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I got up today and told myself I was going to stop being a slacker and get into work today. Paul told me there have been reports of semi trucks being blown over on the freeway due to high winds up north and to drive safe. I looked out the window and it was calm. Not sure what he was talking about so off I went.

On the freeway, all was well until I was downtown and the winds started picking up. Maybe the news wasn’t exaggerating. I thought about turning around, but I was going to be good and go to work today! After wood chunks flew across the freeway in front of me, I called Paul and said I was a pansy and decided risking car damage wasn’t worth it. What is another day of not going into work 🙂

I exited the freeway and got off downtown. Every street I turned down looked like this.

Trees were down everywhere.

There is a car under this tree. You can see the tail light 🙂

An hour later I mad it home. As I pulled into my driveway, my employee called and said the power just went out. No worries, I said, and gave her instructions on how to handle a power outage. 10 minutes later she called and told me the high winds pushed a barrel across the parking lot and into our glass door.

Great. I turned around, drove to my parents to pick them up so we could repair the door. I can’t leave the store unsecure.

Out of the 10 years of owning stores, this is the second door repair we had to do.

The first door repair was a breakin at 2:00am. That was a fun repair. Do you know how many lumber stores are open at that hour? None. Reminiscing that night, good times.

Here is the barrel that caused the problem.

Cutting our new door. Yes, that is a power saw. Paul had an excellent idea to bring the generator. 🙂

See. We have done this before.

After the door was secured, we took temps of the fridge and freezer. They were still holding strong and haven’t changed temps for the last 3 hours so we took off and headed home.

Just before we left, we heard a large crash and the KFC sign next door was coming apart in the high winds. I prayed for the sign to fly past our store and not hit the windows in the front of our store. I don’t want to repair, or pay for, another window today. We were extremely lucky. I watched the sign fly across the street and it the McDonalds pole.

Later that night the power was still out. Not knowing when the power would turn on we couldn’t risk losing the freezer or the fridge. $2000 in food was at risk. We drove back up to unload.

Eli helped!

Loading up!

A truck and car full!

The Subway down the street was absolutely wonderful! They made room in their fridge and freezer for us. They totally saved us! I offered them a free footlong like I always offer for payment, but they said they had that covered . Ha!

It’s true. I pay my window washer in sandwiches. 🙂

The next morning our power was on. We rushed up to transfer our food back to our store. We were running pretty fast because we had several trips of loading up and dropping off food ahead of us. I was also racing against time. I had a lunch rush to prepare for and fulfill a giant catering order that I look about an hour ago. I need to make up for lost sales from yesterday!

I don’t know how much a case of bread weighs, but they are not light. Especially after throwing 15 cases I was getting tired. I was throwing them as fast as I could and I hit my head on the lock of the freezer. Brought tears to my eyes. No time to look at the wound. Had to keep going! 🙂

I couldn’t have done today without my parents! I had them prepping and baking, running to the bank, and doing a will call. As soon as my mother had bread in the proofer, I was putting premature bread in the oven. We had a line out the door for 3 hours. I couldn’t keep up with the bread. With other businesses around us being out of power we had a fantastic day! We double our sales, which made up for yesterday. So blessed.

My mother had to leave early so my dad stayed and helped me finish out the lunch rush and into the evening. Without a car we had to take the train home. It was kind of fun. This was the first time I have been on the front runner.

On the train home. I can’t thank my parents enough for all they do for me!

Drove to Brighton ski resort and hiked to lake Mary.

Checked out the ski lift.

So much higher during the winter

Stick your tongue back in.

At the trail head. We took the radios to keep little pea occupied. It’s only 2.6 miles, but the radios keep him occupied.

This was a very easy hike.

Doesn’t look as familiar as it does when everything is so white 🙂

Fun little bridge.

Lots of lakes up here. .5 miles more to go.

Moose!

Almost there.

Lake Mary. A small lake.

We climbed down the rocks to the lake for lunch.

This little guy was looking for lunch as well.

After lunch we decided to find a geocache. .2 miles away. I know that distance is how the crow flies, but it is a small lake. How far could it be?

Leading the way 🙂

Around the lake we saw yellow leaves. Fall is on its way.

The map said we are getting close. We started looking everywhere for it.

Beautiful valley.

We spotted a rock that looked like a great hiding place.

And we found the geocache. We looked inside, wrote in the log book and placed it back under the rock.

On the way back down. Looking at the moose that was still there enjoying his willow.

Almost down. We were high fiving our shadows.

A fun short hike!

This list is getting smaller and smaller as the weeks go by. So that means our life is pretty much back to normal. Paul is still working from home.

