Author: Sandie D

I always have a hard time explaining who am I. I resort to the I am a mother to 2 beautiful adult daughters I have the most handsome grandsons and the loveliest grand-daughters. I'm married to an amazing man since 1980. The most important thing about me is that I am a Born Again Christian. The Lord has gotten me through so much in my life. So, I want to give Him the credit for all of my blessings. I'm also a blogger and I enjoy writing. blogs about my faith, family, and food.

Day Trip to Zion Part 3 (Virgin, Utah)

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It has been a very long time since driving through Virgin, Utah… Some of the towns have the oddest names… Not sure what they were thinking, but a town named Virgin, I would think they are advertising that there are virgins in the town… And since this area has many volcano’s… I guess some would say they were going to sacrifice a virgin in Virgin, lol… The volcano gods would approve I guess…

This is a very small spot in the road on the way to Zion… Even though we stopped there on the way back home… They tried to make it a little tourist area… So we played tourist for about 30 minutes… They have a small petting zoo and these little buildings that they made into looking like an old western town… The town has less than 400 people… We were just on the road that we take to get to Zion… We didn’t get into the actual town… I guess there is alot of trails and places to do biking and such… You can also go tubing and swimming in the Virgin River…

In order to pet the animals you have to pay 1.00… Not too bad because they are cute and it goes towards feeding them… I’m all for that… They have a cute little donkey, Shetland ponies, deers, and alpacas… There are some chickens and roosters hanging around too… Chuck also got to go to jail at the Virgin Jail… Not sure he was too smart… Because if he paid attention, there were no doors, lol…

They have some off the wall novelty things in the little trading post there… We bought a sucker for my grandson… It is one of those with a bug in it… I didn’t think he would eat it, but I was shocked and a bit sickened over the site of him biting into it… So far he hasn’t gotten to the cricket, but he is curious over it… JJ is 4 and I don’t think he has an inkling of what is what… He is a real boy… He has asked me if it is real, I told him “yes”… Then he asked me if it would bleed if he ate it… I told him “no”…. He is thinking this over pretty heavily… I guess I was thinking he would think it was gross and he didn’t…

One thing that we didn’t get a chance to stop for and we wanted to is the Shoe Tree… We drove past it on the way to Zion and was thinking of stopping to see it on the way back, but it was too late… So here is a little FYI on the Shoe Tree…

Shoe Tree For HikersThis shoe tree has the distinction of being just outside the entrance of one of the most beautiful national parks anywhere in America. The tree is on State Road 9 between mile markers 20 and 21 and is on the south side of the road with several convenient places to pull out and park. In the background you will also see some of the towering red sandstone cliffs of Zion. On the tree you will note that most of the shoes are hiking boots. Legend has it that they are hung here in tribute to the Angels Landing hike in Zion National Park – because once you have completed this hair-raising hike you may as well hang up your boots as nothing else exists to compare with it. Over the years several hikers have lost their lives on that trail and there is truly a spectacular view from the top!I have included pictures of Angels Landing and the Shoe Tree… But they aren’t mine… I found them searching Google…

Day Trip to Zion Part 2 (Zion)

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After we finished looking around Grafton, we went to Zion National Park…  Usually the entrance fee is $25.00 per car… But I found out from a friend and looking online that if you receive disability or have a disability  you can get a free lifetime pass card… Whoo Hoo on that one… This is one of the reasons we decided to take a drive… I guess I have a problem paying $25.00 for a one time charge to drive through a park… Even though Zions is beautiful and the experience is worth it…

We got to the gate and I obtained my pass… We decided to just drive through instead of taking the shuttle… If you take the shuttle they will take you to other areas of the park… I was too tired to do that… But the scenery was breathtaking and beautiful… I think my daughters were still in high school when we went to Zions last…

This is going to be more of a pictorial blog post… Flip through the images and enjoy the ride…

On a side note… You will see one of a Jet in the air… I had a heck of a time trying to hone in on that jet… I got many pictures of the jet streams, but it took the full power of  my camera to see the actual jet… And in case nobody knew this tib bit about jets… They fly very high in the sky… So i was impressed that I got the jet… There is one with the naked eye and then the one full zoomed…

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Day Trip to Zion Part 1 (Grafton)

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Chuck and I decided to take a drive out to Zions this afternoon… It has been years since we last went there… So around 2 pm we took for the afternoon in his convertible… We had it gassed up, dusted off and top down… So off we went…  Since we went to a number of places, I’m going to break this trip into a three post blog… Each place has something special about it…

Our first stop was Grafton… It is a Ghost town that can only be reached by following this little road… You have to be careful to watch for the signs, because it isn’t very big… Once we turned right, we came to the bridge… This is a one lane bridge… So if someone is crossing from the other direction, you have to wait your turn… But it wasn’t a biggie… We didn’t have that problem… Once you turn onto the road that goes to Grafton, you will drive about 10 minutes… You will eventually come to a part in the road where it is dirt… If it is raining, you won’t be able to make it through… It floods pretty easily since it is off the Virgin River… Soon enough you will come to a fork in the dirt road… If you go right, you will go to where the town once was… If you make a left, you will go to the cemetery .. Most of the town was wiped away from people dying from diphtheria  Typhoid fever or being killed by the Indians…

