Minnesota and Hiking

We took a quick trip to Minnesota to see my family there.  We stopped at David's brother's house in Nebraska first, then Mom and Dad's and Brent's in Minnesota, then Kadie's house in North Dakota and then home.  

Here is Evan with Grandma and Grandpa Petersen.

This is Merilee, Adell, my Mom and I.  Had a fun visit.

 Annalisa was being cute and putting on someone's sunglasses while we were at Kadie's house.

David and I decided that during this summer we were going to do a hike each week.  We started with a hike to Battle Creek Falls in Pleasant Grove, UT.  Then we had a hike at Willow Flats Springs in Idaho.  We next decided to see Stewart Falls in Provo Canyon, UT.  It was a beautiful hike that was mostly shady in the morning.  Rachel tagged along with us.

My wonderful, handsome David on the trail.

Just one of the spectacular views of the mountains that we saw.

Then we decided to take on a hike to what we call "Corner Canyon," but the books officially call it "Dry Creek Canyon."  It is a pretty steep hike, mostly up and then mostly down for 5.5 miles.  We hadn't looked it up before we left, but after we did, we found out that is was considered a pretty strenuous hike, not meant for beginners.  It was a great accomplishment for me!

This is what we were hiking to.  Horsetail Falls!  Beautiful!  It was worth the hike!

Evan and his friend, Amber made the hike with us.  This is the view out to the valley from where we were.

Yes, I made it to the waterfalls! But, David didn't get it in the picture like I asked...

David at the falls.

It was just so gorgeous up there.  Not a hike for beginners though.  We started out just before 8 and got down just after noon.  

Summer Fun

We have had a lot of fun so far this summer and it is only the end of June!!  First, we took all the kids  to the Cub River Guest Ranch Lodge  near Preston, Idaho for a little reunion.  We rode horses, swam and hiked and played LOTS of games and just had a good time all together again.

Annalisa and Nathan in a hugging moment.  It was so cute to capture this candid moment when they just hugged.  Kissing cousins, you might say.

David playing with Annalisa and Nathan.  Alisa was in on the action also.

Alisa, Evan, Tiffany and me on horses.

Tiffany's horse was a lunch-mouth, so we lagged behind the others.

Rachel having fun with Evelyn, Megan and Micah.

We had a hike up to Willow Flat Springs, where it comes right out of the mountain.  Here are Ammon, Preston, Megan and Micah with various people we don't know in the background.

Caleb and Bethany took an adventure on the ATV with Aleeyah under the hat.  Evan hiked up to the Springs with her and she loved the whole hike!  Yea for future hikes with Aleeyah!

This is all of us together.  It is so hard to get 25 people to all look great in a shot, but we did pretty well.  On the left end is Seth's family, then Kadie's, then David and I with Rachel, Evan and Alisa, then Caleb's family and then Ammon's.  Tiffany was our photographer and did a great job arranging such a large group.  Alisa's friend, Harley, was there also to take a few more shots and make sure the camera went off after Tiffany got in.

And here are David and I with 12 of our favorite people in the whole world, our grandchildren!  Little Nathan who is in back of David was just having a great time being on Grandpa's back.  They were all getting pretty tired and so I bribed them with the promise of a taffy if they all smiled and looked at the camera.  You should have seen all the people in back of the camera trying to get the babies to smile and look at them.  As Dash states in The Incredibles, "I love my family!"

Catching Up

This is Ahnalee, born in March to Ammon and Tiffany.  It was so fun to add a little girl to their family of three boys.  They all love her.  This is on her blessing day with the dress made by Great Grandma Cox. 

David and I had the adventure of going with the Sons of the Utah Pioneers group on an excursion to see where the pioneers had traveled from Fort Bridger Wyoming to the Salt Lake Valley.  This is a monument at Big Mountain, one of the last stopping places before they entered the valley. 

These are some of the ruts from the wagons left here over 150 years ago.  They can still very much be seen when they were cut so deeply.  It was rather steep here and just thinking about trying to get a wagon full of supplies up and down these mountains is amazing to think on.  David and I both had ancestors that traveled on this trail and made these deep ruts.  It was humbling to think back on all they suffered to get here.

David and I went on the first hike of the summer to Battle Creek Falls.  It wasn't a long hike, just rather steep, but worth the hike to see it and then get cooled off in the spray.

Aleeyah made her appearance a few weeks early in December to proud parents Caleb and Bethany.  She is wearing the blessing dress made by Great Grandma Cox.  It has been such fun to have Caleb and Bethany living with us to watch this sweet little girl grow.  We are sad that they are moving to Ohio, so far from us, but happy they are moving on with their lives and Caleb is going to get his Master's Degree there.

