MightyJohnsons

Finley Joined our Family

Okay, this decision was not an easy one. Our kids have been begging for a dog for years and years, at least five, possibly more. I started to sway about a year or two ago, but Seth was pretty firm on his decision that we were not a dog family. He likes dogs, but just didn’t think we had enough leftover time to give to any animal.

After starting the research process to see what kind of dog we could and would want to get IF we convinced Seth it was a good idea, we came up with a mini F1 Goldendoodle puppy (Golden Retriever mom mated with a toy poodle dad). We knew we wanted a smaller dog, but still a dog that would run, jump and be able to play hard with the kids, but small enough that he could be indoors. We also knew that we couldn’t handle shedding. Several of us have mild allergies and it just wouldn’t work for us. Plus, we needed a puppy that would be good with kids and well tempered. The very over-priced Goldendoodle fit the bill.

The process began as we starting going out to meet the puppies. The kids immediately fell in love with nearly every puppy they met. We tried to find a puppy that fit our family just right. Finally we convinced Seth to come and meet some of the puppies. He agreed. After meeting all the puppies we were interested in, we started to see Seth break a little. Finally after a little begging he agreed to purchase one and we put down a deposit. We had to wait until they got a little older to take him home.

On July 30 we went to pick up our pup, but decided to play with all of the ones that were left. Strangely, one puppy in particular kept sticking out to us and the one we originally wanted didn’t seem to notice we were even there. So we made a last minute decision and we switched and took home the cutest, sweetest little pup we have ever known. Finley, our blonde headed warrior, had joined our family.

Everyone loves him, I mean everyone. Some kids are more attentive and can’t wait to spend time with him, but everyone loves him and none of us can imagine our family before he joined it. He is a smart little stinker and is already potty trained. He can sit, shake, lay and rollover (thanks to Katelyn). He has already brought so much love into our home. We are loving this sweet little guy and are so grateful we finally took the plunge!

Most days you can find Fin hanging by my side.

He even made it into the “back-to-school” photos!

I am pretty sure Katelyn loves him as much as her siblings!

Solo Summit of Mount Nebo

I thought I had a free pass for the day, so I took off to hike Mount Nebo all by myself on Saturday.

It was a beautiful day for a hike. The weather was awesome, but the trail wasn’t super busy. I passed a few groups here and there, but I walked for miles without seeing another soul. Nebo apparently gets much less traffic than Timpanogos. Maybe because Nebo is significantly steeper.

When I reached the summit, I ate one of my sandwiches, snapped a quick photo, and began the descent. Not much reason to hang out for too long at almost 12,000 ft.

I took two liters of water, a couple PB&J sandwiches and a couple snacks figuring it would take me about 4 hours. I was wrong. I definitely could have used another liter of water. I drank my last drop with more than a mile to go and was quite thirsty by the time I got back to civilization.

I recorded the hike using a new cool tool called GaiaGPS, which is a great backcountry mapping app I used on my iPhone to make sure I didn’t have a misadventure like when the family attempted Ding & Dang.

Nebo has been on my list since a few of my college roommates did it without me one Saturday many years ago. It was nice to check that one off and spend a beautiful day in the Utah backcountry.

Trek 2017

Both Megan and Jake were able to go on Trek this year. They went to Muddy Creek, Wyoming with our stake. They left on Thursday morning and returned Saturday evening. Although I was unable to attend with them I was able to see them off, pick them up and enjoy all their fun stories.

Neither of them went into super excited, but when I picked them up they both admitted that it was a really wonderful experience for them.

Yardwork FHE with Great Grandpa Cryer

We try to visit my Grandpa Cryer for FHE every once in a while. He’s one of my all-time favorite humans, and it’s so neat that my kids have a chance to hang out with their great grandfather.

Grandpa Cryer has always been a great gardener and he had lots of chores around his home that required just a little coaching, but some willing hearts and limber knees. Count us in.

Everyone had a job, and we all just worked hard.

Grandpa dug in too, and offered plenty of good advice.

Afterwords, we all got to enjoy some popcorn and ice cream and visit for a while.

We had a great time.

