Powder Mountain

Every year the Pinnell family tries to make it up to Powder Ridge Resort for a vacation of fishing, jet-skiing, swimming, eating good food, and relaxing at the condo. 

Here are some lake photos taken with Todd's iphone:

32 Weeks Prego:

Asher Manning the wave runner:

 Natalie helped the kids catch fish

Bridger built a sand castle on his head :)

Nice catch!

Ashley and Bridger chillin'

Fishermatt

Johnny snoozing "peacefully"

Muscle man!  He was the star of the day- so cute and mischievous we couldn't stop watching him :)

Baby Thomas

Alee staring into the sun

Tiff and Thomas

Merman and merkid!

Todd going for a dive

Johnny and Sam snorkeling with the 2-inch visibility in the water ha ha

Mermaid, er, man...

Matt and Dax

We had this whole stretch of beach all to ourselves- it was awesome!

Sam snorkeled even when he wasn't in the water

Ashley giving me mothering tips

Home Office

To make room for baby H Todd and I built a home office in the living room.  We pieced together odds and ends from KSL, second hand furniture stores, garage sales, and Lowe's to create the masterpiece.  It cost less than $200, and to be honest the most expensive part was buying supplies from Lowe's (wood, screws, wood filler, etc.)

Here are a few pics of the process:

Cabinets from the restore with wood screwed onto the sides to add a lower shelf.

Painted and hung shelves.

Shelves up and desk in place:

Pin board installed and decorations up:

Yellowstone and Tularemia

My family used to visit Yellowstone every year.  I have so many good memories of that place!  Fishing, camping, swimming, you name it.Since Todd and I are about to enter parenthood, we decided to make a trip to Yellowstone with my dad before this baby comes.

A week before our trip my dad went on a pioneer trek with his ward and was bit by a deerfly on his wrist. A few days later he became so ill that he lost 10 pounds in 4 days, had recurring fevers of 103*, experienced tremendous headaches and body aches, and was constantly sweating buckets and freezing cold at the same time.  He was mentally "foggy and slow" and his vision changed.

In spite of all this, he was really excited for our trip and he thought he just had a flu-bug that needed to run it's course.  So we drove to Yellowstone.

Our five-star resort (compared to how we usually camp.)

Our second day there my dad gifted Todd and I a guided fly-fishing trip floating down the Madison River.  Using a fly rod, I caught the biggest (and the smallest) fish of the day!  Todd caught 4 or 5 fish using a fly rod as well.  I'm pretty proud of my fly-fishing skills I never knew I had. 
Thanks dad!!

Anyway, my dad wasn't making any progress toward getting better.  And Todd began feeling really awful and running a fever too.

Todd called our trailer "the infirmary" because he and my dad lay in beds on opposite ends behind curtains, and I'd walk back and forth taking their temperatures and feeding them medication.

We decided to visit the hospital in Ennis the next day.

It turns out that Todd had strep throat, and my dad had caught tularemia from the deerfly that bit him.  The hospital thought it was a black widow or hobo spider bite; it wasn't until an emergency room visit a week later back in Sandy that the sickness was properly diagnosed. 

Todd was fine with antibiotics after a couple of days.  My dad is still terribly sick (it's been 5 weeks!!!) He sleeps all day and forces himself to eat and he tries to think coherently.  He's on super strong antibiotics and it'll take him weeks or months more to recover.  Tularemia kills one in twenty people who get it if it's not treated.

Even though the men were very sick, we (I?) still had a great time!  Here are more photos from the trip:

Todd accidentally snagged a line that was coming out of this fish's mouth from being caught previously by someone else. Lucky catch!

I've got skills:

Tularemia bite.  This looks a lot better than it did before antibiotics!

I learned two things about my dad on this trip.

One, he does not complain-- ever.  Even when he's literally on death's doorstep.  I had no idea how bad he was feeling!

Two, he loves his family (and fishing with them :) more than life itself.

Yosemite National Park 2012

Todd and I try to make it to Yosemite every year.

 

This trip we stayed in Tuolumne Meadows because it is at a higher elevation and has cooler temperatures this time of year.  It's never as crowded as Yosemite Valley, and the beauty blows me away.  Massive  granite domes and waterfalls everywhere.  We swam in rivers and waterfall pools almost every day.

To get there we drove from Carlsbad, Cali along the east side of the Sierra Nevadas and saw Mount Whitney and other breathtaking mountains.

After the long drive through the hot desert we camped off a dirt road by Lake Mono and were treated to a phenomenal sunset.







And then woke up to a phenomenal sunrise.



That morning we drove into the park to secure a first-come-first-serve camp site in Tuolomne Meadows. We also got a backpacking permit and a bear-proof food canister to use the following day. And then we chased boulders! Todd climbed many of the classic Tuolumne problems including "Reach for a Peach," and "The Booze Bottle." I saw bear prints with massive looking claw prints in the dirt too. (But no bears.)

Baby Hammond loved watching her dad kick butt on those boulders :)

We were very smelly by this time and swam in a cold but refreshing creek to get somewhat clean. That night our camp site neighbors invited us over for s'mores and we talked about life and love with them till we got sleepy and went to bed. :)

In the morning we packed everything up and backpacked the Glen Aulin trail that takes you to the start of the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River.  It was about 6 miles (mostly flat) and after the first couple miles of dusty horse-poopy trails it became absolutely gorgeous.

Half way along the trail Todd couldn't help but take a break and swim in the peaceful river because it was so enticing. I of course joined him.

We continued along the trail stopping at beautiful viewpoints.

And of course we swam some more.

We set up camp in an established backpackers' campground then went exploring and found such a great spot that we decided to pack everything up and camp on top of a massive granite slab. It was a little windy, which kept the mosquitoes away and we had the entire area all to ourselves. Forget organized camping!

 

After a delicious dinner of dehydrated mountain house we watched the sun set.

I'll take this view over looking at an outhouse in a group camp site any day:

The next day we hiked back to civilization along the Murphy Creek trail. There were tons of mosquitoes and biting flies, and needless to say in spite of being out of shape and very pregnant I made record time getting out of there. We ended up hiking 14 miles over 2 days which is not hard when it's mostly flat, but it wore me out pretty good. We did see more bear prints along the trail.

Todd bouldered some more at the Kitty and Puppy Dome boulders, and at the Gunks.

Todd an his crash pads:

We swam in a great pool at the Puppy Dome boulders.

I was sooo tired by then, but had left a piece of my tripod on top of the Pothole Dome, so we hiked back up looking for it. I never found it. :(

Here's my 29 weeks prego picture:

Driving home was super cool because we ended up chasing a huge lightning storm! It was getting late so we found a dirt road in Tonopah to camp off after having successfully camped this way a few times.

We got to bed at 11 but woke up to light rain at midnight. So we covered ourselves with a rain fly and weathered the storm. It stopped raining after an hour or so, but then lightning and thunder off in the distance kept waking me up. I timed the thunder claps and swore we'd climb in the car if the storm got closer than two miles away, since we were sleeping on an exposed ridge. But I fell back asleep. Then at 2 a.m. a startling loud dune-buggy came zooming up our hill and shined their lights on us. We bolted upright thinking it was the cops or some type of philandering bad guys, and I was prepared for a fight! But after staring at us they just drove off.

This was not a good night!

Our super awesome (not really) camp site:

Before our alarm even went off we were packed up and on our way out of Tonopah. Besides having to make a 3 hour detour due to landslides blocking Hwy 6, we got home without further events. And our cat was so happy to see us!