We wanted to have a family dinner in one of our favorite places to go, West Canyon, before Caleb and Bethany left.  The request was for my Dutch Oven BBQ Ribs, Chicken and then strawberry-rhubarb cobbler.  All of it was so delicious- should have taken the photo of the cobbler before it was all gone...

And, here is everyone enjoying the time there.  Evan in the foreground... eating... something he likes to do ; )

Christmas 2011

David and Zina Cox Family 2011

David is still teaching (31 years), but this will probably be his last year. Still loves teaching, but wants to do it his way and not the way someone else wants him to do it. He loved teaching the 11-year old Scouts, and got so he didn’t mind leading the choir, but the Singles Stake asked him to be the Executive Secretary in the Lehi 1^st Singles Ward, so that is where he is serving in Church now. He is trying to decide how he will keep busy once he retires. There are several options open to him and he is busy weighing the options.

Zina still substitute teaches and did a 6-week long term in March/April for a 5^th grade (once again working closely with David was a lot of fun!) and for a 2^nd Grade class that ended just before Thanksgiving (also at David’s school). The last 4 weeks, she has been catching up on all the things she put off while teaching full time. On Sunday, I get to teach the Primary Sharing Time once a month and play the piano in Relief Society. Taking the horses out for a spin and giving children rides is still a hobby she loves.

Kadie is handling things alone in Utah while Tony works in construction for the oil fields near Dickenson, North Dakota. They plan to sell their house in American Fork and move as soon as they can get the money together to get a house there. Rental property is very expensive and few and far between. Daniel (13) is growing fast – like 5 or 6 inches in the last year! He is doing an online school. Elisabeth (9) is in the 4^th grade, takes piano lessons and likes to sing. Annalisa (1) has had a rough year with illness. She spent several days in the hospital just before Thanksgiving and had a lot of tests taken to try and figure out why she gets fevers. Still no answers, but they are going to document everything and see what turns up.

Ammon and Tiffany are still in Lehi, but that may change if he gets a job in the accounting field that takes them away (he wants to do auditing). He is currently working at the Social Security Administration. Tiffany is expecting our 12^th grandchild in late March. She is in the Primary Presidency of her Ward. Preston (6) is doing well in school and loves Star Wars and Legos. Micah (3) is also into Star Wars and anything that involves guns or fighting with lasers. He is always trying to keep up with his older brother and cousins when they get to play together. Nathan (1 ½) loves horses, so whenever he comes to Grandma’s house, he has to be taken out to see the eee-heees!! Nothing is sweeter than a hug from Nathan!

Seth and Carolyn had a job change late last year and the drive from Springville to Draper was a long hour through construction traffic for most of the way, so they bought a house in Lehi and tried to rent out their house in Springville, but that hasn’t worked out very well, so they are trying to do a short sale on it. Two house payments is no fun! Seth is 1^st Counselor in the Elder’s Quorum and Carolyn is Choir Director. Jacob (6) is doing well in school and is very talented on the piano and singing. He is also a big fan of Legos. Evelyn (4) enjoys preschool and drawing and singing. I got to pick her up from Preschool one day and she had a carrot in her mouth and took it out long enough to quote me the poem they had memorized about a snowman and a rabbit! So cute! Megan (3) is a busy little girl that likes princesses (as does her older sister) and watching movies at Grandma’s. Justin (7 months) was born in May and makes a wonderful addition to the family with his sweetness and happy smile.

Rachel will be finishing her second Bachelor’s Degree in Music in April and then hopes to find a job somewhere in the field of teaching music or drama. She was chosen to compose a song for the Utah Valley University’s production of Othello and it was well received. She will have another of her compositions performed at the Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration at UVU in January. She had her Senior Recital this month and did a wonderful job. We love hearing her sing. She moved to Orem at the beginning of the school year to room with two of her friends and has enjoyed being there. We do miss her at home though.

Caleb and Bethany have moved into the basement of our home (I knew there was a reason to put a kitchenette down there!) while he finishes his last semester of school at UVU in Psychology. Then it will be off to graduate school in Ohio. Bethany is 8 months pregnant and they hope that their little girl gets here before Caleb starts up his last semester of school in January. We are excited for our 11^th grandchild to come and for the chance to get to know her well before they take her off to parts unknown.

Evan has enjoyed living in Provo this last year. He was called as the Elder’s Quorum President in his Student Ward. He works in the Student Transfer and Admissions Office at BYU and also does concessions at sporting and other events at the school. He took the big step of buying his first car this summer. His major has changed to Information Systems instead of accounting.

