Joes birthday

Joe's birthday is officially on April 26, but what fun is a Monday (a work day). Two of his children cooked all of the dinner. They cooked Steaks, asparagus, rice, and mushrooms.

I challenged myself and made a cake from scratch. It's similar to pound cake, with a strawberry/pineapple filling and a Meringue frosting. We put additional fruit on top of the cake.

Here's the birthday boy;

The cake:

My son the photographer:

What more can I say, other than HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOE!

Canyon walk

After two days of rain and clouds, it was nice to wake up to sun and blue sky. Since it's also a Saturday we made the most of the situation and escaped to our nearby canyon.

Each year we toughen up gradually. By the end of summer we are all over the mountains and into the high country.

Today we walked a little over three hours. We took an easy trail that follows the river.

Along the trail:

The rivers are running again. This is good news for hikers, but sad news for skiiers:

As we got deeper into the canyon, we came across large patches of snow on the trail. We forged ahead for a long way before turning back:

Hopefully, by the time the trails in the higher elevations loose their snow, we will be ready.

Later today I get to make a birthday cake for Joe. I'm doing it from scratch. His big day is on Monday, but we'll have a nice dinner for him on Sunday instead.

Flowers in bloom

We have a season pass for everything at Thanksgiving Point. It's a nice place for walks and entertaining grand children when they visit.

First we strolled around the large gardens. Here are a few examples of what was blooming:

Then we went to the nearby Dinosaur Museum. We have a really good museum here:

After going through that we went to the Farm area behind the museum:

In the farm area people can put their children on the free pony ride. The other free option is a wagon ride that the adults can go on too. We got on this wagon with a 4 year olds birthday party.

The kids were being very good:

Before leaving for home we explored the art building where we watched a glass blower. By then we were tired and our feet were done with the walking thing.

Our splurge was to drive through 'In N' Out Burger' in Draper. It's been many years since I went to one. That was in California. The food is good. There was a really long line of cars in the drive through. We drove to a park and ate our late lunch.

Be sure to view the post before this one. We went somewhere Friday night too! Believe me, thats a record to have two outings in two days. We rarely eat out and mostly we just work, and then hang out at home.