Happy Birthday to Me!

On Sunday 6/8/08 I was sitting in Church (where the good girls should be) and a neighbor came up to wish me a happy birthday (tomorrow). She asked me how old I was going to be. I told her 29 (which is the truth), she said "No! Really!" I told her really 29, she said that I was too young to be worring about my real age. It then dawned on me that she thought I was older than I was and being like all those people who always say they are 29 instead of their real age. Look how fun I can have with people this year. By the way - how old do I look? I thought I was right where I should be but I guess I look older. Just Curious!For my birthday JayDee surprised me with a day away from the kids. We had a friend in the ward (Janalee) take all five of the kids while we went and hiked around God's beautiful land here close by. We have found that we are so blessed to have these beautiful trails and views so close to us we wanted to take advantage of them. We went to Swett Ranch (Just below the Junction) and walked around. I found that it reminded me of Grandpa Nelson quite a bit. He didn't have all the buildings that were on this ranch but I think he would have loved all the different buildings. There was a pig and chicken pen, a bull pen, a tractor shed (which still had tractors that had been hooked up to horses), a grainery, blacksmith shop, wood shed, out-house (who wouldn't love that!), a root-cellar that was dug into the hill, and a place to hang all the days killings (animals of course). This Swett family lived there from around 1905 to 1970. They started out in a one room log cabin (they had three children in there), then they built a two bedroom log cabin (six children here), and finally built a three bedroom house (nine children all together - two boys and seven girls). The father felt that having a bathroom in the house was gross but because of his wife and all the girls complaining about having to go clear out to the out house he built a bathroom attached to the house but you still had to go outside. All the houses are still standing on the ranch today. We heard a funny story about the father as well. When tractors got engines this man still enjoyed doing the work the old fashioned way. The neighbors kept telling him he ought to get a tractor so he went out and bought a new horse and named him "tractor"
Check out this deer! I found it was very cute. Its ears are sticking out to the side instead of straight up. Like most deer. A side note - A little while ago I was going up to the resort and past a deer that had been slaughtered (seriously) on the road. On the way back down to home I was coming upon the same area and the dead deer was cleaned up and now there were six deer forming a circle around this spot. It was as if they were paying their respects to this dead deer. I had to come to a complete stop because a car was coming the opposite way and the deer weren't moving.
We are not sure what this is. It looks like a bunch of caterpillars. If anyone knows what they are please let us know. JayDee was fascinated with them (which is the only reason I kept this picture).
Not only did I get a way from the kids but I also got to have a nice picnic up near the canyon rim. That is where we went and hiked after going to Swett Ranch. It is a very gorgeous hike. Mom and Dad maybe this year when you come out to go camping we can go there on a hike. I am sure the kids would do alright on this hike. Any time anyone wants to come and go hiking please feel free. We love it here and would love to show you our favorite places.
This is a picture of a butterfly (for those who couldn't tell). Let's see. We saw deer, squirels, more deer, squirels, and oh I almost forgot - we saw a coyote. He was 40 feet away from us. He stood there watching us until JayDee whistled for it to come closer but instead it ran away. We love it out here and again are so blessed to have all this apart of our lives on a daily basis if we wanted.