We are still going to church in the building once a month for 45 min. Everyone is required to wear masks while in the building. A true 5 year old. At least he has it on 🙂

Stores are still restricting the number of people inside. See the line to REI. Yeah, we drove by and came back another day. I’m not going to stand in a line to shop at a store.

Restricting the number of people has had it’s advantages. The water park only accepts reservations. When the reservations are full, the park entrance is closed. This made standing in line for slides very enjoyable. With less people in the park, the lines were pretty short. We were able to get in a lot of slides!

The heat has been crazy! Look at that temp 103′! Eli has been asking to go back to the water slides, so instead of going to our usual water slide park, we decided to try something new and we went to Cowabunga Bay.

Surprisingly this was a fun little place. So much fun we ended up purchasing season passes.

The entire park was perfect for Eli. Lots of colors and water everywhere. Going up the stairs, there are buckets that fill up with water. You wait for someone to pass under and dump on them. Too much fun! The slides were perfect as well. They were just the right speed, without a pool at the end. He was able to go down EVERY slide by himself.

The big splash!

We set out for the first time as a family for an overnight camping trip.

Even Eli carried his own little pack. He carried his sleeping bag and a mini lantern. We carried the rest. He did VERY well! Very pleased with him. No complaining. He kept hiking up the trail to the meadow.

We have hiked to this meadow hundreds of times and know the area quite well. We knew this would be the perfect spot for our first overnighter.

We wanted Eli to look back at his first backpacking trip and remember all the fun he had, so he would want to do this again. He is very motivated by food so we packed lots of snacks and treats to eat along the way.

We took our time and looked at EVERY bug and ant. Eli found a lot! So we stopped. A lot. 🙂

Paul had a wonderful idea to bring the radios. I’m sure glad he did. We had a fun time with them. We each had a hand held radio and we talked on them ALL the way up 🙂

Almost there!

We finally made it to our camping spot. Not quite a mile. Eli did wonderful!

We had to hurry and set up camp. We were worried about the dark clouds that were rolling in.

After the tent was set up, we played lots of games in the tent.

See how tiny our gear is? All that folds out for our sleeping bag, a sleeping mat and a sheet to go over the sleeping mat.

We hiked to the river to pump some water.

Set up the solo stove to start dinner.

Paul lighting the stove.

I wasn’t so sure of this, but it was the only vegetarian pouch Paul could find. Dehydrated lasagna? How good can that be?

This was easy to prepare. Boil water, pour the water into the bag and seal for 20 min. The bag was really hot to the touch. I had a hard time sealing it up because the seal was so hot. We set it on a rock and let it do it’s thing.

After 20 minutes I was sure it was going to be lukewarm. Touching the package even after 20 minutes, was surprisingly hot. When I unsealed the package steam came out.

The lasagna was REALLY good. I would purchase again and keep some around the house for emergencies.

Eli got a kick out of eating in the dirt and on rocks.

After dinner we looked for wildlife. We did spot a deer that came through close to camp.

We played a few games of hide and seek with the radios.

Time for Eli to hide!

Time for bed. I unpacked my bear spray 🙂

Lights out. Literally. The tent had lights. How fun is that!

The following morning, we had an easy breakfast of muffins.

Went for a very short hike around the corner. We have been coming up to the meadow for years, but have never hiked past. So, today was a great opportunity to see what was up there. Unfortunately we didn’t get very far. We needed to head back to camp, pack up, and head out.

Hiking back down.

We will never go on another hike again without the radios. 🙂

It was a fun and successful trip! We are excited for more overnight trips next year.

When we drove into the valley, I had to take a picture of the temperature. 105′! I’m heading back up the mountain where it’s cooler 🙂

Started my day!

I run to keep up with the breakfast calories! We made Waffle Love waffles with lemon curd, and real whipped cream. Okay, this really was dessert to start off the day. You can see the sugar pearls in the waffles 🙂 They were really sweet, but delicious.

We went to the water park. This is the only park that is open in the valley, so it was packed!

Eli didn’t care. He was shooting everyone with water.

He played with every kid at the park.

We had fun!

We came home and set up the tent in the back yard.

For dinner, they roasted hot dogs.

Eli’s school introduced him to hot dogs. He came home one day saying how delicious they were and we needed to try them. So we roasted them and he loved every bite.

I can’t do hot dogs. Hot dogs are 8992 reason why I’m vegetarian. Except for fish. I can do fish. So for dinner I had grilled tilapia with lemon sauce, mashed potatoes, and roasted chick pea salad with a dollop of avocado dressing.

Time for bed. Eli was too excited and had a hard time getting to sleep. He didn’t think we were serious about sleeping in a tent!