We went to the town area first… It sure has changed since we were last here… My daughters were still in high school in St. George… And now both are married and have kids… Yikes, where has the time gone? Once we got out of the car, there was a nice breeze… Not like we didn’t have a breeze anyhow since we had the top down on the car… This was a different kind… You could hear the leaves rustle and there was a sense of peace that you don’t get in the city… Not sure if there were ghosts there or not… If there was, they didn’t make it known…

A number of years ago, the buildings were being vandalized and since then, they have been restored and preserved… You can’t go into them like you use to be able to… But that was OK… Back then, if you stepped on the wrong place you might fall through the floor or have something fall on you… The first picture on the slideshow of of the buildings before the restoration… It is nice that they restored it… You can look into the windows and see what the school house and the main house looked like… There is a small house that you can walk into… The fireplace and walls are still in tack… I do wonder why the house has nails in the bricks on the outside… It looks like it was there from the time the house was built…

One of the pictures that I took I was standing by the front porch… It makes me wonder what they were thinking and seeing… They had had beauty all around them… Another picture was standing in the little one room house looking out the window… They had a great view of Zion National Park and the cows that probably were there at the time…

After we went through the main area of Grafton, we just stopped by one of the houses as you entered into the town… What was sad is that there is signs all over to not trespass .. It is pretty clear that you can look, but don’t go beyond the fence… This house looks like they are in the process of restoring… There were these people there that obviously didn’t know what it meant to look, but do not go into the house or onto the property… People like that ruin it for everyone…

I would like to add one thing that was pretty funny… As you may have read, Chuck cleaned his car… Needless to say, it could have just been left dusty, lol… His car was a mess after taking it on the dirt road to Grafton… His car is black and it showed everything… Too funny… I don’t think he was thinking it was funny…

Here is some info for you all about Grafton… I got this on Wikipedia…

Grafton is a ghost town, just south of Zion National Park in Washington County, Utah, United States. Said to be the most photographed ghost town in the West, it has been featured as a location in several films, including 1929’s In Old Arizona—the first talkie filmed outdoors—and the classic Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The nearest inhabited town is Rockville.

The site was first settled in December 1859 as part of a southern Utah cotton-growing project ordered by Brigham Young (see Utah’s Dixie). A group from Virgin led by Nathan Tenney established a new settlement they called Wheeler. Wheeler didn’t last long; it was largely destroyed on the night of January 8, 1862 by a weeks-long flood of the Virgin River, part of the Great Flood of 1862. The rebuilt town, about a mile upriver, was named New Grafton, after Grafton, Massachusetts.

The town grew quickly in its first few years. There were some 28 families by 1864, each farming about an acre (0.4 hectare) of land. The community also dug irrigation canals and planted orchards, some of which still exist. Grafton was briefly the county seat of Kane County, from January 1866 to January 12, 1867,but changes to county boundaries in 1882 placed it in Washington County.

Flooding was not the only major problem. One particular challenge to farming was the large amounts of silt in Grafton’s section of the Virgin River. Residents had to dredge out clogged irrigation ditches at least weekly, much more often than in most other settlements. Grafton was also relatively isolated from neighboring towns, being the only community in the area located on the south bank of the river. In 1866, when the outbreak of the Black Hawk Warcaused widespread fear of Indian attacks, the town was completely evacuated to Rockville.

Continued severe flooding discouraged resettlement, and most of the population moved permanently to more accessible locations on the other side of the river. By 1890 only four families remained. The end of the town is usually traced to 1921, when the local branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was discontinued.The last residents left Grafton in 1944.

St. George Marathon- 2012

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Today was the St. George Marathon and boy was it a long day… But it gave me a good chance to try out different settings on my camera… I’m making up a special Photobucket album for my shirtless guy ones… One thing I would like to add is that some guys look awesome without a shirt, and well, in a nice way other’s DO NOT! The Marathon took place in my back yard literally… I live right off of the route… My back door leads to the street that they run on… It was a nice day for eye candy… But it was also a great day to think about what a person can do and how they can push themselves to succeed if they really want it bad enough… I will mention a few of the special moments… But there were thousands I’m sure if you got to talk to those who participated…

