Welcoming the New Year with a full moon

I alway love it when the moon is full and comes up over the hill behind us.  Happy New Year.

Christmas with the grandkids

 Jim & Heather came over with Cole and Mackenzie for a pre-Christmas weekend.  Saturday we went over to Scott and Karin's and then on to the Desert Museum for the day. 

Sophie, Cole, Audrey and Mackenzie had a good time swinging at Scott's.

Christmas Concert

 We are very fortunate to have a wonderful music program at church.  Audrey is in the Children's Choir and they performed with the adult, youth and regular choir Saturday night

 Here is the orchestra and choir.  Karin has been part of the orchestra since it started.

Sunday morning was Angel Sunday and the children's choir performed again.  Here they are getting ready to sing.

Putting up the Christmas lights

Andy had lots of help putting up the Christmas lights this year.

Tuesday hike in Sedona

Today we hiked to Devil's Bridge.  The dirt road to it has gotten so bad that we had to hike the road as well to get to the trail head.  Believe it our not you can hike to the tip as well (which we did) and stand on the top of the bridge.

From Devil's Bridge we continued to hike up the road to a little known wash that you can hike up and get close to this Indian ruin.  Because it is so hard to get to very few people have been there so it is very much original.

Sedona Lights

Every year they have wonderful Christmas lights in Sedona.

Monday we went looking for Indian Ruins and found this one after a mountain scramble.

Sugar Loaf hike

We had a wonderful visit with our friends Dick and Barb over the weekend.  We have know them forever.

Sedona

 We drove up to Sedona this morning and had a great 7 mile hike to the Rabbit Ears.  Dick and Barbara Muhlhauser are joining us tonight.

Thanksgiving Blessings

We are so blessed to have a great-grandmother and great-grandaughter at Thanksgiving dinner at Scott and Karin's home.  Audrey made our place cards (a smart granddaughter).  We had a wonderful time and great food with the kids and Karin's parents, Steve and Randa)

Sunday children's choir

Melanie and Audrey getting ready for the bell ring and song in church.

California

 We are in California for the weekend.  We came in on Saturday for the USC vs ASU football game.  We were able to meet friends at the ball game and see the Borkowski's for dinner that evening.  Sunday we met our friends the Barkers and D'Virgilios for lunch at the Elephant Bar and spent the afternoon walking about 3 miles along the beach.  It was a perfect day for beach walking.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Audrey and Sophie getting ready to Trick or Treat

Together with Mom

Crafty Ladies Show

 We are in California this weekend for the Crafty Ladies show.  We were maxed out with vendors for this show and here are a couple aisles before the crowd arrived.  The weather is perfect and looks like it will be a good show.

Fight On USC Trojans

Andy and I flew to Los Angeles this morning for the USC game.  The space shuttle is housed in this building after it's trip from the airport.  They still have a little work to do before opening it to the public.

We always enjoy the games and the band.

Grizzly Bear Ranch

This was our first afternoon of bear watching.  It was a mom and two 2 year old cubs.

This was the second morning of bear watching.

One of the cubs.

Andy and I on an afternoon hike in the Selkirks.

 The Bald Eagles on our raft trips down the river were incredible.  We must of seen 30 or 40.

Kaslo kayaking

Today we went kayaking.  This is a beautiful lake.  Tomorrow they come and pick us up to go to the Grizzy Bear Ranch.  Hopefully we will get to see lots of bears feeding on the Salmon.  Will have to wait until our return to post pictures.

Kaslo, BC Canada

Today we drove into Canada, heading to Kaslo.  We crossed the Kootenay Lake on a ferry and then drove up the west side of the lake to Kaslo.

In Kaslo, they have restored the sternwheeler that use to supply transportation in this area.  It was built in 1898 for the Canadian Pacific Railroad and was used until 1957.  It is the oldest intact passenger sternwheeler in the world.  They have done a marvelous job restoring it.

Idaho

Friday we did a driving tour around the lake country.  The trees are just starting to turn color, this was one of the best ones.

Coeur d'Alene, Idaho

Yesterday we flew to Spokane and arrived in Coeur d'Alene this morning.  The main street of town was beautiful with these hanging baskets.

After lunch we hiked at Higgens Point and then took the drive down highway 97 and back up 3.

Children's Choir St. Andrews

Today was Audrey's first choir program in church.  She and Melanie are waiting for church to start.

Lake Powell

We spent last week at Lake Powell.  As you can see the week started out with a few showers and ended on Wednesday morning with a down pour.  After that the sun was out in full force.

It did not spoil our week at all.  We had a great time.

Reilly loves kayaking and here she is waiting for us to get ready to go.

K9 Competition

Reilly was happy to watch the K9 competition. Not sure who she was rooting for.

Beautiful Tucson

The weather has been great since we came home.  Rain storms on and off and reasonable cool temperatures.  It looks like we have probably seen the last of the rain for a while.

Vallecito Lake

This is a hike we took from Vallecito.  It was a beautiful hike up a very deep canyon of the Vallecito River.  At times we were up 200 feet above the river and after 2 and a half miles we made to the river.  We did have to hike back in a thumder storm but it was worth it.

Crested Butte

We camped on the Taylor River near Crested Butte.

This is the historic town of Crested Butte.  Very neat and fun to walk around.  The picture below is of an historic two story outhouse.  They needed the second story when the snow was 20 feet deep.