Saturday we went on a family outing.  The kids played at a park while Liesl and I swapped places at the temple.  After a picnic we headed to Red Cliffs Recreation Area, halfway between our house and St. George.  I had been there with the scouts last year, but we had forged our own trail, nearly gotten lost and suffered heat stroke.  BUT, I had heard it was a cool place if you stayed on the trail, so we decided to check it out.

Lizzy eating lunch at the park.

Gary & Gary, ready to hike

Georgianna poses in one of many cool caves and rock formations.

Kids do some rock scrambling

Joseph and Gary Logan hiking.

Lizzy poking out of a hole

Georgie looking out the same hole.

An uber-cool waterfall you had to climb up to and could jump off or slide down

Well, we had sooo much fun, we decide that I would take the three oldest back on Memorial Day along with Brian Bairett and his two oldest.

The tail end of the trail featured a delightful mini slot canyon of sorts.  Swimming, climbing a waterfall.  Sweet!

The water was cold, but on a hot day was very refreshing.

Beautiful!

Two dimensional photos don’t do it justice.  Here you can see three of the kids waiting on top of the waterfall while I’m bringing Jacob on my shoulders in water up to my chin.

Keeping the packs dry.

Joseph jumps for it.

Joseph and Brandon jump together (almost)

Katrina jumps. I like the shadow on the wall.

Joseph jumping.

Another justice-isn’t-done photo.  Katrina is walking towards another waterfall you can slide down.  To the right is a 15-20 ft. cliff we jumped off.

Xanga is being annoying and won’t let me put all the pictures up.  I’ll post them to facebook and a cliff-jumping video will follow soon.

Yowzers, it’s been five months!  Things are as busy as usual.  Liesl spoke in Sac mtg today and I was set apart as scoutmaster.  Scout camp is in three weeks.  Wish me luck!

Alright, it’s been awhile!  This is going to be skimpy on details, but something is better than nothing at all, eh?

Let’s start with Thanksgiving…MMMMMMMmmmmmm.  We did the lonely thing this year seeing that traveling with a newborn is not on the list of favorites.   Gary had from Wednesday on…off.  We sure enjoyed having him home for so long.  He made a Herculean effort to not touch work over the holiday which added up to many hours of game playing, moving watching, and Christmas-preparing with the family.  AWESOME!

Here’s the spread all spread out and ready to go buffet style.  Good thing there’s so many of us or it would have felt strange to have such a spread for so few folks.

Little Gary Jr. LOVES the fireplace, a gene he inherited from his Mother. 

This year we let the kids do all the decorating in the tree Daddy chopped down for us.  They and he did a splendid job on their respective tasks.  We’ve all decided this is the best tree we’ve ever had.

The job’s not complete until Jacob gets his train going around the bottom and Georgie gets all her Polly Pockets loaded on the engine, caboose and track.  Fun stuff! 

This is the way little G, Gary Jr. or Little-Lo spends most of his time…hanging out on someones hip.  This time it was Dads turn.

Speaking of the little man, dontcha all wanna see how he’s grown?  He’s so dang cute and chubby.  At 6 weeks old he had gone from 6 lbs 6 oz to 9 lbs 6 oz.  He’s now 9 weeks old and pushing 11 lbs.   Rich milk!

I love this next shot, it reminds me of baby pictures of Gary the bigger for some reason.  Must be the jowls cause it sure ain’t the skinniness!

This past week we did candy houses.  Can’t neglect to record that annual event now can we?

And as a parting shot, here’s one more of the little man with a glimpse of what he’ll one day become IF and only IF he works really hard to follow in his older siblings footsteps

HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA  Go Joseph!!

Gary here. I’ve been holed up in Georgie and Jacob’s room for the past few days.  One of my coworkers was exposed to swine flu a week ago, came to work not knowing it and then became sick herself (still don’t know if she officially has the swine flu).  Anyways, I came home a couple days later not feeling well, headache and all and so Liesl promptly and properly quarantined me in the hopes that the baby wouldn’t get it.  Long story short I haven’t hugged or kissed my wife or kids, or eaten a meal with them in 3 or 4 days.  Not fun!  Liesl and the kids sure have been wonderful caretakers though.  Sweet cards, meals in bed, kisses blown across the room.  I have a wonderful family!

