Hamburger Cakes, Timpanogos Cave, and Herriman Lake

These are the cupcakes I made for Father's Day. Hamburgers just seemed "guyish" so the cookie on top felt like an appropriate choice.

Timpanogos Cave

On Wednesday, June 23, Hayden, Brooke, Gage, and I went on the hike up Timpanogos to the caves. The hike up was challenging and narrow, but we did it!

Here we are inside the first of three caves. At first, Hayden was a little nervous, but then he decided that being inside a cave was pretty neat.

Above is the "Heart of Timpanogos" (there's also a red light behind it that makes it light up--I just didn't get a picture of it).

The Park Ranger had Hayden stand under a carrot shaped stalagtite(?), and had him see how long it took for water to drip on him.

After we went through the caves, we sat down on some benches for lunch. I had gotten an activity book from the visitor's center beforehand so Hayden could do the necessary pages to become a Jr. Park Ranger. He completed the activites while we ate, interviewed a Park Ranger, and threw away some garbage. When we made it back down the mountain, he was sworn in as a Jr. Ranger, and he even got a cool badge that he's showing off in the picture above.

Herriman Lake

Later that evening, we went to a Party at Herriman Lake. It's a manmade lake with fun little beach attached. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the birthday boy, Ty, but I did get some pictures of Hayden with Abby. One of the first things Hayden did when we got there was go on a canoe ride. Then he swam for awhile in the water, played in the sand, had some dinner, went back in the water, and then ate birthday cake. Somewhere in there he went on a second ride in the canoe, too.

Marathon, Zoo, and Swimming

So last weekend (June 12) was the Utah Valley Marathon. It was cold and rainy--I think that I'm trying to overcome some of my racing fears. Last marathon it was lack of sleep and feeling sick/nervous, and this time it was the weather. I had to leave my house around 3am so that I could catch one of the earlier buses up to the start line. The race started in the canyon--in fact most of the race was a canyon race. I felt pretty good until mile 20 or so. At that point I wanted to stop or walk--just not run. I had stayed ahead of the 3:40 flag pacer this long so I wanted to try and keep going. Unfortunately, around mile 22 the flag passed me so I know that I was going to have a longer time. There seemed to be more hills in this race than I had anticipated, but overall the course was pretty good. It did rain and I was soaked and the wind picked up about halfway through the race. Oh well, I was glad to have finished and my time ended up being 3:45:51. After I made it across, I did lay down in the med tent for a bit. I felt light headed and I didn't think that trying to fight the crowd was such a good idea at that particular moment. Eventually, I hobbled around long enough to find my jeep, and made the drive out to Eagle Mountain to get Hayden and then back home. Yay...another marathon down.

The Zoo

On Monday (June 14), I took Hayden and Emma (one of my former Enrichment students) to the zoo. It was great weather and it was nice to get out for a bit. The kids had a great time and I'm not sure that 3 hours of zoo exposure was enough for them.

I was trying to get both kids in (successfully) the picture and the elephant in the middle of them.

Swimming

Friday, June 18 we went swimming at the Treehouse after I had finished teaching my class. We met Abbi, Ty, and Michelle there and Hayden had a great time.

Taking a break and having a little lunch.

A picture of the group. Hayden wasn't too happy about having his picture taken. He actually wanted to be the photographer instead.

Bryce Canyon and Camping