Cecret Lake

Last night I decided I wanted to do a hike today. I texted a few people but thought it would just be me and three of my kids, Cora, Owen and Sadie. Jacob was at a friends. As we were walking out the door a friend texted saying she was coming! I was happy to have an extra adult I always get a little worried going by myself. Nathan, Cassy, Brooklynn and Blake met us at the mouth of the canyon.

We went to a little tiny lake called Cecret Lake which it up Little Cottonwood Canyon. The trail head is at the Albion Basin Campground. I checked the map numerous times to make sure I knew where I was going. HOWEVER!!! The road was closed!!!! We ended up walking 2 miles to the trail head! But once we got there and got on the trail it was easy and so beautiful!

The trail was pretty easy starting out but once we got a ways in I wondered how they determined this was "easy". It was a pretty steep climb to the top but once there you see the beautiful lake! It is a run-off lake so it is a lake from all the snow and it was sooo cold! It had a no swimming sign but we did stick our feet in as long as we could handle it! I had so much fun! It is so awesome to see the wonders God has created for us and they are right here in our back yard!! I always forget the majesty of these mountains we have!

Walking up the trail

Playing in a stream

Pretty water fall coming from the lake!

Hiking to the top!

Just over the ridge is the lake!

View of the lake!

Self Portrait!

Cassy, Nathan and Blake

Sadie

Owen, Cora, Brooklynn

I think I am gonna plan this one again for about a month out. I hear there are a zillion wildflowers that bloom mid-July into August! And the meadows we walked through on the way back down I'm sure will be in full bloom! Plus I will know the shorter way! We saw a lot of people coming up that way when we got to the trail head so we took that way back and I think it took half the time to get back!

On our way home I had to pull over to take a picture of the valley! You can see the Kennecott Coppermine and a bunch of roads! I love how the mountains come together!

On a side note, we did the Temple scavenger hunt yesterday. I will post pictures and figure out how to share the document! Two fun, fun days in a row and I think tomorrow will be full of fun too!

a day of the sweet spirit

So I have felt really sad since the funeral because I didn't take a flower. So I decided Iw as going up today to scavenge one before they all died. To my delight the beautiful roses on grampa's casket were laying on the ground so we got some beautiful roses. A few of the flower arrangements were tipped over so I fixed them.





while there I wanted to find my great great grandfathers headstone. I had seen it in one of my cousins pictures, he told me approximately where it was and I found it very easy. It is so hard to read. Once grampa's headstone is back I will take some paper and chalk and go chalk them both. It is beautiful, don't you think?



After visiting grampa we went looking for President Hinkley's marker also. it was cool, I loved the trinkets and coins that are left for such a great man!




of course we had to get a snap shot of Marjorie's also, Don's family comes from her great grandmother. so cool! I walked for her during trek last year! did I ever blog about that? I better check ;)



so of course we had to go look for Emo's grave too. while looking we found president Wilford Woorduff's also, it made me remember there is many many prophets buried at the Salt Lake Cemetery. I think maybe I will look them all up get addresses and we could spend the day chalking!



While we were driving downtown I remembered that next week for our weekly activity we were gonna go down to temple square to do a picture scavenger hunt. I found some pictures online but wanted to get a few of my own so we parked paid the meter for an hour and a half and went to work. we got tons of pictures!! It was way fun! I won't share any of the scavenger hunt pictures but here are a few of my favorites that I took!







one last picture, it is so cute of Sadie and her rose!




I am still tired but I feel my strength coming back. I miss Jacob so much, he has been at scout camp all week and I can hardly wait till tomorrow when he comes home!!!

