February Dive Trip at the Crator

Well it had been a while since we did a SCUBA dive so we decided Feb. was as good as time as any. We went to the Homestead Crater where the water temperatures are 90 degrees year round. For Ashley, this was one of her first warm water dives so we had a lot of fun. The depth of the Crater is about 65 feet. The visibility was about 15 foot. Attending was Joseph, Eric, Ashley, Tyler and a good friend of ours Larry from my work. In the photos below, Ashely is the easiest to find with her pink dive skin. Next easiest to find was Eric, because he had a green marker light.

 

Ashley at the surface getting ready

All of us making our final checks prior to going deep

 Ashely & Tyler 20 feet down

 Eric and Joseph

 Tyler "takin it easy"

 Tyler and Joseph (green fins) at the bottom. It looks like we are on the deck of a sunken ship but it is just a dive platform that sank to the bottom.

 

With his green light, Eric was the easiest to find at 65 feed deep

Eric "OK" at the end of our dive

 



Snow shoeing adventure

This past Saturday Joseph and I went snowshoeing for the first time.  We have wanted to do this for a long time and finally had a free weekend with great weather.  We went up to North Fork by Liberty.  They maintain a groomed trail for cross-country skiing as well as trails for snow shoeing. We felt it was a great place to start.  It amazed me how many people snowshoe.  The key is layering as it is easy to keep warm when you are exerting that kind of energy.

 

 At the beginning of our hike.

 Joseph, with Liberty in the background.  It was a beautiful clear day.

 We were mostly in the scrub oak.

 We brought a picnic with us.  We just stopped by the side of the trail and stomped down the snow. Joseph brought a small blanket that we sat on while we ate and enjoyed the scenery.

He brought his camp stove to heat up hot water for hot chocolate.  It was great!

 Our view from where we were sitting.

 A nice day spent together.

We did have a little mishap when we took the wrong trail and ended up following a path that had been made by an elk.  Instead of going back up the hill to the groomed path, we had to blaze our own trail and that was a lot harder.   Took a few falls in the process.  They offer a free cup of hot chocolate to everyone when you get back to the yurt hut at the base of the trails.  We had a great time and look forward to going again. 

Joseph goes to Chicago

Last week I had to go to Chicago for a business trip to attend a robotics conference. This was my first time to Chicago and I can say it was impressive. Lots of tall buildings along with subways and elevated trains. While I was there they were experiencing record cold temperatures for the whole week. Temps were anywhere between 10-32 with lots of humidity made it really cold so I didn't spend much time outdoors. It also snowed for the first time in over a year so on that day, traffic was a mess (it looks like it is the same every where you go, on the first snowstorm of the year, no one remembers how to do winter driving and traffic comes to a stand still). When it was time to come home, SLC couldn't be outdone and we had our first ever ice storm. We were experiencing our typical winter inversion with nice warm temperatures in the mountains but below freezing temperatures in the valley. So when it rained, it quickly turned to ice and caused the SLC airport to close (first ever for SLC airport). Unfortunately that meant my flight got canceled and I had to wait until the following day to come home. My direct flight from Chicago to SLC got changed to a flight from Chicago to Memphis, and then to SLC. I had to take the long way home but it was nice to finally be home again.

Subway

 View of downtown from the 95th floor of the John Hancock building

 Lake Michigan in the distance (as seen from the John Hancock building)

View of downtown from my hotel room

 

Brrrr, its cold!!!!!

This January has been extremely cold!  Our first cold snap after the New Year gave us this icesicle on the side of our house.  We then warmed up to a whopping 45 degrees for about two days and it felt wonderful. We even felt like we didn't need a heavy coat outside.   Then a big snowstorm came in dumping 18 plus inches.  We gave up keeping track as we were constantly shoveling our driveway and sidewalks.  The snowblower was giving us grief so it hasn't been too fun.  Joseph keeps it running, thank goodness.  He even came home during his lunch break to put the chain back on for me, so we could keep on top of the snow before it piled up too high in the driveway.

With this storm it also brought in another cold snap.

 This mornings temperature.  Brrrrr!!!!!

 A few pictures of the birds at the feeder.  We have the usual English sparrows, house finches, and chickadees.  This season we also have a pair of nuthatches, blackbirds of some kind, a few other birds my book doesn't identify, and then a whole flock of mourning doves.  We have counted at least 14 mourning doves who frequent the feeder this year.  They aren't a very intelligent bird.  It takes them awhile to figure out how to get to the feed.  Joseph put a perch on each side of the feeder for them to land on but it still takes them a lot of contemplating before they figure it out.

