Celebrations Galore

The end of August and beginning of September brought about a number of occasions to celebrate for us. For example, we were able to celebrate the upcoming re-opening of the Ogden Temple by attending the open house with my family on Labor Day. It was especially nice to have the opportunity to take Austin inside the temple, although he tired of our tour before it was finished. During the tour, we also kept hearing a young boy behind us loudly singing "I Love to See the Temple" in a rough exuberant voice, which made us laugh. The temple was really beautiful inside and we enjoyed admiring the fantastic craftsmanship we saw there. Today we were privileged to attend the dedication from our stake center. We are so happy that this temple will be opening back up!

A number of my favorite people have birthdays right around this time of year too. In fact, after returning home from the temple, we celebrated a couple of those birthdays that are in the family, including Nate's, my brother Nathan's, and Gram's.

Nate with his new laptop desk

Austin gave his dad the latest Vocal Point album

Our good friend Lori also had a birthday. It wasn't an official birthday celebration, but we did get the opportunity to hike with her and her family that next weekend.

Unfortunately, we headed up the wrong trail. Instead of a fairly flat, easy, short hike to a waterfall, we found ourselves scrambling along a slick rocky trail up the steep hillside. We have no idea where the trail we were on went to, but after a good ways we decided we had gone far enough. We enjoyed the view from our vantage point on the hill, and even noticed a bench across the ravine...probably along the trail we intended to take. Hopefully next time we will get it right...

In any case, we had fun and enjoyed the company!

Additionally, we recently celebrated the birthday of our friend and neighbor Brother Zaug, who turned 100 on August 29. He has lived here almost his whole life, and we love hearing his stories about the area and the farm he was raised on covering the area where we now all live.

Family Time at Bear Lake

On the morning of Friday, August 15, we drove up to Bear Lake for a family gathering with my dad's side of the family. We actually stopped at the Limber Pine Trail on our way for a hike since that was where everyone else was at the time. We ended up not catching up with them, but we still enjoyed the mile and a half loop, which Austin hiked the whole way without being carried.

The Limber Pine that the trail was named after

After hiking, we continued to the cabin, ate lunch, and then headed to the beach. We thoroughly enjoyed spending the afternoon there!

Austin had a blast digging in the sand. He had so much fun that he didn't want to stop playing in the water and sand even after he was shivering and covered with goosebumps. Luckily, we were able to introduce him to a good digging spot that wasn't in the cold water.

We played frisbee in the water, relaxed, and played bocce on the sand. The family also rented a wave runner that we all took turns riding too, which was a lot of fun.

Allan and Katie, just off the wave runner

Friday evening we attended a local rodeo, which was fun to watch. Saturday morning after cleaning up our cabin, we got raspberry milkshakes before heading back through Logan Canyon. My brother Ben was headed the same direction, so we hiked the Wind Caves together.

Although the limestone arches at the end of the trail have been named the Wind Caves, they actually weren't formed by the wind, but by water seeping through the rocks, eroding away the limestone, and creating underground caverns. Eventually, the Logan river cut away at the rocks, exposing the caverns underneath.