Good morning!! Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed yesterday's journey down memory lane. Just to give you a fair warning, we do have a lot to cover today, so get your popcorn and make yourselves comfy.
In April of 2022, we took a trip down to Goblin Valley for about two or three days. When we finished at Goblin Valley, we made our way over to Cedar City because Tiger Lily was participating in the State finals in the Science Olympiad. She did an awesome job and won some awards. Her school performed so well that the were awarded the State Championship.......only to have it taken away a couple of days later due to some silly technicality. We all thought that was very rude to make them think they won and then strip it all away. I was quite exhausted from the time we spent in Goblin Valley that I didn't get any pictures in Cedar City. Enough chit-chat, let's dive into the photos!
APRIL 2022
Making a pitstop!
We were approaching the turnoff to head toward Goblin Valley, when we noticed that one of the doors to the trailer was open and flapping around. Naturally we stopped to fix it and discovered that the lock had broke, so Nathan had to do some fancy fixing. While he was doing that, the kids and I, naturally had to do some exploring.
Kings and Queens of the hill!! I found some pretty rocks too.
I love Goblin Valley!! There is so many interesting things to explore!! We discovered that the best time of year for Goblin Valley exploring is in the spring. It's a bit cool in the mornings, but by afternoon, it is just lovely.
There are just so may fun and interesting rocks to pose on.
Meow-meow loved having his picture taken with all of the fascinating formations.
TA-DA
You could spend weeks in Goblin Valley and not see everything.
It was challenging at times for me, but I managed it, and had tons of fun in the process.
Nathan had a great time as well.
Several years ago, when we made our last trip to Goblin Valley, the kids and I discovered this nifty little cave that had a fissure above it that let little streams of light in. I wanted to go back to that little cave, and so we did. Namaste.
The cave even had this rock formation that made a lovely seat.
Jimmy and Tiger Lily took off exploring. It's too hard to see in this photo without enlarging it, but way on the top of that white dome, there are two teensy weensy dots. Those dots are Jimmy and Tiger Lily
I have a pretty decent zoom function on my phone because I was able to zoom in and get an okay picture of them.
Those two climbed EVERYTHING!! They were like little monkeys, or I guess in this case, Mountain Goats.
Eilee and Meow-meow
Again, climbing everything in sight.
Even I did a bit of climbing and "conquering"
Absolutely nothing would stand in their way from climbing it!
Eilee and Meow-meow stuck with Nathan and I, while Jimmy and Tiger Lily set off to explore the great unknown on their own.
Turtle rock!!
One day in and we completely wore them out.
After a good nap and some dinner, we went back out to Goblin Valley to watch the sun set and see the stars.
It was a beautiful sunset.
The next day, we decided that we would brave the Goblin's Lair trail because we heard that there were some really cool caves to explore.
And it did not disappoint. This isn't the Goblin's Lair cave, it was one that was close to the Goblin's Lair and we decided to stop off at it first.
The Goblin's Lair. Technically it isn't a cave, it's a slot canyon that has had rock formations fall and enclose it in, but I'm going to call it a cave. And yes, I was crazy and did climb down into it. I was not about to be left behind and miss out on all the fun. That is just NOT how I roll.
It was so MASSIVE down inside, and beautiful.
So, off to one side down in the cave was this little slit in the rock. When we first got down into the main cave, we saw people coming out of this slit. We asked them about it and was told that it was a small cave that you could crawl through.
So naturally we had to investigate it.
Once you got through the slit, the cave actually opened up a bit and there was an area where you could climb up on a ledge and be able to spy on anyone who entered the cave.
I think those are Jimmy's feet.
The cave was indeed very small and you could only move through crawling and on your belly as you got deeper into the cave. It highly reminded me of the Nutty Putty Caves that are out by Utah Lake. My brothers and I explored the Nutty Putty Caves a long time ago. Those caves have since been closed and blocked off because an explorer got lost, trapped, and died in the caves. They were then deemed too dangerous, plus they weren't able to retrieved the body, and so they closed it off and sealed it up so that no one can ever again enter into them.
Jimmy wasn't a fan of me crawling around in that cave, especially after I mentioned that it reminded me of the Nutty Putty caves.
They all had fun exploring around.
This was right at the entrance to the cave. Right where Tiger Lily is is where you would have to get on your hands and knees to crawl if you wanted to explore further into the cave.
Apparently while I was crawling around in that cave, I managed to ram my shoulder into some of the rock. I don't remember ramming my shoulder into anything, but this massive bruise says otherwise. And this isn't even close to as big as the bruise eventually got. As we were walking back to the main part of Goblin Valley, I noticed that my shoulder was really hurting, and that's when we discovered the bruise. It hurt for several days, and took almost a month for it to completely go away.
After the Goblin's Lair hike, we took off to explore other parts of the valley.
And took lots of pictures.
The kids all had me take pictures of them in little nooks and crannys.
Jimmy found this little ledge and asked me to take some photos of him doing different poses.
And so I obliged him.
Doing the "Spiderman"
Meditating?
Taking a squat. LOL. Sorry Jimmy, I couldn't resist saying that.
We be cool.
We also be cool!
At one point, Jimmy and Tiger Lily took off to explore on their own. Only later did they tell us that there were a few times that they slipped and ALMOST fell to their deaths. Silly children, you aren't really Mountain Goats!
After we were done exploring Goblin Valley, everyone else wanted to go back to camp and take a nap, however Eilee, Meow-meow and I still had energy and wanted to do some exploring. Our camp was in Hanksville, Utah, and we set off to explore Hanksville. That's when we discovered an old cemetery. Naturally we had to explore it.