Grampa's Obituary

Harold Dunster Eldredge
1917 ~ 2012
Harold Dunster Eldredge passed away on June 15, 2012 at the age of 94.
He was born on October 20, 1917, at home in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was the third child of Lawrence Dunster Eldredge and Mabel Emery Eldredge.
He attended school at Emerson Elementary, Roosevelt Jr. High, and South High.
Harold married his high school sweetheart, Anna Sorensen on April 22, 1938 in the Salt Lake Temple. They had 10 children and 1 foster child and enjoyed their 63years of life together until Anna died on July 5, 2001. Salt Lake City, Utah.
He was employed by the U. S. Postal service for 37 years. He started as a substitute letter carrier at 18 years of age and retired as the Superintendent of Delivery and Collection.
He was also a co-owner with two of his brothers, Douglas and Claude, of Eldredge's Bike and Mower Sales and Service which provided an opportunity to work side by side with his sons.
An active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Harold served in many positions of leadership and responsibility, including scout master. He and Anna served as proselyting missionaries in the Virginia Roanoke Mission and twice in the Utah Salt Lake North mission as Welfare Missionaries to the Cambodian Refugees. They also served as ordinance workers in the Salt Lake Temple beginning in 1982. She was released in the early nineties and he was released in 1999. After Anna's death he resumed his temple service in the fall of 2001. While serving there, he met a wonderful lady, Maureen Stout, and they were sealed on May 27th 2004 in the Salt Lake Temple. The day will come when he has an angel on each side. Maureen is the mother of 17 children (16 living).
Harold had a love for missionary service and all 7 of his sons served as have 28 children as of now.
The family expresses their appreciation to the staff and care givers at Carrington Court Memory Care Center for their tender care to our father.
Preceded in death by his parents, his wife Anna and daughter Carolyn Murphy.4 grandchildren: Kenneth W. Eldredge, and 3 great grandchildren : Youhon Song, aka Sunny Eldredge,Sage Eldredge and Ian Murphy. Survived by: children, John (Nila) Eldredge, Larry (Brenda) Eldredge, Ione (Dennis) Bush, Shirley (Marc) Rood, Bryan (Mary) Eldredge, Chris (Cathy) Eldredge, Gloria (George) Lavender, Roger (Debbie) Parr, Dan (Christine) Eldredge, Vance (LuJean) Eldredge and son in law Mike Murphy. He has sixty two Grand Children, 159 Great Grand children and 1 Great Great Granddaughter.
Funeral services will be held Tuesday, June 19th at 1830 East 6400 South at 12:00 PM. Friends may visit with family members on Monday evening from 6-8 p.m. at Larkin Mortuary at 260 East South Temple or Tuesday morning at 1830 East 6400 South 10:30-11:30 AM. Interment at Salt Lake City Cemetery.
Online condelences can be sent to www.larkinmortuary.com

Published in Deseret News from June 17 to June 18, 2012
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no one said it would be easy...

A few years ago as I realized my grandfathers diagnosis wasn't good I broke down, I was very sad for months. I mourned a man that hadn't physically passed.
I wrote: Grampa, the last few months I have seen my grampa loose his memory. At first it was here and there. Now he is almost gone. He doesn't remember anything or anyone. It is like someone took his every memory. I am not with him a lot but what I see is sad. I know his time on earth is coming to an end. I don't want this to happen. I love my grampa. I feel like he is already gone. I need to embrace him but I don't know how.

So I think that must have been in 2009. it wasn't dated but the notebook it is in has stuff from January 2010.

I embraced his life, I embraced his memories. On Thursday I got a call from my sister wendy asking if I had gotten dad's email. She said it said Grampa wasn't doing well. Honestly I wanted to visit him every week. I drove past and ran past the care center he was in at least once a week. I only went once it was soo hard to see his shell of a body. He wasn't there, he looked right through me. But I knew it was time to return. I did. We finished lunch then went there. Many people were circled in his room. his deep raspy breathing was difficult to listen to. We sat and chatted with the family for a while then said our goodbye. I leaned over and told my sweet dying grampa I loved him, and gave him a kiss, his skin was so soft, so hot. I broke down and felt like a ran out of the room. I came home and felt I was okay with his passing. later in the evening we went for a drive, I was pulled back to grampa for another goodbye, the final goodbye. He was much paler, his breathing much deeper. We stayed for a long time then decided it was time to go.
Thursday night we packed and decorated our vehicle with Haroldism's (funny things grampa would always say) Headed to bed way too late and got up early. We drove to Logan for our race. Funny thing. The first time I did Ragnar I saw one of my cousins and the thought came to put a cousin's team together. I have a ton of cousin's who run! I bet we could fill two teams! I tried but failed. then last year after talking to Anna we tried again. this time we had 7 family members on our team and we named it Harold's Angels. As we stood together at the start line, taking team pictures of our Van, the phone rang. It was Dad. Grampa had passed. We cried we hugged we said a prayer and I was called to the line. This indeed would be a special weekend.

It was so hard to run. I cried thinking about grampa. I prayed he would be with me while I ran. The first run was ok, different terrain than I was used to so it was hard. Second run I was completely exhausted. I didn't want to be there. I had 8.4 miles to run. I think I cried through at least 4 of them. I prayed for strength. I told myself no one is gonna pull you out of this one, you gotta do it. I decided the more I ran the quick I would be done. I picked it up and started running. I didn't have headphones. All through my run I heard people's footsteps come up on me and pass. At one point I heard footsteps and thought oh another kill for someone else. but they never passed. I glanced back and no one was there. this happened 5-6 times, hearing foot steps but no one there. Pretty sure I had someone running with me. I was able to catch 2 people and pass them too. I talked to Grampa while I ran.

So that is my Ragnar experience. This post has taken me 5 days to write. I will post about the funeralin my next post but it might take me a few days because it is still fresh and losing my grampa is soo much more harder than I thought it would be.