Alisa is living at home with us. She worked as a nanny for a local family for the summer. Imagine getting paid to take kids to play at the water park, zoo, shopping, amusement park, and anywhere else they went for entertainment and be able do it all yourself at no cost to you! She has decided to start classes at UVU in January, going into Elementary Education and take some photography classes also. She has started a blog to show off some of her photography. Look up http://sugarrushphotos.blogspot.com/ to see what she has done.

We enjoyed a wonderful Petersen Family Reunion in July in Southern Utah in July. It was such a wonderful time to see most everyone in the family. Even Mom and Dad at ages 91 and 95 made the trip!

Life always has its challenges, but we find that through our faith in Jesus Christ, we can overcome them and be stronger for them. At this time of year when we celebrate His birth, we hope that you are well and that you find joy as we do.

Just David and Me

David and I went for a little camping trip to a place called Lake Hill Campground, east of Ephraim, UT. It was a beautiful spot. We had ATV access to several trails and also drove up to the scenic, Skyline Drive. Most of these pictures are the view from Skyline Drive. It was a dirt road, something for trucks and ATV's to go on.

There are people who haul their trailers up there for the summer (elevation about 10,000 ft.), and we had a hard time believing that they had traveled some of the roads they did to park them where they did. This first picture is an example of that.

This picture is a view to the East.

We have been fortunate to see several areas of Utah this year in their prime wild flower season, mostly because of the unusually late cold and wet weather we have had.

Here is a Columbine with a type of Paintbrush.

I have to admit to a passion for Columbine flowers. I think it is their unique pattern that intrigues me.

This is a field of red, white and blue that we found: Columbine, Paintbrush and Larkspur.

There was plenty of snow at the 10,000 foot level. We found out that the stream in the picture, was built in the 1930's by the CCC to help capture the water melting from the snow, bringing it to a tunnel, and down to the communities on the west in the valley for drinking and irrigation purposes instead of going down eventually to the Colorado River to the east. It was just such a beautiful contrast of the blue and green and white.

The dead trees that are so abundant in the pictures are because of a spruce beetle during years of drought that we suffered. It would all look better if they could be logged off. At least we had plenty of firewood while we were there.

Along side of the road, we often saw these little cascades coming down. Little springs would just pop out of the side of the mountain. In some places it is more dangerous because it causes the soil on the side of the mountain to slough downward. It was interesting to see the damage that it caused to the road and how they were trying to alleviate damage.

Just a pretty mountain stream that we passed on one of our rides. David and I both like water, so it is hard to pass a stream so pretty and not take a picture.


Rocky Mountain Irises made us stop for this photo.


David is showing the view to the West of where we were at. This is the Sanpete Valley (Ephraim) in the background. Manti is a little further south.

Here is our camp. Wonderful shade for most of the afternoon.

I took this just after David set up our new tent. It has lots of room inside and we could stand up anywhere inside! Really good purchase for us. We could have slept more people in it, but this was a trip for just the two of us.

Petersen Family Reunion

Every three years, my family has gotten together for a family reunion. There were about 40 of us at the first one in 1984. The scope of this has increased every year with the addition of spouses, grandchildren and great grandchildren. This year we had over 110 people come together and renew acquaintances. What a fun three days we had at Pinewoods Resort in Duck Creek Village, Utah!

My parents had twelve children and they now have 67 grandchildren and over 80 great grandchildren. Mom and Dad are in their 90's and traveling was a little more difficult, so they flew out here first class and the airport people took good care of them so they didn't have to walk much.




This is all of my sibling, except one brother, who could not be there.


Here is all of the Cox family with my parents.



I introduce Evelyn (4) to my Mom shortly after we got there. She became enamored of the "Lady with the White Hair" and always had to go say "hi" to her. After our family picture, she had to be coaxed away because she wanted to be with her. I was laughing when she insisted I should take her to the "Lady with the White Hair"'s house in Minnesota and that we go there now! (I wanted to at least finish the reunion!)


One of the hikes we took was to Cascade Falls. This area is know for the Lava tubes and Navajo Lake drains by way of one of the tubes and comes out of the rock at this point. It was a fun hike, but a little unnerving because there is barely room for two people to pass in some spots and the other side is a cliff that goes way down! I walked with Evelyn to the falls and she was pretty steady, but Megan (almost 3) wanted to be Grandma's partner on the way back and she is a little less steady, so Daddy Seth came to the rescue when the path was a little more difficult.