Daniel had a bit of trouble getting out of Washington and traveling to Utah. The Army is brilliant, as we all know, which is why they have his home of record listed as San Antonio, Texas, after he tried to change it twice. So we were thinking he was going to be flying home to Salt Lake on September 15th, but when he looked at his plane ticket they had him flying to San Antonio. They tried to tell him that he could fly to San Antonio and just pay for a flight from there to Salt Lake. Really??? Lets fly to San Antonio, which is even farther away from home, so that I can pay for my own flight to get back to my wife. Sounds like a brilliant plan, NOT! Daniel realized when he went to rent a car that he had left his licence with me to finalize on our land. So after receiving help from the really nice ladies at the Georgia DMV, Daniel rented a Charger and drove straight through from Seattle to Salt Lake City with no rest. I had booked a hotel for us for the night and met him there. We set out the following day to our new home in Cedar City.
Daniel wasted no time getting to work around the house. We needed a fence put up around our yard, so he scouted out some fencing that wasn't being used and bought a few fence posts.
He finally got you use the power tools that I had found a really good deal on. I was going to save them for Christmas, but I knew he would want to use them much sooner than that. He crafted a gate out of some old wood he found laying around and it works really well! I was very impressed with his workmanship!
There were some bricks in our yard that I guess used to box off a garden space. I told Daniel it would be nice to have a fire pit in our yard, and when I came out a little later he had this nice pit put together!
We picked up some beach chairs at a yard sale and we love to sit out in out back yard and enjoy the shade.
We have a nice tree in our back yard to give us shade. I wish we had taken a picture of the yard before Daniel Cleaned it all up so you could see the improvement! The yard was full of weeds and dog dodo and garbage. Now we have a nice yard to enjoy. The hill you can see in the background is going to one day have a chicken coup and maybe some rabbits.
One our favorite things to do is spend time in the mountains hiking and camping. We spent a night at Kolob Reservoir, which is a beautiful place, but too cold for swimming this time of year! I regret not having my camera, but I'm positive we will be returning soon. We took the the back roads to get there, but found them very steep and rugged. It was a beautiful drive, but to save the brakes on our new Toyota Tundra, we went out on the main road. The main route takes you trough parts Zion National Park, and we are excited to have access to some hiking trails that are part of the National Park. We also did an over night backpacking trip in the canyon not far from our house. Again, I forgot the camera. Silly me.
I did remember it for our hike up Ben Lomond peak though. This is us at the top, after 8 miles of uphill and torturous switchbacks. I found the hike to be difficult, but of course I am not as beastly as Daniel, who found it to be a walk in the park.
I'll say it was worth the view though, and being able to say that I did it.
There are no words to describe how blessed we feel to be able to be together once again.
