Zion National Park and our home in Utah

We rented a place in Kanob, Utah, which was fairly centrally located between the National Parks we planned to visit.  It was a very nice place, that allowed us to do some cooking, room to relax in the evening and a washer and dryer which made Cheri and I very happy!

Here's the house, set right against the red mesa that surrounded the neighborhood.

 Here's Bob, relaxing in the living area.

 This is the dining, kitchen and living area.

This is our bedroom with a bathroom attached.

 This is the end of the street our house was on.

 The patio got a lot of use, snacks at night, breakfast and just relaxing.

Bob, enjoying some quiet time on the patio.

The yard had pretty flowers and even an apricot tree!


The scenery around us was amazing, everywhere we went.  Here are a few pictures taken from the car as we drove.

Zion National Park was the first Park we visited.  There are winding roads, with new beauty around every corner!  The sheer cliffs, and size of the mountains made us feel so small.

This was taken as we approached the park.

 The roads in Zion Park are red, matching a lot of the red rock in the area.

As we left and drove to our house, we could see rain falling in the distance. This was the only  rain we saw all week.  Usually the sky was bright blue!

When we reached Kanob, we saw a rainbow!
Tomorrow we visit the Grand Canyon!

An amazing trip!

I'm back from my break and have to tell you all about the wonderful vacation we've been on.  Those who I'm friends with on Facebook have seen some of my photos and I'm sorry for the repeats that will be showing up here!  I took so many photos and trying to pick just a few is very hard.   I'll be sharing for several days, so that you don't have to deal with a never ending post!
A week ago Thursday, Bob and I left for a vacation with my sister Cheri and her husband Mark.  We had been planning this vacation for some time.  We were going to stay in Utah and see several National Parks, flying home 9 days later.
We flew out of Grand Rapids Thursday afternoon at 2pm. It was a beautiful day and we were excited to start the trip.

Before long we were in the air, and enjoying the sights from above. We were supposed to fly into Dallas/Fort Worth airport and then into LasVegas to spend the night before driving to Utah.

After some calm flight time, we flew into a storm.  Shortly before we were supposed to land, the pilot came on and said there were such bad storms over Dallas that we had to circle until we were allowed to land.  After circling for some time, we were told we had to divert to Austin or we would not have enough gas.  However, after starting for Austin, the pilot came back on and said we were going to Longwood, TX.  We landed in Longwood, which was a very tiny airport and weren't allowed to get off the plane.  We got gas and then had to sit on the tarmac for about 45 minutes, at which time we were cleared to go back to Dallas.  When we got back to Dallas, we had to circle again for some time before we could land and once we landed we couldn't taxi to the airport because they were so busy.  Apparently the storm had prevented any activity for 6 hours.  In the meantime, our flight to Las Vegas had also been delayed, which we were thankful for or we would have missed it.  It meant a dash through the airport and immediate boarding onto that plane, as it was leaving 30 minutes after we landed.
Soon we were back in the air and had an uneventful flight to Las Vegas.

Here we are approaching the city.  We landed and had to wait some time for our shuttle to the hotel.  It was 11:30pm there, 2:30 am in our time.  We were tired, hungry (Hadn't eaten anything but airplane pretzels since lunch time!) but glad to arrive!

The next morning, we picked up our rental car and headed for Utah!
We made a detour to Hoover Dam along the way.

 It's enormous and can't be captured in a photo!

 This is the river side of the dam.

Here is the reservoir side. It was an amazing thing to see.


We also stopped at Lake Mead.

 The colors in the rock and the blue lake behind it were so pretty!

 We were amazed by the size of the boulders in the area.

Another lovely place, and this was just the beginning!

A little remodeling going on!

Bob's been hard at work at our place!  I've shared his handiwork before, so many of you know how talented he is, and how thankful I am for all the hard work he does around here!
So, this started with something fairly small, as so many home projects do!  We had decided it was time to paint the dining room and kitchen.  It had been awhile and I (more than Bob) was ready for a change.

Here's a little idea of what it looked like before.  I took this photo last Fall.  The walls were all this rust color, and we wanted to update to a light gray.

Well, after looking at pictures, we decided to put up board and batton on the one wall, and Bob thought this would be a good time to change the molding around the windows and doors.  It had been very simple and he wanted a little more architecture there.

 Here's our dining room window with the new trim.

On the other side of the kitchen is a half bath and closet with new trim too.

And here's the board and batton wall all finished.

One thing leads to another!  Once that wall was done and the other walls were painted, the tiles on the backsplash didn't look right.  So, he put up this subway tile.

And then put up a new light over the sink!

But then came the biggest project.  He had always wanted to build a dining room table, and now was the time!
The table and chairs just got finished and since we had all our boys here Saturday night, they helped bring in the new and take out the old.

Here it is - and a new rug too!  He even made leaves that can add more seating if needed.

I'm so happy with how it turned out!  And so thankful for all Bob's hard work and God-given talent!

On another note, I'm taking a blogging break.  We are going to be doing some fun things and I'll tell you all about that in about 1 1/2 weeks.
See you later!