 They don't like to share the feeder either, so I have a pie pan on the grill that I put seed in so the other birds can keep eating.

 The pictures are taken through the sliding glass door,so don't mind the snowflakes.

 The birds basically hang out in the cherry and apricot trees.  Its a lot of fun to watch them.

Eric's transmission is having problems, so Joseph borrowed a trailer from a friend at work to haul the explorer up to him and then bring home the BMW so that he can work on it.  Our neighbor told Joseph after he got the BMW home that he thinks it may just be low on fluid because it has a leak.  We hope this is all, otherwise we probably will be getting the transmission rebuilt as used parts are hard to come by, because everyone wants to keep their BMW's running.

We thought this was pretty.  The icesicle is forming around the wind chime.

 Yesterday despite the cold, we fired up the grill and cooked steak shish-kabobs  for lunch.  Joseph was good about doing this for us. You can see the steam coming off as he took them off the grill. They were tasty! The weather outlook for the rest of the week is a continuation of extremely cold weather along with the inversion building back in.  In the mean time we are enjoying our fireplace until it gets to red burn.  Sheesh! A roaring fire is best for warming up on a cold wintry day.  

A White Christmas

 

 We got quite a bit of snow over the week of Christmas, which was great for the little boys.  It has been many years since our own children sled down the hill in our front yard.  Here is Zachary coming down in the sled.

 Brian waiting his turn.

 Bill pulling Trevor up the hill.

 Having a great time.

Trevor on his own.

 Here comes Brian.

We took down our Christmas tree a few days after Christmas because it was quite dead.  We left the trains out so the little boys could still play with them.  This is the poloar express that Joseph has on the tracks right now.  He has a HogWarts express but it wasn't working very well.

The boys loved playing with the trains and the little houses as well. 

 The holidays are over and the DeLeeuws have gone back to Missouri, along with Lizzy dog and Peeko their cat. The house sure is quiet.  It is very sad for us.  We love our children and grandchildren and always love having them with us.  New Years was very quiet.  Eric went with his roomates and some friends down to the University of Utah LDS Institute party, Tyler was sick so the Keyes stayed home so he could rest.  We all have been sick.  It has really been a nasty bug.  We all had our flu shots but it didn't do us any good.

 Keith, Joseph and I were the only ones here for New Years. We played Ticket to Ride, then watched "Third Man on the Mountain" which has been a family tradition our whole marriage. It began when Joseph and I were dating and he spent New Year's with my family in Cannonville.  The Bishopric hosted a New Years party for the youth that year where we watched the movie "Third Man on the Mountain" and afterwards they made breakfast for all of us.

 At midnight we had our Sparkling Cider and welcomed in 2013.  2012 has been quite the year. We have had many growing experiences over the past 12 months.  We have been blessed with two new grandchildren.  Families are what it is all about. We are grateful for the blessings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives and for the blessings of the temple. We look forward to the next grandchild who will be joining our family in the spring.

Christmas morning

  Christmas morning we got to sleep in until 7:00 which was really nice. This pitcure is Christmas eve waiting for the grandkids to go to sleep It was nice having most of our family with us this year.  We missed having the Hamakers with us and look forward to their visit in the coming months.

 Eric and Keith checking out their stockings.

 Waiting for everyone before unwrapping the presents.

 Trevor was quite excited.

 Jessica, Trevor and mom

 Ashley with a uniquely wrapped present from Tyler.

Joseph opening a present.

Keith with the book he really wanted Santa to bring him.

Trevor with his treasures.

Uncle Keith helping Zachary assemble his new lego sets.

 

The aftermath.

Christmas breakfast.  Jessica made her famous cream cheese bread.  We also had eggs, saugage and hashbrowns.

Alex having his breakfast first.

Christmas Eve

 For the Christmas Holidays the DeLeeuw's traveled out here from Missouri. It was good to hear the sounds of the grandkids once again throughout the house.  For Christmas Eve after having our traditional tamales for dinner and Joseph's wonderful pumpkin and pecan pies for dessert, we gathered as a family for singing and sharing the Christmas story along with other stories we read each Christmas.

  Gathering together by the warm fire.

 The Deleeuw's

 Acting out the Christmas story. The boys were shephards and Trevor wanted to be the baby Jesus.  Even Audrey participated.

 Joseph reading the Polar express to the grandkids.

Counting down the clock until Santa comes. 

Before the kids went to bed they kept checking the internet to see where Santa was in his progress.