Girl’s Camp

Both my oldest girls, Meg and Katelyn, went to girl’s camp in June. It is always something they look forward to attending each year. They seriously have the best group of girls and leaders anyone could ask for. Although I have never been with them I always love hearing about their experiences through the week. I don’t have a lot of detail to add, but I know they had tons of fun, went on a long hike, performed skits, and the weather stayed nice all week (unlike last year). Below are pictures which show some of fun things they did.

Claire’s 11th Birthday

For Claire’s 11th birthday, Claire got checked out of school to go to lunch with mom and dad. We went to Cubby’s and she loved it. While we were there we asked her about some of her favorite things.

List of Claire’s favorite things at age 11:

Cereal: cocoa pebbles
Dinner that mom makes: homemade mac and cheese
Restaurant: Cafe Rio
After school activity: jumping on the tramp with music when it’s warm out
Favorite sport: basketball
Best friend: Andie Aagard
Future occupation: scientist, artist, or athlete
Dream vacation spot: Bahamas or Fiji
Dream birthday present: puppy
School subject: science
Recess game: basketball

Claire is definitely one of our favorites. We sure love her. Happy birthday Claire!

Jake & Lilly – Junior Prom 2017

Jake asked Lilly to his Junior Prom. Although I am not privy to all the details it looked like they had a great time together. They spent the morning mountain climbing with the group of friends.

After he picked up Lily for the dance, they went and ate dinner at the Alpine Country Club and headed out to the dance. They had a great time!

2017 Spring Break – Kanab

For the last few days of Spring break we traveled down to Kanab, Utah. We drove down on Wednesday and drove back on Saturday, so it was a relatively quick trip, but we packed as much fun as we knew how into those few days. We traveled with the Rowberrys and the Jensen families and had a lot of fun together. Here are a few of our highlights from the weekend:

Wire Pass & Buckskin Gulch slot canyons

This was a pretty busy trailhead, lots of cars. The slot was really cool and had a tricky obstacle that required help for just about everyone.

We continued to Buckskin gulch, which is a very long slot canyon. Unfortunately, because of the heavy rains earlier in the week it was still pretty wet. So we couldn’t go very far down Buckskin before we ran into knee-deep water. We turned around and went upstream for a while, walking in the mud and looking for pockets of quicksand.

On the way back through Wire Pass I had to help several groups come up the main obstacle. I was pretty sore from helping pull people up by the hand.

Glen Canyon Dam

After the slot canyons we decided to go see the Glen Canyon dam. We spent some time in the visitor center and walking out on the bridge. It was pretty impressive.

Red Canyon slot from Peekaboo trail head

Right at the last minute, we decided to bring along Greg’s 4-wheelers to maybe help get us to the trailhead. We were very glad that we did. The road was pretty deep and sandy, and about 2 miles to get to the start of the slot canyon. It wasn’t a well-marked road, so after a few wrong turns we finally got there. Once we all arrived, we spent just a short amount of time in the slot. It wasn’t a long one and ends in a 20-foot high obstacle. But the colors and patterns and terrain were impressive. We passed several official tour guides taking groups there.

Best Friends Animal Sanctuary

We stopped by here late in the afternoon right as they were closing. However, Manina talked to the right lady, who arranged a mini-walking tour for us. The older teenagers were throwing some serious attitude, but were quickly won over. All the kids liked seeing the horses (especially the smiling one), the pigs, deer, and turkey. The people there were super nice and welcoming.

Goodfellow House

Manina found a good deal on VRBO, so we stayed at this house in Kanab. It smelled like mothballs (but it wasn’t mothballs, it was made with railroad ties). The Rowberry and Jensen families joined us, so the kids had lots of fun. We all have kids around the same ages, so they had a lot of fun together.

The house had a pool and a hot tub, but neither were officially opened. That didn’t stop the kids from jumping in.

Lots of good food

We took turns cooking dinners and also had a big combined breakfast. We were in charge of pizzas on the BBQ grill, which turned out great.

Bruce Jensen employed his new smoker ahead of time and we had delicious pulled pork dinner on Thursday night.

Rowberrys did a Mexican night. At no point did anyone want for food.

Lots and Lots of Basketball

All of our kiddos played basketball this year. That is six different kids, six different teams with six different games for about 6-8 weeks. We were busy!!

Ellie actually played in the Fall which made it nice so we didn’t have her competing for our time when all the others were playing in January. She played with her bestie Izzy.

