A different plan...

Can I tell you that having kids is quite the adventure.  I mean you get the fun, excitement, and the crap (think all the messes and hinderances possible...).  Well I love my kids and I think that is obvious in how I treat and love them. 

 

I bet that by me writing you on sunday you have deduced that I didn't make it to Havasupai this week.  Well we didn't.  About 3 days before we were set to go Zach threw up more most of the night.  And Andrea was still suffering from a slight cold (a slight cold in an infant means that the world is about to end, to them at least).  She sounded like a little diesel motor grinding away when she breathed.  So we both felt pretty good about not heading down this weekend.  At least good about supporting our children as children rather than luggage.  They have needs to I guess.  I guess that I have progressed in the world.  I mean Zach used to be a "kid".  Now we have moved past luggage to little person whos input we try and get.  Getting input from a two year old is really maddening to say the least. 

 

So as a consolation we are heading to Death Valley for a quick day trip to add some more pictures to the stock collection and see some fun new stuff.  We are lucky that we have such a huge variety of cool stuff within a few hours of Vegas (like 2.5 or less).  Tomarrow we are going to visit the racetrack for the first time.  That is the place where the rocks slide on the dry lakebed and they can't figure how (they have trails behind them).  The really interesting thing is that those rocks are seriously in some cases over 500 pounds.  Some a smaller.  Also this is the only place in the world that this actually does occur.

 

I will hopefully have some pics of that for you next week.  Today in the email I will send accompanying this I will include pictures of Joshua Tree.  It is funny which places I go to visit that really strike me as memorable and I want to return to.  Tops lately are Joshua Tree (only when flowers are blooming, which means march), Bryce (we already knew that), and Yosemite.  For me Saguaro was cool but not really striking or riveting.  I will go back later in life to get more stock pictures if I go that route but overall it wasn't impressive to me.  I can't really quantify why Joshua trees are over cacti (I think it is the climbing actually...). 

 

Speaking of Yosemite I finally got reservations for this summer.  It is July 22-29, 2008.  So mark you calender and come if you can.  I have a pretty busy schedule and hope that I don't have to cancel the days.  I think that this trip however is going to be a priority for the summer.   We also want to visit sequoia, glacier, Kilgore, and backpack in Ruby Valley.  We will see what comes our way.  Hopefully lots of camping and fun. 

 

Getting reservations was quite the feat.  I had to log on saturday morning (The morning the month of july opened) and the minute (actually at 3 seconds past 7:00 when they opened) that the days were reservable I hit reserve and the original dates I wanted were gone, for 500 campsites.  So I quickly adjusted for the next week and I got the last site available for a week straight for all 500 sites, at 7:00:23.  So to be clear reservable campsites were gone for the entire month in 23 seconds.  That is 500 sites at 31 days for a total of 15,000 camping spots gone.  Well there were several other sites available but nothing with more than a single day available.  So I guess I could have gotten the week strait by changing sites everyday a minute later but that really suckes.  I had to do that last time I wanted to go there.  The only place in yosemite that has walk in camping is camp 4, and that is not traditional campsites at all.  The format is basically a patch of ground and each person who is able to reserve a spot for the day gets their own little square.  If I wanted to camp there I would have to get 4 spots officially to be able to be there because I have at least 4 people with me.  So essentially they camp 4 spot isn't an option for me.  Plus the spots are all taken by climbers who have a little system set up so keep people there for longer than allowed.  I guess they have a climber who hasn't been there past the max allowable time get a site and stay for that time and let "bummers" people who climb all day and hide in the rocks crawl into their tent at night.  It is actually a good system for the climbers but hard for other people to get into.  Anyway...

 

So I guess that the fun thing with Zach lately is that he is really getting to be a talker.  His latest thing to say that is really enduring is "come here" which comes out come 'er.  He just likes us to follow him around and he'll show us stuff and give us stuff and then tell us to leave ("go). 

 

So something else Zach does all the time now is he wants to take pictures.  So I give him the point and shoot and stick it on a tripod and he walks around and sets it down and presses the button.  Most of the time he just doesn't quite get the button pushed all the way and nothing happens but once he took a video of me talking to Alison about what to have for dinner.  So He is getting to be a little paparazi. 

 

I don't know what else to say...

 

I love you man, and your awesome.  Something you should do is read Moroni 7 and when it talks about Charity substitute Christ for charity each time and you will get a better understanding of why charity (ie christ) never faileth.  I was actually really touched by the spirit to make charity truly a part of me. 

 

Today work harder than ever before.  We may not have the skill of ammon or other great people, but we have the mind and body to work harder and at least as smart as any other before us. 

 

I love you brother!

 

Chris