Ensign Peak

I kept telling myself that this summer would not be spent indoors on the computer, TV, Wii and all the other electronic objects I didn't grow up with. Today we start day 5 of summer break and it has been pretty cold and windy so ya we've been hanging out with all out E-friends. I get a little break while the kids ride their bikes to the local school for the free lunch program they have during the summer. I enjoy those little minutes of time to regroup my brain. Our real friends have been hanging out with us also.
On our schedule for this week was a little hike to Ensign Peak. I have grown to love the pioneer history we have to strongly here in Utah. Ensign Peak has a beautiful Pioneer rich history. 2 days after the pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young and 8 other men hiked to the top of a nearby peak and looked out upon the valley and planned how it would be set up. He then declared that let this point be an ensign to the world and thus it was named Ensign Peak.
It was a quick hike, we were up and down in less than an hour. It was my siter Bridgette and her kids and me and my kids and Rachel, my niece, since she had been staying with us We took our time going up and were at the top for a while too. It was a beautiful day, a little cold and windy but over all it was gorgeous!
Now looking at all the pictures I see we don't have a picture of the view of the valley :( It is amazing to look down into the valley and see the roads go out forever!

Kids by the big Sign. President Hinkley dedicated this park in 1996 for a place of peace, remembrance and meditation. This huge stone sign is awesome!


View of the valley on the way up, this is looking out in the East, the big domb you can see is up at the University of Utah, It is the Huntsman Events Center


Kids made it to the top before we did!!


The kids and me at the monument at the top


all the kids at the monument

Kids are out!! but first, let's enjoy Sunday

After a long fun filled Saturday not to mention 2 late nights in a row I woke up not feeling at all like I wanted to go to church. And you know it wasn't even my ward I was going to. I had 2 of my cousins blessing babies. In our church when a baby is born chosen priesthood holders (usually related to the baby, close friends) make a circle and give the baby a name and a blessing. It is a beautiful tradition and then of course there is always food after! Ok but I got up and really didn't want to go I just wanted to chill in my bed all day. It felt great to be able to sleep in!! Their church started 2 hours after ours did so technically I could have gone to sacrament meeting but 1 is so hard for the kids to sit through so we didn't go to ours.

We got there and when we pulled up the church was so beautiful! there was a big stained-glass window, which is not common in our faith! I was excited to see it from the inside!! As we walked in and sat down we noticed the beautiful organ, it had pipes and everything! It was soo amazing! We sat and watched the boards open and close as the lady played prelude music. I immediately felt peace, like I was home, where I was supposed to be.

The meeting started the babies blessed, then came testimony meeting. Testimony meeting is a time when anyone from the congregation can get up and bear their testimonies. I usually dread this meeting because in our ward there are a hand full of people that get up every month and say pretty much the same thing and I feel it takes away from the spirit. This is probably just my opinion but I would prefer to hear from others. I think my cousin was the first to get up, he lives in the ward and blessed his baby. It was so beautiful to hear his testimony because he had fallen away from the church for years. Next a lady got up and introduced herself. Her name was Heidi. Her testimony was very touching. She said how she loves whenever she goes anywhere in the world when she walks into an LDS church it always feeling like home. It was exactly what I was feeling. The she told how she was so miserable at work one day she got on her knees and told the Lord she didn't want to feel miserable any more she wanted to feel happy, because we live the plan of happiness. She said a couple other beautiful things but that is what I remember. I wished I had my paper to write down more. The next lady that got up talked about when she lived in Ecuador and wasn't able to watch general conference but how it eventually changed and she could watch it at a building in her city. All the members in the city would get together. She said she never connected "The Liahona" (spanish LDS magazine) and general conference. After she connected the two she really grasped the Liahona and read it a lot more, then she moved to the states and would spend the whole weekend down town enjoying conference, then when she got a laptop she would lock herself in her room and be able to watch it privately. She had a beautiful testimony of general conference and the church magazines. I was in tears many times this day. Tears rolled down my face, I am so grateful I went to the meeting and didn't stay home and miss out on the sweet spirit of that great ward!

KIDS ARE OUT!!! SUMMER IS HERE!!

On the first Saturday of Summer break we went to the Library grand opening/summer reading kick off! They have a huge party for the summer reading kickoff. we have gone for the last couple years. It is always a blast. In April they closed our library to prepare our brand new beautiful one!! So this year was extra special and we were there for the ribbon cutting! They had some different shows going on, we saw a reptile show, a magic show, there was music being played and lots of fun booths! We also saw lots of our friends! Oh and Rachel, my niece, was with us.



Rachel reading a book called 'Potty'

Fun new LIBRARY sign, can you see it?

Toucan is the county library mascot

Ribbon cutting with Mayor Johnson

Kids on the train!

Owen