Provo River outing

When we all went to the dinosaur museum a few weeks ago, my dad had said he knew a place where we could go and dig for fossils.  We planned to go sometime when he had a day off, and he called a few days ago and asked if we wanted to go this weekend.  Of course we did!

Sadly, we didn't realize it cost $85 PER PERSON to go in and dig at this fossil quarry, sooooo we decided to save that for another time.

Instead, we went up to the Provo River Falls and took some pictures.  It was a beautiful day, and up in the mountains it wasn't very hot.  Of course, there were a ton of people there as well, but it was still beautiful country.  After exploring the falls, we went downstream a bit for Nick to do some bug sampling.  As we walked back to the car, we were stopped by at least a dozen different people who wanted to ask about and pet Korra.  Apparently she is the most beautiful dog people have ever seen!  She had random strangers picking her up and kissing her all day!

On our way downstream, we saw some people parked on the side of the road taking pictures of each other in front of the woods.  But when we looked behind them, we saw what they were really photographing: a momma moose and her calf!  In Utah!  Oh, that made my day!  I haven't seen moose since I was back home.  I mean these things were scronny and tiny like deer, but they were still moose and we stopped to get pictures as well.

A little ways down the river, we picked a spot to hang out for a bit.  While Nick sifted away through the water, my dad and I watched as Tristan played with rocks on the river bed.  I showed him how to toss them in the water, and he was so excited by the splashes they produced, her started doing it as well.  Inching closer and closer to the water with each throw, eventually he had both legs in the water and was squishing dirt in his fingers.  He loved it!  Then he stood up to walk into the water, but I took his hand and pulled him away.  A minute later, he had inched back down, and this time when I tried to pull him away, he sat down in the water.  So he was muddy and soaked.  Haha, I gave up and just let him get dirty.

Until I noticed him drooling a considerable amount.  I thought he might have been sampling the river water, so I tried to pull his hands away.  But I noticed his lips were puckered.  Oh crap!  I stuck my finger in his mouth and pulled out a GIANT rock!  Silly kid, he screamed in protest as I tossed it away, but promptly reached down for another.  I slapped it away before he could get it in, and that was that.  He had a complete meltdown.  He was shrieking and screaming, and trying to throw himself on the ground as I dragged him away up to the car.  My dad helped as I stripped Tristan down to his skimpies, washed him with a wipie, and changed his dirt and poop encrusted diaper.  Yummy (did I mention he has been a Diarrhea-Dan for the last few days?…..)

Poor Tristan, I didn't let him get back in the river after that.  Nick however was able to find a bunch of cool bugs and a small scuplin (fish).  He had me hold it for a picture, telling me it would be lifeless out of the water, but of course it was anything but and I almost dropped it as it flopped to get away.

Our last stop before heading home was a couple of ponds around a natural spring.  Nick was hoping we could find some salamanders in the muck, but we only found beetles and dragonfly larvae.  That's okay, it was still fun to hike around together.  I had to potty, but the outhouses were full of bees, so Nick took me to a spot in the woods behind the outhouses, where there were even more bees!  He and my dad laughed at me as I dodged and ran from every single on I saw all day (because I always would scream when they got close).  What?  I HATE bees!

Driving back towards Heber, we noticed it was considerably smokey out.  Eventually, we saw a big fire that had started while we were gone at Jordanelle reservoir, right behind the camp grounds (where we were just two weeks before for a ward activity!!)  Pretty crazy huh?  You'd think people would be more intelligent about fires after such a bad fire year, but noooooooope.

We had milkshakes and burgers at Granny's, and quaint little joint in Heber that has fabulous food, and then dad took us home.  Tristan screamed the ENTIRE way from Heber to provo.  At least Korra was super well behaved the whole trip.  She mostly sat in her carrier and slept, so we can say we have one well behaved child, haha.

Ahh, I'm glad we were able to get out of town and have a nice relaxing and very enjoyable day.  My dad doesn't mind Tristan screaming, he calls it "singing", and doesn't mind when Nick and I try to get him to stop.  Hahaha, it's pretty funny, and he just laughs at us.  I guess that just comes with being a grandparent, you don't care about babies screaming anymore, because you've been there and done that. I don't know if I will ever develop a tolerance to screaming!  But, screaming aside, we had a fantastic day!

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(Nick)

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Nick was a bit of a camera hog today, but he did get some amazing shots.