"....For Purple Mountain Majesties...."

Hooray for the red, white and blue....and sunglasses and summer shorts (if you're not 62). This flag looked so cool in Tony and Cindy's house, and good old me, I didn't even notice they also had a ginormous flag three times bigger than this on their front porch because I was busy thinking about the fence their next door neighbors just put up. Dennis and Cindy had to point it out to me. Well, shoot, I was preoccupied. (I read on Facebook where Bart Barker -of the West Valley Barkers - was in a mall recently where there was a flashmob with people singing and dancing and generally gyrating all around him, and he's one of the unsuspecting mall shoppers caught in the video, and he never even looks up, just keeps on talking to the guy he's talking to, didn't even notice). So, yeah, we're all put together differently. I would have been a terrible cop. "Which way did he go?" "Um, I think he went, um, ...."

Please Jane, stop right now and stay this way forever. But no, she's getting her braces off next week and will just continue to grow up right before our eyes. RATS!!

Here's Calvin J, beginning his demolition of a TIGER'S BLOOD SNOW CONE on the 4th of July and the best part is they were made by Lauren who was working at the Snow Shack pictured behind us. I didn't get a photo but she looked so competent and made us really really good Snow cones. Lauren and Reagan were both working on the 4th of July. I hope they can make all of you some snow cones when you come to Utah!

Eli went for the sour lemonade  - pucker up my boy!

Then we headed up Sundance canyon to a place I don't know what it was called, just above Aspen Grove but it was the most gorgeous hike! It was like visiting the Oregon Coast with all of the lush growth and the ferns and the pines and the greenery. Oh my GOSH. It was about two miles up and two miles back. There was plenty of brisk traffic both ways, but ya know, it's fun to nod and say hi to fellow trekkers!

See that lady in the blue shirt? She is expecting her 7th child. She did not tell us this. She is a pioneer woman, that girl. We got the news the next day, Sunday, along with all of the rest of you, and I will always meld this hike with the Sunday text announcing the arrival of a little "----!" joining the Sweat family in January, 2016. That seems like a LOOONG way off, 2016....a baby. I can scarcely take it in. When I wake up first thing in the morning I lie there for a minute and then I think "Cindy's expecting!" and marvel for a moment before I get up for the day.

I obviously wasn't camera #1 in this photo opp..........!

And so we began marching along the gentle ascent to a promised wondrous far-off waterfall.

Some of us marched, some of us stopped and posed when grandma shouted "Look over here!"...

...and some of took up the rear - (so to speak :-)

I think they're pointing at a log that had recently been split clean open by a lightening strike.

Some of us shouldered little fellas.......

 

This picture reminds me of the Picture Book of Songs about clouds, "I'm making pictures in the sky, out of clouds as they roll by...."

Okay, check OUT these ferns in these next photos. Seriously? Utah? It was like hiking along the Oregon coast, or up to Multnomah falls. I've never experienced such lush undergrowth in this desert.

Jane.

Hark, 'tis the purple mountains majesties in the distance!

Vivian, Cindy, Baby #7, Tony, Jane, Eli and Calvin

Here's the first peek at the waterfall. It's so fun to have a destination for which to look forward to look forward for which to.

Jane had my camera for most of the hike and took most of these photos. She did such a great job. She took  like, 235 photos..........I love 12-year-old kids and their enthusiasm for life and nature and everything around them.

And the first people we saw when we arrived at the falls were Forrest's sister Mindy and her family. That was so fun. I didn't recognize the girls at all, they've grown so big, but Cindy recognized them right off the bat. Dennis said Peter looks like a movie star! Tye-dye must run strong in the Hallstrom genes - it always reminds me of Forrest. Hey For, I think it's about time the family made some this summer?

We devoured licorice and fruit roll-ups when we got there.

It was bizzy - everyone enjoying the 4th.

I mean, this is a gorgeous double-falls, with ledges decorated with ferns that look surprisingly like what they use for general conference around the podium. They almost looked too fake!

And YES you could run behind the bottom falls, as these three did. They loved it. It was hot enough and we were sweaty enough that I'm sure it felt fabulous.

Jane exiting the falls...

Jane, who in the summer bucket list she made that was pictured in a previous post, listed as one of her bucket list wishes "to walk underneath a waterfall." She had no idea she would get to cross that off on the 4th of JULY!!

And Calvin's bucket list consisted of getting really really dirty, hiking the entire way down without any help, and spending the whole hike pretending he was on "level five" of Mario World and pulling on every other stick he saw and calling them, oh shoot, I can't remember, some kind of "ground bomb." He was in heaven! And I was in heaven watching him. I was so grateful to still be spry enough to do things like this, because at the drop of a hat life can change, so I enjoyed it as I DRIPPED in sweat and wondered, "am I having chest pains?"

And when we got home we took the most luxurious showers known to mankind. Who ARE these old people?

And then lay in bed and listened to the fireworks. This is the view from our back porch - literally scores of homes along the ridge blasting away with fireworks that would be good enough for any town in America. Crazy!! and loud, but cool too.

HAPPY JULY - THE MOST LIVELY MONTH OF THE YEAR FOR THE DENNIS SWEAT HOUSEHOLD IN 2015!!!
LOVE YOU ALL,
bLOB