Little Black Mountain

On Friday, we headed down to St. George to see the petroglyphs at Little Black Mountain. It's only about a 15 minute drive south of town, but the glyphs are really nice and the BLM has done a good job of making it accessible.

Click on photos to zoom.


















My favorite find of the day was a kokopelli. To my knowledge, they're pretty rare in the western part of the state, although they're ubiquitous in local gift-shops. Kokopelli portends childbirth and spring - two things Zola and I are excited for in the near future.

It's in rough shape because it was pecked into the sandstone (which wears rapidly), but I applied some filters to the second photo to get better contrast.

Fire and Ice

It's been a crazy winter weather-wise, and we've gone from warm desert fun to playing in the snow in just a couple of days.

We headed down west of Santa Clara in SW Utah over the weekend with my dad.

A gentle climb to the "Cave of Wonders". There are petroglyphs near Zola (she's a bully about reminding other kids not to touch them). They're so old they've re-patinated, making it hard to see them unless the light is right.




Zola contemplates the Anasazi Sheep.




A gentle drop, and we're at the entrance to what Zola calls "The Cave of Wonders."




Inside the cave: now you know why it's so Wondrous.



Down off the hill, we stopped to look for petrified wood.



Bump on a log.

I'm pretty sure this petrified log weighs just a little more than the BLM's "reasonable" limit for rock-gathering. Someone sure worked hard to make it a nice resting spot for Z.



Today is Valentine's Day and we celebrated by making a snowman and a snowgirl.

Christmas 2011

I'm going to go ahead and pretend everything is current on here.

It's only December 6, but we're having a great winter so far.

Here's what we did yesterday:





That's right; we made this baby from scratch!



More pictures to come.


















































r so far.

Long Over-due Pictures

We've been busy since March. Here are a couple of highlights.

Graduation in May was very exciting. Zola already calls herself "Dr. Zola."





























We left PA and headed west. We were lucky enough to spend some time in Jackson Hole.




































But the most exciting thing was Zola's birthday.





























We are loving Cedar City. Zola gets excited about the petroglyphs - almost as excited as Dave.






























Since moving back to Utah we've really enjoyed spending time with family and friends. Zola went with her cousins to the Children's Museum in SLC.















We also got to visit Zola's great Aunt Zola.
Zola was so excited and kept saying, in disbelief, "two Zola's!?!?"

















Our Thunderbird pride is growing strong.















When Zola sees the mountains she screams, "RED ROCKS!"
















Zola is crazy about her rain gear and is a little disappointed that it hasn't rained or snowed more.

















One of the reasons we chose the house that we did was because we wanted Zola to have lots of friends around. Halloween was fantastic with all the neighbors. Who knew Buzz lives in Cedar.

Spring Break!

Zola and Dirk hit The District for a couple of days earlier this week. Here are the highlights. As usual, click on individual pictures for a closer view.


Looking for dinosaurs at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.





No sudden moves, and maybe we'll get out of this jam.



The butterfly garden inside the museum was spectacular.






This enormous butterfly has little transparent windows in its wings.




The next morning, Zola decided she wanted a beard. Then she rolled her eyes at me.




We hit the zoo first thing. Zola loved the Pandas



But she spent most of the rest of her time imitating the animals.
(I'm sorry these orangutan pictures are so poor; it was quite dark inside and I avoided the flash to prevent any "Congo"-type reaction.

Monkey see; Monkey do.






(The crocodile-photo was taken at the national aquarium on a different day.)




Inside the bamboo tiger-cage







Dinosaurs at the Zoo?! No way.



Well, apparently they do have dinosaurs at the zoo. Who knew?




And what better way to cap our little trip than with crazy blue cotton-candy-flavored ice cream?

With sprinkles.

January and February 2010

I know it's March. It's a little weak, but here's a quick summary of what we've been doing since Christmas.

We've been really busy around here. In January we visited California. In February we played in the snow and speculated wildly on the continued existence of the sun (findings were inconclusive). Here are some photos.

Christmas Day with Tyson and Kelsie




Visiting the Tide Pools with Natalie and her parents




Although she was a little intimidated by the incoming tide, Zola actually had a pretty good time. I chose to post this picture, though, because it actually lives up to the cliché: it's worth a thousand words.



That's right, this starfish is giving you all the bird.

(I think a seagull got to him first; we found the poor guy on the sand.)


Zola and Natalie loved Grandma's playroom.




Even if there were some hazards. Luckily Zola was okay.





We spent a couple of days at Disneyland.
















Zola's favorite attraction was "Small World." Since it was the first week of January, the ride was all decked out for the holidays.







Directly in the middle of this photo is the ride's main attraction.
It's extremely small. Click on this photo to see an expanded version.
I've zoomed the central figure below.




That's right. It's not Christmas in Hawaii without the King.



Ed and Mimi drove down to spend some time with us.



Everything was going fine until a giant whale ate the girls. So sad.

Leviathan always wins.




Don't ask.




After beautiful southern California, it was really hard to come home to this: 16 inches of snow in the first week of February.




But Jana made everything better with her Valentine's Day surprise. Those are cakes in the shape of those little candy message-hearts that are made of a chalk-like substance.




There's not much to do around here in the winter time.



Except train for a career in Mousketeering. Just like Britney Spears. Yikes.