Life in the Desert

I love living in the Las Vegas. Yes it is known to the world as, "sin city" but out where we live, this doesn't affect us. We get to take advantage of great restaurants and entertainment if we want to, but most of the time we are very oblivious to what goes down on the strip.
Mainly, I love the desert. I love the bright sun and blue sky that are abundant most of the year. I love being surrounded on all sides by desert. I love being able to drive 15 minutes from our house and be completley alone, no cars, or houses, or streetlights and discover what is there when the roads end....the red dirt and rocks and cactus. I love the paradox of the desert. How at first glance it appears lifeless but there is actually so much life that exists. I love beautiful, obvious scenery; I'd take a sunset on the North Shore of Hawaii any day of the week, but there is something undescribable about having to explore and search and discover the beauty in the desert. It somehow ends up meaning more. Edward Abbey, writes some pretty crazy stuff, but I love his book, Desert Solitaire. He loved the desert too. I agree with him that too many people drive through the desert and think there is nothing there. But if you got out of the car, and to quote him, "walk, better yet crawl, on hands and knees, over the sandstone and through the thornbush and cactus. When traces of blood begin to mark your trail you'll see something"
This year we decided to plant a garden. It takes a little extra loving to grow vegetables in this soil but it's starting to pay off. Here are some of our results.

ZucchiniGreen Peppers
And I can't wait for these little guys to turn red. Yum!!

Rite of Passage

The hot weather has arrived in Las Vegas. So yesterday I bought our first box of OtterPops for the year. For me this is truly a rite of passage into summer.

Utah

I took the kids up to Utah for Spring Break. It was good for me to go home. I loved seeing family and friends I seldom see and remembering happy moments with them. I loved being in the shadow of Timp. I sware besides not seeing everybody more often, that is what I miss most about living there. I love the rise of the mountain that literally sits in the backyard.

Other than rainy weather, Kellen sleeping worse than usual, and a flat tire outside of Cedar City (my worst nightmare) the trip was so fun. Here are a few highlights. (I'm sad I didn't get many pictures of everybody. )