Pine Creek 9-25-2009

We did this amazing hike in Zion National Park, with the most awesome sights. This hike included seven rappels, the longest being a free rappel of 100 ft. Terril Honey was kind enough to lead us on this hike. It was Terril, Kevin, David, Julie, Dean and me in our group. Kevin and David were experienced climbers/rappellers, and Julie has gone on other rappels with us before. This was a blast! I have never been in water so cold before.

This is the final 100 ft free rappel. AWESOME!

Bear Lake

Our friend Odette asked us to help her put a sealant on her driveway up at Bear Lake. We jumped at that chance. We love any chance we get to go up to Bear Lake.

We had a pretty sweet system worked out....Dean would pour the sealer, and slosh it around with the broom, Ej would squeegee off the excess, and Odette would lay it out with the roller to take out any squeegee lines. We got pretty dang good!
The colors up there were amazing! These were taken right by our old cabin.

Sorry for this post.....

I'm going to apologize ahead of time for this post....but it's all part of the experience.

We are 12 days away from running our first full marathon....the St. George Marathon, Oct. 3, 2009. Last week we ran our final long run, 25.24 miles. It was great, and amazing to me to think that I can run that far. Made me so excited for the marathon. I'm no longer wondering if I can do it, I know I can. I felt great after the run, tired muscles, but not sore at all. Then when I went to bed that night, my toe stung. Kind of weird...it didn't hurt at all during my run. One of the side effects of putting in that many miles is "black toenails". Yep, that's what my problem was.

I've had black toenails before, but they never hurt, just were ugly. I couldn't put on shoes the next day, so I had to were my Teva's everywhere. I went to play volleyball, and that was not going to happen with closed toe shoes, so I wore my Teva's and it was just fine. Then next couple days, no running, just biking in the open toed shoes.


I was getting nervous, because I have to keep going on my runs....so Dean figured out the answer to my problem.
We altered my shoes, and I was able to run 4 miles on Saturday, no toe pain at all!



Dean has also had a few issues with his toenails.

Lake Powell

August 31-September 5, 2009


Paul and Carolyn Fountaine, Ferrell and Deann Fountaine, Scott and Penny Broussard, Dean and Erika Ellis, and Fred and Lin Law

We pulled out the ropes and harnesses, and decided to rappel into the water. It was a blast!

Dean and Erika

Scott.....

Then it was Penny's turn....from the look on her face, you could tell something was going wrong

Penny managed to get her feet above her, and wasn't able to get right side up again!


Scott was there to make everything okay....I don't think I have ever seen anything so funny!

Dean and I went exploring and found this really cool slot canyon. We wedged our boat in, and jumped off the front and started swimming...for about an hour, till we finally came to the end of the water, but the slot canyon kept going. So amazing!


On the way home from our adventure, we stopped to make phone calls, and when we tried to start up again, the starter had broken. We had to have Fred tow us home. We had Mike DeMie pick up a new starter for us, take it to the Guests, who were coming down the next morning....Guests' plans changed, so we headed to Page and bought an new starter....Dean installed it....

...and we were up and running again! My Hero!

This was a great trip. Perfect weather, not too crowded, lots of great food, and plenty of adventure!