Mormon Well Road - Husband Guest Post

This post is cross posted with Mike's Jeep Law blog here. Angela was disappointed she didn't go on this drive after looking at the pictures.

My son Jasper has lived in southern Nevada for all of his three and a half years. In that time, he's had snow in his yard just once, and that was when he was just over a year old. He's seen snow when visiting family in Utah, but that's a lot of driving and he's only seen it a few times. As a result, snow is still very exotic to him.

This last week I decided to take Jasper on a ride on the Mormon Well Road. It runs across the Desert National Wildlife Refuge from US-93 (near Coyote Springs) to US-95 (north of Las Vegas). The night before we were going to go on this run, it rained all across southern Nevada, but I knew that it would have been cold enough to snow at higher elevations. The morning of our run, it wasn't surprising, then, to see that there was snow on the mountains we would be driving through. The only question remaining was whether or not the snow would be far enough down the mountains to interfere with our drive.

As we were driving up US-93 to the start of the road, Jasper noticed the snow on the mountains. He immediately got excited and began asking me if we were going to the snow. I truthfully didn't know, but I thought it likely based on the snow I was seeing. When we turned onto the Mormon Well Road, the mountain in front of us had a healthy amount of snow on it. Seeing this, Jasper was all the more excited and was convinced we would driving through the snow. I knew we would be turning before getting to that mountain, so I tried to temper his enthusiasm. However, it wasn't long until it became clear that we would be seeing at least some snow.

At this point, I knew we had another thousand feet of elevation gain, so I told Jasper that we would not be getting out at that spot. A few miles later, the snow was indeed getting deeper, and I let Jasper out to play a bit. Before I could get his winter coat on, he ran off to discover what he could discover. It seems that the first conclusion he came to was that he was cold. He asked for, and was promptly provided, his heavy coat.

I expected that the snow would continue to get deeper before it went away and so we pushed on. I had prepared myself to turn around if conditions were too bad, or if I found it difficult to identify the road but due to the trees and heavy brush it was pretty easy to identify where the road was and wasn't. I just drove through the gaps that were big enough for the jeep. We got to a spot where the snow was close to a foot deep (in places) so we got out to play again.

I am happy to report that my Jeep did a marvelous job in it's first snow action. My Cooper Discoverer STTs gave me great traction in the snow. Jasper was particularly interested in the tread pattern and very much enjoyed looking at the Jeep's tracks. Hopefully we'll get to the snow again soon.

Rockefeller Mine Road - Husband Guest Post

I have been surprised at how many good Jeep tracks there are near our home in the desert, but I shouldn't be. Most of the early inhabitants (except the native americans, of course) came to Nevada in search of shiny rocks and the many things you could buy with them. Of course, these miners went all over in their search, and left lots of roads behind them. Rockefeller Mine Road (Download KML file here) is one such road.

In order to get to this road, drive south on US-95 until you get to Searchlight. It's an old mining town that benefits from being on a major road. Turn left towards Cottonwood Cove, and this route branches off the main road shortly after the fee station for the Lake Mead Rec Area. You'll pass Harry Reid Road on the drive out there ... try not to stop, there are better things to see once you get off of the pavement.

The road is not difficult if you have a 4wd, high clearance, vehicle. There are a couple of places where the traction is a little iffy, but mostly this is just a rocky and sandy road, but more rocky. You should be able to make good time.

There are a lot of things to enjoy about this trail. The geology is varied, and there are great photography opportunities. There is the history cut from stone, wildlife galore (for a desert) and some strong stands of teddy bear chollo. These really are some neat cactus ... so cuddly looking, and yet so prickly. We also saw eagles and a pack of coyotes in addition to the predictable lizards and ground rodents. All in all, a great drive.

Cross posted at my husband's Jeep Law blog.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day from our home to yours!

My talented friend Heather Smith designed Jasper's Valentine's for him.  She currently has a cute Valentine Bingo you can download for free.

Here are the links to Jasper's Valentine's from last year, and the year before that that I made using a template from Heather Ann Designs.

I am excited to try these hidden message hearts for an activity during Family Home Evening tonight.  It looks like a lot of fun, and Jasper loves ANYTHING to do with paint.

I love it when Mike happily helps around the house.  Nothing says I LOVE YOU more than waking up to the kitchen, living room, bathroom, laundry room and hallway sparkling clean and mopped.  Then to top it off he steam cleaned our shower that he already scrubbed a couple of days ago!  Whew! He is AMAZING!

Happy Valentine's Day to me!

Mean Maggie

Last night for Family Home Evening we had a lesson on "Love" and read a short story from the 2007 issue of The Friend called, "Mean Maggie."

Jasper really got into the story and decided that from the description of Maggie she sounded like one of his favorite bad guys, the Queen of Hearts in the Alice in Wonderland ride at Disneyland.

I think it was the shaking of the fists and yelling that made him draw the comparison.

Lesson learned:  If your Family Home Evening lesson REMOTELY relates to a ride at Disneyland you have a captive audience.

Valentine Making Mania

We are knee deep in the making of Valentine's.

Jasper has a Valentine party at school on Thursday and his assignment is to bring homemade Valentine's.  As you know, that is messy business...to say the least.

We're also having a Valentine's party at our home and I am going totally old school and asked the kids to make and bring a Valentine box and Valentine's.

So far Jasper wants to make a pirate ship, a spaceship or a container of chocolate milk.  I am not sure which one we will make.  I would like to point out that I am trying to work with Jasper's limited artistic ability, and yet still have him make them. This is quite a challenge.

One item that helps with this is the  Dot-a-Dot rainbow paint markers.  Jasper uses these at preschool and they are his favorite.


We buy them from Lakeshore Learning and they cost $15.  We're signed up for frequent flier club there which gives us 15% off everything all the time, and I usually only buy stuff when they have 20% off coupons, which brings the price down to $10.  You can also get them on Amazon too.   They are well worth it -- in my opinion.

I saw the idea to put paint in bottle lids and knew that would be a much better method than the tiny cups we normally use.  Jasper loves painting and swirling the colors.

Our kitchen table is now such a mess (CRAFT EXPLOSION as my husband would say) that we are eating in the formal dining room for the next two days.  I am opening up our craft zone for our friends to use on Tuesday and Wednesday from 4:00 to 6:00 PM.






  
Why make a mess at your house when you can do it at mine????

My BRILLIANT friend Heather designed these cute Valentine cards with Jasper's photo on them and we are, shall we say, EMBELLISHING them.  After all - the assignment from school is to bring homemade Valentine's.

Next up, we still need to make our treats -- homemade suckers!

Happy Chef

Jasper LOVES to help in the kitchen.   

He thinks I can’t cook anything without him.  He thinks he's the only one who knows how to run the mixer.

The other day he decided to wear his Mickey Mouse Ears while helping me make some whole wheat banana mini-muffins. 

Jasper is addicted to them and starts having a panic attack if he thinks we are running out.

I took them to church for our treat in Sunbeams a week ago and Jasper proudly told all the other Sunbeams, "I MADE THESE!"

So this Sunday when I gave them some cookies they all asked if Jasper made them.  

The funniest part is that they were Lemon Creme Sandwich Cookies from Wal-Mart still in the package!

Gotta love my Sunbeams!

Happy February