There was a very friendly little kitty that lived around the campsite we were staying in, which meant that we had to snuggle and love on the kitty. And NO, he did not come home with us, even though they tried to talk us into it.
This is what the bruise looked like by the end of the day.
This one is my favorite. It's a heart rock.
I love how it shines with the light.
This is what it looked like at it's worst
The pre-existing fire pit had been up close to the house, and we felt that it was a little too close to the house, and since I have a whole acre to play around in, I decided that I should make an EPIC firepit.
We moved the trampoline over and under the huge apple tree and then I used the space where the trampoline had been to make my epic firepit. I was quite pleased at how well it turned out.
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Jimmy got his drivers license!! He's an official driver now!!
It's hard to tell in this photo but I tried to get a picture of the Layton temple spires, because I can see the Layton temple from my house and I LOVE IT!! Early this morning, as I was sitting at my desk, when it was still dark out, I could really see the spires with the lights on and shining brightly. I should have taken a picture of it. I'll have to remember to do that tomorrow morning.
Well, we've reached the end of April 2022. I've decided to not make April 2023 a separate blog post like I mentioned I would at the end of yesterday's post. I was able to get April 2022 done quick enough that I've decided to just go ahead and do April 2023 now. So, without further ado, lets jump into April 2023.
APRIL 2023
Leche gave birth to four very beautiful white kittens.
We were still dealing with the flooding and my front room was still a huge mess from it all. Whitley decided that Jacen's bed was a great place to nap.
The walls in the basement were all covered in wood paneling, and initially we were just going to clean up the water and then move all of the stuff back in.
However the water was coming in at floor level and at the corners of the basement.
So, we knew that we needed to figure out where the water was coming in and fix it. That meant tearing out the wood paneling. We were quite shocked and dismayed when, after taking down the wood paneling, we discovered all of the mold that you have seen in this picture and the ones previously. And from the looks of it, the water damage has been going on for quite some time, longer than we've lived in the house.
That meant that we would have to tear out the sheet rock as well. The intent was to just cut out as little sheet rock as needed so we wouldn't have to replace a whole bunch later on. However, as we were taking out the sheet rock, we discovered that there was little to no insulation. That explains why it was always so cold downstairs. So, in order to do the job right, we had to take down all the sheet rock so we could put in proper insulation. We also discovered that the wiring is probably original to the house as it was aluminum wiring, so that will have to be replaced as well. It's a huge mess. And that was just in Jacen's room. I hadn't even touched the Great Room yet.
Adorable little kittens.
The Great Room too suffered greatly with mold and water damage.
Pretty much the entire basement had mold hiding behind the wood paneling
And again, behind the sheetrock there was little to no insulation
And tons of aluminum wiring that will need to be replaced.
It's just a mess.
And it WOULDN'T STOP SNOWING!!!
Sweet little babies.
Too much snow! Especially for APRIL!!!
Poor mamma, but cute babies
Little kitten belly
Not sure where I got this bruise from. More than likely it was from acupuncture.
Once it FINALLY stopped snowing and warmed up, Nathan "brought home the bacon."
We thought it would be fun to get four little piglets.
They do taste might fine, I must say. I do have more adventure with pigs stories, but we'll get to them as we go along.
Their eyes are opened and they are getting mobile
We already had six chickens, and our hen house has 10 laying boxes....So, we got four more chicks.
Cute but smelly. I was glad when they were old enough to move outside.
We rented a backhoe so we could dig the pond.
Both Nathan and I had fun taking turns using it.
It was cold outside!!
Got some smoothing out to do, but the big part is done.
Getting very mobile
Lunch time.
I love baby kittens.
I have such lovely bruises, don't I? So, you remember yesterday when I told you the story of falling out of the swing? And how it damaged my spinal cord stimulator leads? And how I tore my meniscus, but couldn't get an MRI because of my spinal cord stimulator?
Well, my knee got to hurting badly enough that I decided that it was time to get my stimulator removed. It was SUPOSSED to be easy peasy. The surgery, as far as we knew, went well and they were able to get the stimulator taken out. The plan was to remove the stimulator, keep me overnight so they could get X-rays taken to make sure they got everything out and then send me in for an MRI to check out how my lower back is doing plus they wanted an MRI of my Cervical spine to see if they would be able to put in a new spinal cord stimulator. What was supposed to be a one night stay in the hospital turned into I think a three night stay, maybe four. I don't know, it's all a blur. I just remember I was in the hospital longer than I wanted to be. The MRI apparently was really busy with people going into the Emergency Room and needing emergency MRI's and so I was "low man on the totem pole" and had to wait. We finally talked them into doing the X-ray and at least getting it done and out of the way. That X-ray lead to surgery number 2. They found a 1 mm piece of metal that had been left behind. It would have to be removed before I could have the MRI because even a 1 mm piece of metal could rip through me in an MRI tube. So, back to the operating room I went. Eventually they were able to get the MRI done.
I look like a Cheeto. We learned quite a bit from the MRI. We learned that my Cervical spine is very curved and because of that the area where they would put the new spinal cord was too narrow, so narrow that there was barely any spinal cord fluid in those areas. The other thing the MRI discovered was that I had gallstones. That will come up later on in the year, so stay tuned.
I was so done with being in the hospital and was very excited to FINALLY be going home.
The drive home was not fun, not fun at all. Funny how you feel every little bump in the road right after you have had a surgery.
Well folks, we have reached the end of this blog post. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed putting it together. Come back tomorrow and see what happened in May 2021, 2022, and 2023!
