Happy 10th Birthday, Joseph!!!

“…to have a child is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” Elizabeth Stone

Home is where the heart is.

These first three are from my walk Friday. This is a memorial stone that tells a little about Fort Utah. This was toward the beginning of the walk.

Saw quite a few ducks and even an otter? The river is very pretty and seems to be a good place to go fishing. I saw a couple of people engaged in that activity and it smells like fish almost the entire 1.5 miles I walked.

This is the Provo River taken from the bridge at the end of my walk.

I was going to write much earlier than this today but when Blaine came out to the living room and asked how much I’d like to hold a baby, of course the answer was a lot. That was something like 7:15 or 7:20; somewhere in that neighborhood. I held him for maybe half an hour and we had a pretty good little conversation. Then he decided to be a little fussy so I held him with his head just under my chin and he had a nice longish nap of about two hours. Blaine left for school, Laura is sleeping. I had to use the bathroom so Elias got to be on the couch while I did that. I also had some cereal for breakfast. Then he decided to maybe think about waking up but I picked him up and held him more and that was good enough to stay asleep. Currently, I am sitting on the couch using the arm as a desk and Elias is snuggled up by me. It really just doesn’t get any better than this from my perspective.

A hole in the rock! A person could probably climb down this hole but I wasn't about to volunteer.

One of the five bridges we crossed. The first two had no water running under them but the next three did.

The past few days have been pretty busy. Friday morning Laura and I walked to a park about a mile away because there was a letterbox there. We were contemplating walking to another one that was 1.5 miles from that one but decided against it due to the heat and a little Elias who would have wanted to eat long before we got home.

A humming bird kept us company for a couple of minutes.

Mountains to the south.

That afternoon we went to pick up more letterboxes at some parks around Provo. From the park we’d considered walking to, I walked along the river to the park we’d walked to earlier. We weren’t able to find the box at the first park in the morning and I wanted to have another look. Unfortunately, I did not meet with success the second time around, either. Still, I got a nice walk out of the deal as Blaine and Laura picked me up.

The parking lot where we parked from the top.

The top from the parking lot where we parked.

Saturday we hiked up to Squaw Peak. It was a beautiful hike, if a bit longer than anticipated both in miles and time, a bit steeper than anticipated, and a bit warmer than anticipated. Had we left when we originally wanted, it would have been cooler. The whole hike ended up being 7.4 miles with a vertical increase of 2,763 or 2,844 depending on which you want to believe (both from MyFitnessPal). Actual walking time was five and a half hours although we took lots of breaks for baby diaper changing and feeding and soaking up the shade before plowing through more sun. We left about 9:30 and got home around 7:30. MyFitnessPal says I took 28,615 steps and burned 1.7K calories.

There were lots of cool trees.

And we saw one cool snake on our way down. He was just enjoying the sun and let us take his picture.

When we got home, I showered and began construction of a little outfit for Elias to wear Sunday for his blessing. I decided to work on it until 11:00 and then get to bed and get up at 5:00 to finish. That’s what I did and it was mostly done by 7:00. Laura did the buttonholes because I didn’t feel like learning how to do them on her machine. It turned out super cute and consists of a pair of shorts, a vest, a shirt, and a tie. The shorts and vest are made from leftover fabric from Laura’s wedding dress. Elias looks pretty darn cute in it but we didn’t get any pictures of him in it other than one I took when he was in his car seat on the way to church so you can’t really see it very well.

The flag at the top. Sometimes you can see it from below. Sometimes not.

Yesterday we had a fairly lazy Sunday afternoon. We did go over to the Marriott Center to search there and a building nearby for a couple more letterboxes. After the constant either up- or down-hill of Saturday, it was nice to just walk for a bit.

Taking a break waiting for Laura, Blaine, and Elias. I was looking for a good letterbox planting site and got ahead of them a bit. My shoes (and legs) were so dirty.

And so were my feet. This is what they looked like once I took my shoes and socks off.

Today is a new day with not much planned. I want to plant a box and then go to Staples to get some index cards and then come home and make a log book and show Laura how. Then I’d love to plant the last one here and maybe find a couple more. There is still tomorrow, too, but I don’t want to have too much planned. Everything kind of depends on what can be done between feedings for Elias.

Panoramic view from the top. I suppose I should have done this of the mountains as well.

Now Laura is having some pancakes for breakfast and Elias is thinking about waking up. Sometimes it takes him a while to do so but others it is a much quicker process. Either way, I’m going to wrap this up for now.

Have a fantastic day!

And, hey, Joseph, I hope you have the best birthday EVER! I love you, dude!