What's a father to do?

So its Junior Prom weekend and there's work to be done on the barn. The oldest daughter is at work fixing "up-dos" all afternoon. The oldest son is busy twirling his Smelting stick and doffing his top hat for beautiful ladies. So what is a father to do? Well if you're a father who has a daughter who likes to milk cows, play with steers, brand calves, and jump in a tractor bucket-- you recruit her. Karina and Brandon got a bunch of sheeting hung, and still made it to the promenade. Unfortunately, Jodi didn't get any really good pictures of Karina hanging off the edge of the bucket with the nail gun nailing an edge down while her dad was trying to get her a bit closer with the tractor.

Junior Prom

It was the weekend for the 2010 edition of the Junior Prom at Mountain Crest High School. Hayden and his buddy Harley Sampson asked a couple of sisters from Paradise, Jessica & Nicole Hansen to the dance. Hayden, Harley, Jess, and Nicole pal around quite a bit so they decided to make a night of it.

Hayden decided to go all out for the dance. As parents, neither Jodi nor I can take responsibility for the success or failure of how he looked or how the night went. As the pictures seem to attest, everyone looked great. I think Hayden was particularly proud of the job he did accessorizing.

Hayden, Harley, and the gals went to dinner at Elements. The dance was at the Riverwoods Convention Center here in Logan. We went for the promenade. Alana enjoyed the pretty girls, the pretty dresses, the decorations, and all the commotion.

The Grand Canyon-continued

The trip was fine until Bryson fell over the rim of the canyon and had to climb out. It looked like so much adventure that Alana, Karina, and Hayden all had to join in the fun.

The Grand Canyon

We can now "check" next to the Grand Canyon on Jodi's list of places we need to go and visit as a family. Surprisingly, our trip on a non-holiday, Wednesday did not mean no crowds. There were plenty of Germans, Chinese, Japanese, and French to go along with the American crowds.

It was impressive, spectacular, beautiful, awe inspiring, and all those things.

The wilds of Phoenix

When you think of Phoenix, proper, you usually aren't thinking of wilderness hiking. However, during our Spring Break trip, we were lucky enough to stay right at the edge of Phoenix's South Mountain Park. It's an amazing bit of desert wilderness stuck right in the middle of the valley of the sun. We had some fun morning hikes there with the saguro cactuses and all the quail.

Alana and Bryson had a ball clambering up the basalt piles, and we were even lucky enough to find a saguro boot that had been used as a nest.

Desert Botanical Gardens

"We didn't drink any Corona in Phoenix, Arizona" but we did go to the Desert Botanical Gardens which is over by the Phoenix Zoo.

If you ever wanted to learn anything about cactuses, this is definitely the place to go. Did you know that a Saguro (Sa-whu-ro) cactus can hold 1500 gallons of water and doesn't start growing arms until they are upwards of 50 years old? (Jeff and Barbie and their kids probably knew it, but we certainly didn't.) And those ridges on the side of a catus--did you know they are on a cactus so it can expand--like and accordian--when it fills up with water.

Bryson particularly like the snake cactus that created a Medusa-like garden. Alana enjoyed posing with these blossoms that were on hot pepper plants, of all things. We also had walked through an amazing butterfly garden. It was an enclosed garden almost 50 feet by 25 feet full of flowers, and all sorts of butterflies.

Kids and cameras.

The combination of kids and digital cameras which allow for relatively free, easily-taken and easily-disposed pictures has lead to the development of a new art form. I'm not sure if there is a formal name for it, but leave a digital camera in the hands of some kids who have free time on their hands and you are sure to end up with at least a couple of prime examples of this new form of expression. Here are a few to get you started.