It looks like little Gary Logan has come down with something in spite of our precautions and Lizzy and Liesl are both experiencing symptoms of we-know-not-what.  All this on the tail of a birth, on the tail of the last few months of pregnancy, on the tail of a dang tough year at work are pretty exhausting. Here’s to a brighter 2010!

In other sad news, Jacob’s primary teacher was walking her dog Friday night on the highway (56 not 5) and we think her dog darted across the highway and she lunged after it and got hit by a Ford Explorer going 60 mph.  She’s expected to make it, though she hasn’t yet regained consciousness, but the surgeries will be many and the recovery long.  When we got the phone call late Friday night, Liesl was already asleep and I told the kids so we could have a prayer for Sister Gerber.  What I didn’t know is that she was Georgianna’s primary teacher last year and so she wept wailfully and I couldn’t hold her or anything.  Thank goodness for big sister Katrina who helped calm her down.

Anyways, here’s some photos of little Gary Logan!

First bath


The little man


Cute suit!

Goodbye Great Grandpa Chambers.  We sure do love you!

Grandma and Grandpa with 7 of their 8 children.  (L to R/Back to Front: Scott, Grandma, Kent, Grandpa, Lee, Dave, Craig, Paul, Beth.  Missing: Wayne)

This week we enjoyed our annual family campount.  Although the “annual” part is debatable, the fun never is!  We spent Wednesday through Saturday morning with our friends the Bairetts at Oak Grove on the east side of the Pine Valley mountains, the place where the family kidnapped me to a few weeks back.  This time we got the President’s Suite of campsites with running water in the campsite, two twenty-foot picnic tables and fun little nooks and crannies abounding.  We ate great food and had admirable plans to go hiking but couldn’t break ourselves away from the card game marathon we had going.  Here are a few photos:

Liesl braves family camping at 7 months pregnant.  She’s wearing the cute little maternity blouse she made when she was expecting Joseph.  It still fits! 

Chef Liesl adjusts the heat on a peach cobbler (vanilla icecream added later).

Dutch oven chicken and potatoes.  A personal favorite.

Georgianna is always ready for the camera.

Georgianna and Ashley Bairett atop a rock.

Joseph mans the dishes.

A nest of daddy longlegs found by the kids.  Nasty!

One of many card games.  Skip-bo, Darts, War and Spoons were the camp favorites.

Lizzy and I went on a little hike together and enjoyed finding bugs and colorful wildflowers.

S’mores were part of the evening activities, of course.

In other news, Joseph left yesterday for Timberline – a scout training camp where he attended as trainee last year and this year will be a trainer.  He leaves early on Wednesday to come home and leave for Trek with the stake youth.  A very busy month for Joseph.  Thanks mom for all the pioneer stories you sent him.  I sure enjoyed reading them!

And congratulations to Julie & Jared and Pam & Brian for their new arrivals!

This weekend the scouts completed the last remaining requirement for the hiking merit badge, a 20 mile hike, all in one day.  The unfortunate thing is that an extremely strenuous hike was selected, the Rattlesnake Loop trail in the mountains west of Cedar.  We camped atop Brian Head Peak at 11,300 feet which gave us a beautiful view for miles and miles around, started hiking just after 8am and finished at 6pm.  Elevation at the end was about 7,000ish feet, but we descended and ascended through three different valley systems, virtually no flat hiking at all.  Brutal! I’ve never done such a difficult one-day hike.  I was focused on survival more than photography, but here are a few pictures that I did take:

A beautiful sunset, my digital camera doesn’t do it justice.
 

Sunrise the next morning.  

 

At the trailhead, little did we know what lay ahead…
 

This is foot-traffic-only country and nobody seems to want to hoof it with a chain-saw in tow.  This is a picture of a tree that had fallen across the trail.  A very common occurence.
 

Adrian, our scoutmaster, hiked nearly the first half with this watermelon in his pack so we could enjoy it for lunch.  It was still ice cold – and delicious!
 

Joseph soaks his head at lunch time.
 

Another can’t-do-it-justice.  This is looking from afar, down into Ashdown Gorge at the infamous arch that we didn’t make it to when I took the kids on that hike a summer or so ago.  The gorge was spectacular.  I can’t wait to make a second try with the kids.
 

Crossing the gorge.  The first of the several valleys we descended up and over into.  The pastel colors were amazing!
 

