Well, we seem to be on a two week lag here at the Jackson household. We had a really fun
weekend two weeks ago when we hiked up to a
yurt at the top of Millcreek canyon. We started late Friday afternoon and thought - 4.5 miles - that is an hour or two, no problem! We dropped off the kids and grandma's and papa's house (THANKS!) and headed up the canyon. We strapped on our snow shoes and we were off. The sun was bright, we played 20 questions and dragged our gear behind us on sleds. It was a perfect day and we were having a great time. However, when we hit the two mile marker after about an hour and half, we realized we were not even halfway. At this rate, it would be dark before we got there and we decided we needed to speed it up! The only problem was that we were beat. It is a pretty steep climb and it turns out we are pretty weak people.
We did see two moose on the way and that was pretty cool. One was only a silhouette in the moon light. Final trip time for Marie and I was about three and half hours (and 2 hours in the dark) and the final members of our group got there about 45 minutes later. It was really a pretty brutal climb, but that did not deter our enthusiasm! The yurt was awesome. Complete with bunk beds, table, wood burning stove and gassed up lanterns. We finally got the place warmed up, had delicious foil dinners, and hit the sack.
Marv cooked a killer morning breakfast on top of the wood stove and we had a fun morning listening to Jane complain about how loud the rest of us snore. (side note- totally true - the other 5 of us either took turns snoring or tried to create a snoring symphony pretty much all night. Sorry Jane!)
About 15 minutes into our hike out the next morning we met a moose. Now meeting a moose in the wild is usually a pretty cool thing. (normal reaction - hey check out that moose! cool!) This time was different. This m
oose was in the middle of the trail and wouldn't move. It also had one bad leg and I'm pretty sure no one made her a yummy breakfast on a wood burning stove that morning because it was
NOT happy. We tried to scare it away and make a lot of noise but because of its bad leg it was not interes
ted in getting off the road, and into the deep snow. The moose used its body language to make it clear how it felt about us and our happy moods. It became abundantly clear that we needed to find another route. Jane ventured out first commando style (below in the blue) through the deep snow and trees and I wish I had a good picture of it but I didn't have time because it wasn't long before the moose really started to make its threating gestures. Eventually we all followed and after about 30 minutes of moose adventure we were finally beyonds its grasp and trampling hooves. yikes. Once we were all below it, the moose turned around and strolled back up the path and I presume was going to check out the yurt for any foil dinner leftovers. Below you can see how close we came and how we hid behind trees hoping to save our lives.
The yurt adventure was awesome and inspired lots of ideas for future family camping (like lets go somewhere a lot closer than 4.5
miles.) Thanks to Catherine Hansen (aka CJ) for making it all happen!
Other recent highlights:
Welcome home David! It is just like having your long lost faithful puppy back at your side. (returned this week from the Brazil, Fortaleza mission)
Yesterday I also had the chance to go skiing with Lainey.
Holy cow. Once Lainey hits the slopes she is a girl possessed. Seriously, talk about ski school happiness. It was so fun to be out with her and realize how good she has gotten. She said her goal of the day was to ski from the top of the mountain all the way to the bottom. So we ventured up two new lifts and sure enough, she skied top to bottom all by herself. It is exciting after years of worry to see that one of your children is going to like something
as much as you do! By the end of the day it had started dumping snow, I couldn't see a thing and I was begging her to leave because I was freezing. She didn't notice and just kept asking for one more run. Gotta love that.
Just so he doesn't feel left out here is a picture of Romney doing his best Elton John impression.
here is a 22 second video of the Hurricane shooshing down the slopes. She is perfectly capable of stopping anywhere she wants, but you'll notice she doesn't care that she is leaving me in the dust and just keeps on going.
kids really like snow -
by the next day at the latest. Lainey even asked if we could go on a walk around our neighborhood, "with our shovels!" My apologies to my neighbors...I talked her out of it. Inevitably that little adventure would have ended with me carrying three shovels, two kids, and some random assortment of unnecessary objects picked
up along the way.
I've been wishing we were back in Hawaii since the minute our plane left Honolulu.
for romney, this trip provided opportunities to sleep in lots of exquisite new places, at least when he wasn't climbing up and jumping off of them (this was the view from our porch, by the way.)
for laine, this trip was non-stop fun, love, and attention from the best of 
aunts and uncles with amazing reserves of energy and patience. the trip did also happen to include a swimming pool, some really fun beaches with great waves to splash in, sea turtle and humpback whale spotting, tide pool exploring, a visit to an aquarium, and the ever-popular flower leis.
