As My Mother Before Me: Mom and Daughter Bonding

With my son gone, and my daughters oh so busy with all their work and extracurricular activities lately, I decided we should have some girl time.

After sleeping in a little bit and my CBS Sunday morning fix, with the cup o' Joe, I asked the girls if they were up for a short hike to the falls.

Just about 2 miles up the road from our house is are the foothills of Mt. Timpanogas. There is a trail that leads to the marking on the mountain for the high school letter. Just south of that trail there is a trail that leads to a very beautiful waterfall. Although my daughters have hiked this trail many times, I had never been. So we ventured out.

As you can see by this picture as we had just started out my youngest, on the right, was not too keen on the thought of actual exertion. According to her, she was excited about the bonding time, but she was not the outdoorsy type.

Her idea of outdoors is camping and sitting by a campfire- not actually hiking in to look at scenery. (Translation- exercise was not her thing.) I give her props for going anyway. Even if she looks as if sh

e just found out that she has to repeat all of her high school history classes or something!

And she looks as though she really wants to get this over with.... am I wrong?

She was like 20 paces ahead for most of the beginning of the hike... then she slowed back as the trail got steeper.

Isn't this gorgeous? Would be even be

tter if I had used a better camera, but even this Instamatic was on loan from my daughter. So this is the best you get.

You will just have to imagine the colors about 10 times more vivid- like those old Kodak Kodachrome commercials of the 70's and 80's...

And then we saw water-

There is something to be said for the sound of rushing water in nature.

This is my church- this, in my opinion is as close to God as you can get. I'm not going to get all prophet on you. Just love the feeling of peace and contentment you can feel in nature.

The girls informed me that this pretty little cold as the arctic pool was where my son and his scout troop held their own version of the Polar Bear club swimming in the dead of winter when they were mere children of 13 or so.

Brrrrr !!!!!!!!!

Some things it is better that a mother not know until much later when she can do nothing but sigh..

I took this one in order to show the absolutely breathtaking colors of autumn (today is the first day of autumn) in Utah. again, if I had a fancy Schmancy camera, you could see what we saw. But still, beautiful.

A view of the valley below. There is still farmland in Utah county- who'da thunkit?!

You can just see Utah lake.

sigh! again.

and then the falls--

We took a few pictures using the timer function on the camera... no small feat as that hill is steeper than it looks...

And when you only have 10 seconds.... you cant always get your best view.

My best side!- Or not

These little critters were EVERYWHERE!

They were cute as ever! Can you spot him? He is wearing his camo-

Sorry he is a little fuzzy- Get it? Caterpillar ....fuzzy....?

Oh I crack myself up!

ahh these cuties will do anything for their mother... even climb over rocks in an ice cold river, risking falling in and freezing their little wet patooties off... even forcing a smile when 'Outdoors is not their thing!'

I love my girls!