We actually caught this little guy running through the brush, then let him go.  Tongue in cheek, I asked the other dad on the hike, a hunter former marine, “is all hunting this easy?”  He said no.

Not quite done, another mile or so to go, but dead tired.  This is the Crystal Springs trailhead where we came out of the wilderness.  Another mile to the rendezvous point.

All the deacons looked especially solemn and reverent today passing the sacrament. The high councilman even remarked about it in his talk.  Little did he know, the slow deliberate walking of the aisles and solemn visages were due more to stiff bodies and pain than exemplary, mature deaconhood.

Congratulations to Julie and Jared on the safe arrival of little Lillian Jane!  On the Cedar front, summer isn’t slowing down anytime soon.  Here’s a quick recap of the last couple of weeks:

We’ve been on chicky watch for well over a month now.  Chicken eggs are supposed to take 21 days to hatch, but between lazy momma hens who don’t spend as much time on the nest as they should, and late-comer eggs laid throughout the three weeks, we’re well over a month and still getting chicks.  Above you can see one hatching.

Just hatched, wet and scrawny.

We now have seven little chicky-poos.  Several others either died in the process or were stepped on and killed by our less than exemplary momma hens.

This past Wednesday our YMYW did the Kanarraville Falls hike – the same hike the scouts did last month. 
This time, Joseph was in Monticello at a Youth for America conference so I got to take Katrina for some daddy-daughter time.

Heading up the first ladder.

At left, Katrina enjoys the hike.  At right, a look down the red-walled creek.  A very rewarding hike.  Lots of fun!

 The week of July 4th, the Hughes Brothers families made a trip from Branson, MO for the third year in a row.  We hosted Jason and Mara Hughes and their children, with other neighbors hosting the other families, and our kids had a blast!

Dinner and marshmellow roast at the Nufers across the street.  

More marshmellows and air hockey.  Jacob takes on 14 year old Aaron Hughes.

6 man (and woman) air hockey

Joseph plays Apples to Apples with a bunch of the Hughes cousins.  All the kids perform in the show.  The gal in the pink shirt is Christina of “Yodeling Gowgirl” fame.

Kids pose in front of Hughes Brothers coach in front of the house.

The kids found a wounded chick and attended to it (birdcage, lower center). 
In the background you can see our lawn which is doing quite well considering our poor soil.

Katrina and Jessie Hughes cut strawberries to go on top of waffles.


Our family enjoyed the annual Fourth of July parade down Main St.  Liesl overheard a couple of ladies from the Palm Springs, CA, area saying to one another “the alternative lifestyle people have completely overrun our town.  We never see anything like this anymore.  It’s so wonderful to see Americana live and well and all these wholesome family activities!”

Cedar City is the self-proclaimed “Festival City USA”. Pictured are Katrina, Raquel Wilson (a friend) and Jacob carrying the American Family Festival banner in the parade. 
Joseph followed behind throwing candy to the kids.

After the parade we enjoyed the festivities at Main Street Park. 
As in years past, Jacob quickly made his way to the Dunk Tank to be a volunteer dunkee.

On the lawn, enjoying performers – except for Ashley who seems to be plugging her ears.

Later in the afternoon on the 4th I took the kids and Lisa Bairett to see The Secret Garden at the Shakepearean Festival. 
No, it’s not one of the Bard’s plays but it has been one my favorite musicals ever since Liesl and I saw it in Logan during our USU days. 
We scored six tickets by spending an hour posing as audience members for the photoshoot of this year’s version of The Greenshow. 
The performers didn’t really perform and do their skits they just posed for the photographer which was way boring for the kids, but, hey, we scored six $35 tickets from the process!  We were on the very back row way up on the balcony, but no matter, the music in this play is exceptional.  Love it!

G and Lizzy cool off in the kiddie pool.

A few more pictures from Lizzy’s birthday a couple weeks back.  When she opened the Circus Cookies she naturally assumed they were meant for me and brought them over and put them in my lap!  Well trained…well trained indeed.

Throughout the evening I wasn’t sure who was more excited about presents being opened – Georgie or Lizzy.
 
Barbies and cake.  Little lady birthday essentials.

Whenever I go to download the photos on my camera, invariably I find a few special bonus photos.  Like this one.