School

Allison was in a 6th grade play called "Dig It".

I was impressed with everything about it:

music, costumes, props, back drops.  

Allison was too shy to get a speaking part.  

 

Random Dittmer Stuff

We have a kid raffle for doing their jobs and keeping their personal basket empty that resides on the stairs.  Huge motivation for these guys.  Highly recommended.

 Playing Apples to Apples.

 We had to redo our front office due to the previous owners' dog urine issues.  So stinky.  We took out the carpet, painted, new flooring.  We have a new desk and working on a place for the kids to put their back packs.  I love this room.  Justin and I redid a bookcase with pallets.  Huge job.  Huge!  I did the easy part of chopping them to size and arranging.  
 Walks in the woods by the house.

Went on a walk with my dad.

You can see a little how steep our driveway/road is.  

Ghost Falls

In September, our family went on a Sunday hike after church to Ghost Falls.

 Isaac is a sweet brother helping Ammon by the Falls.

Justin commandeered a post for his work bench in the garage.

A regular day

Jacob took these pictures (except the one of him).  Scripture time in The Dittmer Household.

Thanksgiving 2012

Thanksgiving in Utah!

We tried to watch old family movies, but the projector was breaking/broken.  Saw a few minutes of me crawling in grass, which I apparently didn't like because I was on my hand and toes.

Only three of the six siblings were in Logan, but it still accumulated to a whopping 24 people.

Mom set up two banquet tables in her living room and six of the kids in the kitchen.  Worked great!

 Made a tree to put thankful leaves on as a new tradition.  Barbara has been doing this for maybe 30 years, so her tree is much more full.

Steem
A
I love watching my dad crackup.

I spent many hours on these swings growing up.  

My dad setting a trap.  

A Weekend Away

Wahooo!  I was able to get away with Justin for three days, four nights.

It's a long story, but Mom and Dad drove down to watch the kids (thanks!) even though their car was glitchy.

Tina dropped me off at a shuttle (thanks!) in Draper that drove me to St. George where I hooked up with Justin.

Oh What a Feeling!  While Justin was at work, I slept in, grabbed sweet potato fries and a smoothie at Burger King, found a grassy knoll and parked my butt down to absorb the sunshine.  I was reluctant to leave my perch, but I walked down a street to find a man made lake with lavish mansions dotting the banks.  

I witnessed a wedding on the lake from afar, cheesy wedding at that.  

Oof.  Temples are the way to go.

 A night on the Strip.  Top right picture:  in the bottom right of it, it says "If it's in stock we have it!"  We thought this was hilarious.  

Stopped at Trader Joes to buy my favorite Pineapple Chips; Five bags.  Not enough.  Ate at Kahunaville.  Way too loud and the food was terrible.  They gave us a deep fried cheesecake because my teriyaki was so gross.  But the cheesecake was equally gross.  And if you are wondering, Justin backed me up on both counts, and he likes everything.

Thoughts on the Strip:

Thumbs mostly down.  

Maybe I'm too sensitive but, slutty stuff all over the place.  Gross.

The Bellagio fountains were awesome and it was impressive to see what man can make, but three hours was too long for my burning eyes.

 The next morning, we stopped at more bike shops on our way to Zion National Park.  We bought a season pass, hoping we'll get to more National Parks.  We got there late but were able to do a sunset hike on the Watchmen Trail.  No pine nuts for us.

Found a free campsite right outside the park.  Lucky for us, the people up the road had a friendly dog that would come over and stick its head under our rain fly.  I hate dogs.  

When we got up, Justin found a couple goat head thorns that went all the way through the ground cover, and tent, which was probably the reason our self-inflatable pads were flat = aching hips all around.

Our plan for the day was to hike part of Zion Narrows.  First we stopped at a ghost town called Grafton.  It has been redone so not creepy or ghosty.  One of the homes was open in the basement so we took a look around, but spent only a few minutes there.

   We dressed how we thought appropriate (which we were) and rode the shuttle to the trail.

Top right picture is before we started.  

It was hard to plunge right in and walk in the river, at an icy 51 degrees, but we did.  I found a tree branch to use for a walking stick which I'm glad I had.  My favorite part of the hike was heading up Orderville Canyon.  It was more narrow, more intimate feeling, not as much water, and no other people.  The Narrows was teaming with people.  We were rarely alone.  And most of them had their dslr's and tripods.  We took my phone.  And most of them had rented gear from town.  I asked and it cost $35 a day.  Ouch.  Our clothes and shoes worked just fine, thank you very much.

 Bottom right is after the hike.  Still alive, although after the hike we heard they are considering closing the hike due to high levels of ecoli in the water.  Puke.  I wouldn't have gone if I'd known that.

Feelings on The Narrows:

Not recommended.  If you like to hike with dozens of other people, your hip flexers to scream from wading through water, then go for it.  I found our hike by Goblin valley much more fun and exciting.  Only a handful of people, much better "slot canyon" feel, not walking through water, no up and back but a loop, and more fun when you needed to figure a way around or over or through areas.

It felt so wonderful to change pants, socks, and shoes when we got back to the car.  When I took my shoes off, I had oodles of sand that had molded under my feet.

Fall Break Day 5

Woke up early and headed out.  Stopped at a pictograph right off the road.  I'd never seen any before.

They were neat,  disappointed in the vandalism.  Bullet holes in the dude.  Plus on the top one there was a bunch of junk I cropped out.

Justin had a meeting so he dropped us off at a place that had old buildings from a mining time.

We put some googly eyes on a tree in a McDonald's parking lot.

And made some pet rocks in a rest stop.

Fall Break Day 4

 On Sunday, we did a nice leisurely eight mile stroll.  

I'd read about a slot canyon that was an eight mile round trip through Little Wildhorse canyon and Bell canyon that was good for kids.  And they were mostly right.  It brought back memories of spelunking in Logan Cave; up and over boulders, freezing water, except in the daylight.

I opted to take my shoes and socks off and wade through the watery parts, not daring to scale myself between the rock walls.  I threw my shoes to Justin, one falling in the water, so had one soggy shoe the rest of the hike.

At one point, there were several areas that were deep and not easily passable.  I talked Justin in to carrying us smaller and woosier folk across.  He was helping Jacob, but couldn't help him the whole way, ending up with Jacob in the water.  I got a video, but I need to figure out how to get it on the computer.

When we got back to our campsite the kids immediately went to explore the campsite next to us.  I thought they would be exhausted, but nope.  They brought back some firewood so we could have smores and also saturate Justin's van for weeks, reeking of smoke.  We read a few talks from The Friends magazine around the campfire.

Fall Break Day 3 part 2

Goblin Valley

Accidentally found a geocache.

We found a great camp site on the other side of the cliffs of Goblin Valley, which had a crevice that was great to explore. Chilly at night!