back in the saddle

so i dusted off the bike and went for a ride yesterday... and enjoyed a good 17 miler. A nice flat ride (only a couple of minor declines and inclines). The shoulder was a little dirty, but not bad on a mountain bike. I was passed by a road bike on my return home, but he worked well as a pacer. I would recommend this ride to someone who is looking for a good flat route and has an hour to ride. Probably stay away from alpine highway at rush hour though. The weather was perfect and the traffic was mainly school letting out around 3 pm. Now I just have to talk Amber in to enjoying a vigorous ride.

Not a dream

So, it's real... we woke up this morning, and Scott is really here. And the eating every 2 hours through the night and Amber's soreness. And we're happy he's here.

One more this evening

thanks for your support and phone calls and comments. We thank our Heavenly Father for good family and friends who love us so dearly. We feel so blessed to have Scott in our family. The kids were so cute with him tonight. We were really struck by Sam's instant acceptance and sincere smile when he saw Scott for the first time. The Lord really blessed things to have gone so smoothly today, even with the little drama that we had for a few minutes.

Announcing Scott Cameron Gerritsen

born 5-6-08 at 5:15pm
7lbs and 20.5 inches

More pictures in an hour or so...

Baby-Eve

So, we think (hope) this baby is ready! Stay tuned. The schedule is to have him born tomorrow before dinner... but you know how that goes... he may wait until evening or later. As for the name... we're not sure yet. We have about 3 names we really like... but it's not fair to share until he is official... so you'll have to wait.

Family Birding Night

So it was a magical night for me. For months I have been hoping to get out with the kids and the binoculars and spotting scope and enjoy some bird-watching. There is a little pond down the road called Allred's Pond. We didn't know what to expect, I had just read about it somewhere. So we followed the Highway 73 out just past the Jordan River and took a right. Well, there it was. I think it's private property... but the gate was open and no one was around. There was a large abandoned tire we could all plant ourselves on. So we gave it a go. The kids were surprisingly interested and could see the birds through the scope and binoculars. All but Sam, of course. But we counted 15 species all-in-all. Granted 2 were on the way home. But it was a joy to be there in the evening with the whole family. It was indeed one for the memory book.
On the way back, Spence saw a bunch of black birds in a tree. I just assumed it was a big flock of starlings. But we stopped anyway, and come to find out, it was a tree full of yellow-headed blackbirds in full color. Nice find, Spence! I recommend a little drive over the river to anyone looking for a nice respite from the "city". Beware though, Camille will tell you multiple times that it smells like cows. They share the pond with you, it is true.

List of Species:
yellow-headed blackbird
american pelican
swainsons hawk
red-winged blackbird
western grebe
rock dove (pigeon)
night heron
american robin
glossy-faced ibis
california gull
mallard duck
northern pintail
american crow
magpie
one more-can't remember

High Spur

Paul and I were able to get down to Robber's Roost area for Friday night-Sat last week. What a beautiful canyon High Spur turned out to be.
We hit the road around 1:30pm on Friday... stopped for gas at Green River, and then continued to the head of BlueJohn canyon. We started hiking down BlueJohn around 7:00pm. We just wanted to make it to the first 2 rappels and climb back up them to practice our rescue skills. I don't have any pics of that, because it was pretty dark by the time we got out of there... but we didn't need our lights until we hit camp around 9:15. There we boiled some water, added it to our Mountain House dinners, and had a little fire.
This campsite is the tin shed. Normally, we haven't seen any other people down in the Roost. But there was a group of large tents near the tin shed. They were very quiet (more on that later). So around 10:30 we were getting ready to turn in for the night, and 5 vehicles (1 being a loud diesel truck) pulled up, ripping up the dust and searching with their headlights for a place to camp. Well, that was obnoxious, because we were going to be sleeping under the stars (on cots) and that would have to wait since they were so noisy.
We stoked back up the fire to wait out the noisiness, and a man approached us from the quiet group. He asked... "do you know anything about Larry Canyon?" Paul and I had done Larry Canyon last summer. So, this guy and his wife had come down from Sandy to fix a meal for the varsity scouts and their leaders and take the boys home in the morning who had to be back for sports on Saturday. Well, the group was supposed to be there for dinner at 7pm. Here it was 11:15pm and they hadn't heard from them. Hence, the quietness of the group. Had we known the situation, we would have gone over earlier and enjoyed a hot meal with 2 great folks. Paul happened to have the printout from climb utah website. So we explained to him how to drive down to the trailhead. As we were doing so, we thought, "what the hey, we are up anyway... the other group is still noisy... let's go down to the trailhead with him." So he brought his wife and SUV over to us and we headed down to the trailhead (about 15 minutes away). Well, the group's SUV was at the trailhead, so that meant they probably hadn't left the canyon. As we drove down toward the exit of the canyon (to the shuttle drop-off), the group came up the road in their vehicle.
At any rate, the group was safe, just very slow (normal time 4-5 hours... they took 11.5 hours) and had been a little lost. They had 8 boys and 4 "experienced" leaders. We all drove back and Paul and I got some much-needed sleep at about 12:30.
Oh, I almost forgot... Paul forgot his sleeping bag. He claims only real men don't need sleeping bags. Luckily the couple who drove us down to the trailhead had an extra blanket. I had also thrown in a couch cover before we left to line the back of the jeep (it gets a little loud without some insulation back there). So, between his 4-5 layers of clothes, 2 thermarests, a couch cover, my plaid fleece jacket, and the borrowed blanket, Paul made it through the night. His feet thawed out in the jeep as we headed down the road about 40 miles to High Spur.
We really wanted to do 2 canyons, but the commute to and from High Spur took so long to get to we weren't able to fit anything else in. But what a lovely canyon. Beautiful... and as all of my other canyons, we didn't see anyone else in or around the canyon.
Well, hope you enjoy the pictures. I took the nice camera down this canyon because there were no water hazards. And the "technical parts" were super easy. Except for the length factor (about 7 miles, I assume, in all) I would love to take Spence on this one when he is 8 or 9.
We hit Ray's Burgers in Green River on the way home (excellent burgers) and pulled in around 9:15pm Saturday. I consider myself very blessed to enjoy the wonders God has created. And thanks Amber for letting me break away. You're the best!

Click Here for Slide Show

I almost forgot... it started out a great trip... on our way up I-6 we saw 2 Golden Eagles dive bombing a Red-Tail Hawk. Talk about impressive. It sounds funny, but any day I see a Golden Eagle ends up being a great day.