Brown Family

Morgan received his Eagle Scout award in a ceremony last night.  We are proud of him.

We decided to go on an Arizona trip for our fall break this year. We started at Oak Creek Canyon near Sedona and went on a hike and enjoyed the beautiful colored leaves.    Morgan is rock climbing, or posing for a magazine photoshoot, not sure which.  Rachel rock climbing  near Sedona Montezuma's Castle National Monument.  This well-preserved cliff dwelling, built by Sinagua Indians in A.D. 1100, sits 100 feet above the valley.  It is rather impressive. This place is called Montezuma Well.    Walnut Canyon National Monument.   This monument features dwellings sheltered by overhanging cliffs.  We are in an AD 1150 year old house!  Rachel posing in a pueblo  The trail starts at the visitor center and drops 245 steps into the canyon. Morgan ran up the stairs.  (I think twice)  It was quite the climb, but well worth the trip.

We went to the cabin for Labor Day and had a wonderful time visiting, playing games, hiking, and looking at the lush grass and wildflowers.  For lunch we drove to Big Lake for a picnic and also to see the Wallow Fire destruction.  Once again we sere pleased to see that the devastation wasn't widespread.  The grass has all grown back and with the Forest Service seeding and putting down straw, you can see from the pictures how beautiful the grass is.  Some areas were disheartening though.  The picture taken at our picnic lunch was right next to the Ranch's old corrals.  Happy memories in a beautiful place.

Doug and I recently celebrated our 28-year anniversary.  A few years ago we thought we would like to go to a different temple for our anniversary each year.  Luckily Bryan got married near our anniversary date so we got to count the St. George temple as our Anniversary Temple!  I wonder where we will go next year?  When I was young, one of my goals was to visit every temple in the world.  Like that is going to happen now.  So I revised my goal and decided on one new temple each year.

Our area has another wildfire raging out of control.  It started near Alpine on Sunday and the winds, dry conditions and extremely low humidity have turned our forest into an inferno. These pictures were taken from my back porch.  Ominous!

We woke up this morning, MAY  19,  to 3 inches of beautiful wet snow. Morgan had a nature walk field trip scheduled today.

We have had a few busy, exciting months.  Here are some random pictures of our adventures. Baby Trey's Blessings Day-- March 20, 2011  Thai food Party!  Making blankets with Addison  Sign made by Rachel  Trey 2 days old Zion National Park with Gina, Mom and Dad Baking with Addison and coloring pictures for the Fridge  Blessing day

We had a fun trip to Albuquerque to watch BYU play UNM in the Pit. We arrived a little early and as we were walking around looking at the newly completed renovations of the Pit, the team bus pulled up.  We watched them as they walked by us and commented about each player.  Morgan and David had seats on the 3rd row so we all went down and watched the team warm up.  The rest of us had seats in the "Club," which were up high but comfortable leather seats.  Doug and David got tickets from attorney friends that were not using them.  By the way as we were walking into the Pit we saw some BYU fans, but when the game started they were mixed throughout the crowd, so we felt like the only fans there.  The game was great fun.  We got a 13 point lead and right then Doug mentioned, "I hate to be ahead in the Pit."  Sure enough UNM started a run and the crowd went wild.  It is the craziest atmosphere. It is entertaining to watch the student section with al...

We had a wonderful holiday season.  Here are some pictures of a few things we did: Attended a wedding in Mesa Christmas Dinner Lots of Christmas Parties Made a gingerbread house  Went Tubing Ashley received the Lion House Pie book for Christmas and so we experimented with a different pie and style every day Apple Banana Cream  Coconut Cream   Chocolate Chip Walnut  Cherry  Berry