He had the best day and ended with the best night!

A little bit of random things during our week.

During one of my runs Eli found a spot to rest. I sure love this little boy.

My favorite bakery is finally open! They were closed for two weeks 🙂 Mrs. Bakers bakery. LOVE their cookies….

…and their cakes. Okay, everything in that bakery is my favorite! This is why I put in the miles. I don’t have any control 🙂

Went to the swimming pool. It’s the middle of August and this is the first time we have been out to a pool. I know, I know. But we are just not water people.

The grass at the pool. Social distancing circles. Ha!

Eli practiced floating on his back. He is really excited for swimming lessons this winter.

Working on his arts and crafts.

In church I asked him to put on his mask. I looked over and saw this. He is a true 5 year old.

Superhero! Lots of dressing up in costumes in our house. He has the best imagination.

Last of the randomness. I needed to get shoes for Eli’s school uniform. It was a challenge to find black on black with a low price point. He is so hard on shoes. I didn’t want to spend a lot, because I have to replace them often. After shopping around for a few weeks, I found some for $2.00!!

So I purchased 2 pair in every size! Ha!

Eli put on my floppy hat and said he was ready to go! We were ready too! We had a day of hiking planned.

We drove a few miles down the road to the trail head of Ruth lake.

The beginning of the trail was very rocky and dusty. About .5 miles in, it was green and VERY beautiful.

A fun little bridge to cross.

Every direction was just beautiful.

Many ponds along the way. The water was so clear, it reflected everything.

One mile and an hour later, we made it to Ruth lake.

After lunch, we walked around and we found lily pads! The last time I saw lily pads with flowers was in Giverny, France. This was a delightful surprise.

Lots of wild flowers.

We caught the end of wild flower season. If we were here 2 weeks ago, this place would have been blooming with color.

We walked around the lake and found many spots that would be great to set up a tent. Many plans were made today for next years backpacking!

On the drive back to the camp ground, we stopped at Pass lake do do some fishing.

Teaching Eli how to fly fish.

Back at camp, we took the boat out to do more fishing. On the other side of the lake we saw this rock river bed that went up the mountain. We wanted to see what was on top, so we docked and made our way up the river. Like I said, this is a day of hiking. 🙂

At the top of the river, we came to a secluded meadow.

These Uinta lakes are just the most beautiful lakes I have been to. After walking around a bit, we found another spot to do some camping. We have a lot planned for next year!

The second day at the lake was packed with fishing!

I started my day with running. Of course. Only 2 miles. The hills were brutal. Paul made me feel better telling me it’s harder to run in higher elevation. Okay, sure. 🙂

For breakfast we had mascarpone cheese pancakes and fruit. Due to being a crazy year, this was our first camping trip out with the trailer. I didn’t take inventory of what we needed before we left, we just packed what we needed and left. So today we found out we didn’t have cups or forks. The only cups we had in the trailer were mini dixie cups. 🙂

It was a great day to be out on the water.

Captain Eli! This was his highlight. He was constantly asking to steer the boat. And we were constantly asking him to turn away from the bank, other boaters, and to slow down! He kept cranking up the speed every chance he got.

When Eli wasn’t captain, this is where we found him. Hanging over the side playing with the water.

This is where you found me. Reading and snacking.

Eli caught his first fish!

After a few hours in the boat, he really wanted to get out and swim. He didn’t last that long. It was a nice day out, but the water was freezing!

That evening we had tin foil dinners. LOVE them. They are tasty and clean up is the best! Eli thought it was funny to put our food in the fire and then actually eat it! We had salmon, squash, mashed potatoes, and monkey bread. This is the first time I did bread in foil and it worked! It was a little toasty on the bottom, but that was easy to scrape off 🙂

Apple crisp for dessert. This is also a first for me. It turned out pretty good! We definitely will be doing this one again.

Not only was it tasty, but it was a bribe to get Eli to finish his squash. 🙂

That evening, Paul taught Eli how to fly fish. Listen to that laugh. We have such a cute little boy!

We had a wonderful 4 day stay at Trial lake.

I need to make note we stayed in camp site 9. This was the best spot in the campground. This was our view. No neighbors, just lake. It was also nice to head down the hill with the boat and not have to drag it across the camp ground and then down a hill.

Eli didn’t waste any time. He immediately pulled out his toys and played in the dirt.

And then played with water in the dirt.

Many buckets of water came up 🙂

That evening we made s’mores.

I didn’t have to ask little Pea to get into his pajamas that night, or any of the nights. He hopped in bed and was slurring his words while reading his book. He played hard!