Vacation, take 2

Last week Brycen and I returned from beautiful Southern Utah where we stayed with dear friends and family in Grover.

Nope, not that Grover. This small town was actually named after president Grover Cleveland, although before that the town was known as Carcass Creek. It sounds odorous, but Grover is actually one of my very favorite places to visit.

Brycen and I arrived on Thursday afternoon, just in time to meet everyone at the picnicking park in Capitol Reef and play some frisbee. On our way back I ran into the geology portion of the Visitor's Center to visit Cousin Emily who is doing an internship there. It was fun to see her, even if briefly, and we agreed to meet up that evening to play games.
When we returned to the campsite, Brycen wasted no time in setting up a slackline. Seeing as there are not really substantial trees in Southern Utah, a telegraph pole and the jeep did just fine. The boys all tried it out.
Even Mom gave it a shot.

And some people make it look soooo easy. But it's a challenge.

The highlight of the evening was that James, who had only just put his papers in, received his mission call the day after he left for Grover. My parents brought it down when they came down and resisted the temptation to peek (Good job Mom!), so James decided that he would open it that evening after dinner. He has way more patience and willpower than I.

Anxiously waiting for him to open his call...

"Dear Elder Gillespie," James read,

"You are hereby called to serve as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the Chile Ant..."
"ANTOFAGASTA!!" yelled out Karen and Emily in sync. They both served in Chile and needless to say were ecstatic for James to serve in the same area and to learn to love the same people and culture.

James was pretty excited too.

The next morning we ate a lovely meal and prepared to go on one of my absolute favorite hikes: to Calf Creek.

The crew:

I love Calf Creek because it's a short hike to such a fun place. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Brycen, did you have fun?
I think that's a yes.

Some people tried catching frisbees on the jump.

And some people did crazy jumps.

And some people did lovey-dovey jumps.

After we were done with jumping into freezing cold water, Brycen took anyone who was willing rapelling on a sweet cliff.

That evening we just relaxed and played games. I played with Rachel, Andrew and Nancy's four-year-old, and let me tell you, I haven't had such a good game of imagination since I taught preschool. It's been a while and I admit, I'm kind of rusty. Rachel is hard to keep up with to boot; no sooner would we land on a new planet (my suggestion of Neptune was quickly replaced with names like Grassy Green Planet and Pretty Planet) then we'd run right into whatever bad guy inhabited that planet (everything from hoards of bad aliens, to giants and wolves, to the mob that murdered Joseph Smith). It was quite the adventure.
After dinner I accompanied my parents on their date to Capitol Reef where Emily was putting on a presentation that evening. The presentation, titled "Will this kill me?" was about the plant life found in the area. You could tell a great deal of research went into the presentation, and Emily was well versed in her plant knowledge. The presentation was fun and interactive as well and we got to find plants that would cure everything from spider bites to baldness, and I learned that I have Harriman's Yucca in my front yard.
And that's the end. Back to real life now.