning. Bradley was practicing sitting on his potty, and I was encouraging and entertaining. Because he was not exactly fully dressed, we had the space heater in their room running. At lunch time, we left the room and I noticed that the house felt kind of chilly. I thought it was because I was so warm from the space heater or was getting a cold, so I ignored it and went on with the day.

Then Saturday rolled around. After my morning run, I sat down at the table to eat breakfast and again felt chilly. This is not unusual, I often feel chilly in the time between my run and showering, but this time it seemed exaggerated. I glanced at the thermostat on the wall near our table and noticed that our house was 61 degrees. I asked Brian if he had played with the schedule of our thermostat, but he had not. We had another problem. Our furnace was out. Brian called his dad and they tried to diagnose and fix the problem. Unfortunately, it was not what they were hoping. So, Brian pulled out his volt meter and tried to trace the electricity, but that proved to be more of a puzzle than anything.

Now that brings us to this picture.


The little heater hiding behind the chairs was our main source of heat for the weekend. We looked into calling a heating company, but weekends are considered emergency trips, making them more expensive. That little gas stove, with our space heater, sweaters, and blankets kept us warm-ish this weekend. We were just fortunate that it's March and not terribly cold. Our house hovered right around 60 degrees all weekend, which I found uncomfortably chilly.

The chairs in the picture? Well, that was Brian's solution for keeping the boys from getting too close to the heater and getting burnt. It wasn't pretty, but it worked.

So, there you have it. Brian's MacGyver tendency was to keep the boys away from the heater. Not because of too many toys going into it, but because it was working hard and very hot.

A Quiz

This weekend Brian channeled his inner MacGyver. Can you guess what problem prompted this solution?


Oh, and thanks to my brother Kyle for the lashings tutorial last summer. I'll post the story in a day or two, but in the meantime, guess!

(P.S. I have no idea why our camera decided to change Bradley into a ghost. He's a pale kid, but not that radiant.)

Today I'm Grateful for . . .

. . . fine motor skills!


While Brian was making snow caves with the scouts, I cut and punched, then tied and tied and tied and tied and tied and tied and tied and tied and strung up the hearts on the ceiling. Then blew and tied, blew and tied, blew and tied, got a little light headed and took a break, then blew and tied, blew and tied, blew - marveled at how the balloons made my hands smell like tuna fish - and tied, blew and tied, and blew and tied balloons. And Ta Da!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Flashback Friday

I don't remember which year, I don't know who was there, and I'm not sure what else we may have done, but this is what I do remember from one of my first birthday parties.

It was a baking party.
We lived in American Fork.
My mom made aprons for me and my friends.
The aprons had pockets in them, including a skinny one for the spatula.
We were all given kid size utensils, a rubber spatula, a wooden spoon, measuring cups and spoons, etc.
We all made our own individual cake (I think. I'm pretty sure it was cake, it may have been sugar cookies, but I'm almost positive it was cake. It was a birthday party. Cake would make sense.) and baked and decorated them at the party.
It was a lot of fun, and I felt so special to have such a unique party. - Thanks, Mom!