Drew convinced Seth to coach his team with several of his pals. They had a fun little season and Seth saw a ton of improvement over the weeks.

Claire actually played two seasons. She did one season of Junior Jazz and then one season of Bantam. Although she doesn’t have a ton of experience, she is coming along. She has so much hustle and is very coachable. I am expecting big things out of her the future.

Katelyn played with the same group of girls she has over the years. They always have a ton of fun and end up winning and losing about the same amount of games. Thank you Coach Tullis for putting up with these girlies!

Jake coaches and plays with this group of guys. They are always a ton of fun to watch. They are fast quick and always make it to the championship game. Even though it is just recreational level, they are a ton of fun to watch!

Megan ended up playing on the Mountain Ridge 9th grade basketball team. She was quite the baller and was often one of the top scorers on her team. They only lost three games which is record for the school. They made it to the final tournament but ended up missing a handful of players and lost in the semi’s. It is too bad because they were so good and could easily have won. Next year! (Team pic coming soon).

It was a very busy couple of months but I had a blast cheering for my kiddos!

Kauai: Travel Tips

We had a wonderful time in Kauai. We loved the beaches. The catamaran tour was unbelievable. The hikes we did were lots of fun, and so were the surfing lessons. But, there was still plenty of other things worth remembering and a few things to do differently the next time we get a chance to visit Kauai.

Places to stay

Our first few days we stayed up north in Princeville in a great condo. It was a great find. The owner had just remodeled and was looking for some tenants who could provide good reviews. The price was very reasonable and we liked being up north for the first few days of our trip.

During the second half of the week, we stayed in Kapa’a. It was an AirBnB, which was a pretty nice little unit, but the location wasn’t very nice. We were right off the main highway and then out the back gate was a boat launch / homeless person hangout.

There wasn’t a whole lot to do in Kapa’a, most people either go south or go north. They had a cool bike path, but other than that, there wasn’t a ton to do around Kapa’a.

I actually liked splitting up our trip into two different places to stay, but next time I would avoid Kapa’a. Stay near Poipu down south for half the time and then up north for the other half.

Driving

We almost cheaped out and just got the base rental car, and I’m so glad that we did not. We shopped around a bit, paid just a little extra and rented a convertible Mustang. It was totally worth it. We loved putting the top down and driving around the island. A small SUV or Jeep would also have been a good choice.

Eating

Food on the island was just OK, and quite expensive. We ate at only a couple places worth their cost and worth writing about. The food truck up in Hanalei was good.

Duke’s was amazing. It was pretty expensive, but we got there early and got a great table overlooking the beach and the food was great. Totally worth the time and the cost.

The Dolphin in Hanalei was also excellent. We got there later in the evening and the wait was still long, but the food was good. The sushi was excellent. I ordered the Hanalei roll and thoroughly enjoyed it.

We also looked for any excuse to stop and try a shave ice. My favorite included some macadamia nut ice cream, but your mileage may vary. Better to try different flavors and styles at each place you pass just to make sure you get a wide variety and can narrow down your favorite.

Sightseeing

We were bummed that the day we went out to see the Wailua lighthouse it was closed. It was on a Tuesday or Wednesday, so check a guidebook or call ahead. We had seen some whales out near the lighthouse from afar from when we had gone to Secret Beach, but we didn’t ever get out onto the peninsula to where the lighthouse was to get a closer look.

While down exploring Poipu and the surrounding area we stopped by to see the Spouting Horn blowhole. It was pretty busy with tourist busses stopping by and there was a bunch of pop-up tourist-trap shops to fight through, but it was pretty cool to see the waves come in and force their way up through the blowholes. The seas were pretty calm on the day we were there, so this wasn’t crazy explosive.

We didn’t get enough time exploring Waimea Canyon. We’d planned to do a few hiking trails up in the canyon, but the one time we drove up there, a pretty nasty storm blew in, so we headed back to sunny Poipu.

Next time we’re there

Get an earlier arriving flight. Our flight didn’t arrive until about 10pm, so it was pretty much drive to the condo and head right to bed. I think the ideal thing would be to arrive on the island earlier, mainly to load up on groceries and supplies at Costco and Walmart before heading up north to our accomodations.

We had some friends kayak to the Wailua waterfall and highly recommended it. Definitely on our short list for the next time we visit lovely Kauai.