Waaaayyy too many pictures for one post!

What a day we had today! I should be playing catch up because I suck at blogging lately. But we had such a fun day, I have to document it!
Let's start with last night. Zaner boy did not want to go to bed. I thought he was asleep in his bed. Lew was doing some work for his brother Joey, so he was not home. I was cleaning up our bedroom. I went in the front room for something, and Zane was just lounging on the couch, in the dark, watching Letterman. And really, who can blame him?
I jumped and he just laughed, "I scared you, mom!"
Then this morning we were up and out of the house by 8:30 to go hike Timpanogos. Zaner was tired and cranky from watching the late night talk shows. Lew was stressed that we left too late. He was right. When we got to the entrance of the canyon, the sign said there was a 3 hour wait to get into the cave! THREEE HOURS!
Then when we went to purchase our tickets, (keep in mind it's 9:00) the next time slot was for 4:00. FOUR O'CLOCK!
We decided to just hike the thing and skip the cave part.
So here is the beginning of the hike. Look, this is the one and only time Zane smiled. He may have a future in the super model industry.

Has anyone been up Timpanogos recently? It's fun. It's hot. It's a work out. We made a few pit stops. They have a few little tunnels and caves along the way.

There are some little benches for your weak body to rest upon.

The trail has numerous slug bugs. Does anyone else play this game. Ruby and I play it on walks. If you see this fancy little metal slug bug in the concrete you can yell, "Slug bug" and deck the nearest person. Teaching violence to children is good, right?

Here is the view from above. The trail winds up the mountain in switch back fashion. Did I mention the trail is a mile and a half up? Did I mention Zane was cranky and I had to carry him on my shoulders on the way up or we would still be there? Did I mention Zane was cranky and Lewis carried him on his shoulders the whole way down?

We made it to the top. Ruby is tougher than nails and walked the whole way! It's a tough hike at the end and she was so strong! We took a little rest up top and the forest ranger was looking for people to fill in on the next tour because they were short 7 people. Dang! We didn't buy tickets! Anyway, back down the mountain.

I'm a bit rusty on my picture taking skills. But I just wanted to point out the little drop of dew on this dainty flower. These flowers just grow right out of the rocks.
I sometimes like to observe people. You will see all sorts of people. This one lady was there with her daughter. The mom was probably in her late 50's? She passed us, and at the bottom the pair turned around to do it again! And she was smiling!

Then there was a group of college age students. I only saw them for about 10 seconds, but it was apparent the different relationships in the group. A couple was just getting to know each other and flirting. They both liked one another. A different boy was so nervous talking to a girl. He liked her, she didn't like him. Poor guy.

Back to the hike. Ruby was getting in the grove of pictures and was ready to pose. Casual, yet athletic.

Carefree on the mountain? Or just wanting a picture to scare Grandma Deb?

I strongly dislike having my picture taken. But sometimes I want to remember that I was there. Zane was more than cranky and I had to pin him there for the shot.

We have not been up American Fork canyon very much. So we decided to do the whole Alpine Loop. It exits out of Provo. This is a picture of the scenery. We have been missing a really pretty area. There are ferns growing there! Ruby said that it was just gorgeous. We are going to plan a camping trip there soon.

When we got home we decided to go swimming. We had already been there once this week with my cousins (I'll post that later too). Today we went with Cassi and Bay and Deeg. Bay is a little fish. She loves the water. Ruby and Zane are getting better with the water. Deeg had a dunk the other day so he was not a big fan. We let the kids jump off the edge of the pool and we would catch them. Ruby and Bay could reach the bottom, so they jumped non-stop. Zane could not reach the bottom, but that did not stop him. Every time he went under, he bobbed back up with a huge smile on his face.

Here's the fam.

Our next adventure of the day was building a fire pit in the back yard! Yummy smores. Lew's fellow engineer and his wife came over for some treats. They also have a boxer so we swapped stories of being knocked over by our dogs.

It was a great day. To end things on an even better note, Zane said his first bed time prayers!

Happy Fourth of July!