  1. There was this guy in a wheel chair that was made for racing… He couldn’t complete the race along because he didn’t have the strength… As he hit our part of the route and only 1.4 miles away, someone was pushing him and helping him succeed and complete the St. George Marathon… What I learned from this is that no matter how handicapped we are or how bad things are, we can succeed… Even if we need some help to get there and cross the finish line… I guess I see symbolism in a lot of things… And this is what I was able to learn from this guy who you would normally think he lost everything because he can’t walk… But then, he has everything when I think longer about it… He has good friends, and a will that drives him forward… He is a winner in my book…
  2. There was this little girl who was 10 years old that ran the Marathon with her mother… Another guy that was running and probably didn’t know her was so impressed and humbled by this girl that he asked us all to cheer her on… See most of the people left our area and went to the finish line since whoever they came out for was about to finish… We were the only ones left… We cheered her on and the joy on her face gave her an extra boost of energy… She was walking until she got to us… Once she knew we were cheering for her, she picked up her pace and she and her mom hand in hand headed towards the finish line together… They are winners in my book too…
  3. There was an older gentleman that was from LA… He was so proud of himself that he finished… He wanted to make sure I took his picture… His name is Walter and he is 72 years old… So many people who joined in today’s race demonstrated that age is nothing but a number… From young to old, they all ran the race and did the best they could do and all are winners… Even if they never crossed the finish line, they still got out there and tried… They didn’t let anything or anyone stop them from doing what they wanted and needed to do…
  4. The very last group of people was heading down the stretch… First there was a woman walking… She couldn’t run because it looked like she blew out her knee or something similar .. She was bandaged up and had a brace on her leg… She was going slowly… She said she was the last one that they let complete the race before shutting the barricades… All runners had to be past a certain point by 1:00… From what her number said, her name is Madison… But she limped her way to our street and we told her she is doing awesome and that she only had 1.4 miles to go… She was going to make it… I could tell she was choked up and wanted to cry… For her this was a major accomplishment…
  5. About 10 minutes later the last guy was coming… He was a pretty large guy… I would say well over 400 pounds… He was slow and go and eventually his friends or family joined him… They walked with him on the last stretch .. You could tell how proud they were of their friend or family member… They were beaming .. We told him how far it was and he said he was going to make it…
  6. There was this one gross moment and it was just nasty… I wonder if people even think that others are watching… But this guy decided that he needed to blow his nose… OK, yes, we all have to do that… But it was just nasty because he pushed on one side of his nose and out came snot all over the ground… That was just not cool… I did take a picture of him since he was in the race and finished… But yuck.. He was caught in the act of doing this dastardly deed…

Over and over again for the last half hour, we had runner after runner thank us for sticking around and cheering them on since everyone else was gone… Even though I was very tired, I was proud and happy to know that I got to witness this and help someone by giving them the motivation they needed to go on… Overall it was a very entertaining day that was filled with laughter, success, oddities and inspiration…  It was also a very exhausting day, but that was OK… I got to spend it with friends and family… Jessica, JJ, Craig, Lisa and Evelyn came over to spend the day with me while I did my thing and they helped keep me awake… The one negative point to today was that some joker let a guy come into the race with a Lakers jersey on… Now what in the heck were they thinking… I did think the guy with the crazy hair that looked like Doc from Back to the Future was hilariousness, lol…

OK TO Vote… Just Vote for Who I Say! NOT

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ImageThis is one of those things that really makes me sick of politics.. This young girl wears a Romney/Ryan shirt to school… She said the teacher compared her to the worst racists in history — the Ku Klux Klan…. This is childish and demeaning… Why is it that politics and religion has to bring the worst out in people… I’m not necessarily a Romney supporter, but it shouldn’t matter who I vote for because each person deserves to have their opinion and vote for who they think would do the best job…

The offending teacher saw the Romney / Ryan shirt “and told her to get out of the classroom, She said no,” Samantha explained on “The Kudlow Report.”…The girls father said the teacher was joking… My guess it must not have sounded like a joke to Samantha… This is one reason I never post who I’m going to vote for… People can get downright mean and hateful when it comes to politics and not voting for who they think we should be smart enough to vote for…

Lately on Facebook, I have seen many hateful and horrible things said about both candidates… And then when you get into a conversation with someone, it seem’s to always come around to why I shouldn’t vote for Obama or Romney… And, OMG, if I were to say Obama, the daggers come out and the tone of voice changes… One of the worst images is where Obama is dressed up as Osama Bin Laden standing in front of the White House… When I see things like this, I think immature…  Or when I see the messages about how stupid or ignorant a person must be if I vote for so and so…

This is one that gets me too… You should vote so your voice can be heard… I do agree with this in most cases… But when it comes to the presidential campaign  it is already decided for Utah, so ,my voice doesn’t count… 4 or 5 people that was elected to decide what I want has already decided that… So case is closed on that… Now when it comes to the Governors race, Senators, Commissioners and such, i do think each persons voice counts…

I felt bad for this 16 year old girl who as ridiculed and humiliated at her school because she wore a shirt for Romney… That shouldn’t happen and those over zealous individuals should just put it to rest and stand up for what you feel is right in an adult and responsible way… OH Wait! That isn’t going to happen when it comes to politics and religion… Sorry I even suggested such a thing… But I’m going to get off this soapbox now…

Is Hell Cute?

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ImageI was on Facebook the other day and someone made a comment “Cute as Hell”…  I know they didn’t mean it the way I took it… But when I think of the phrase ‘cute as hell”, I don’t think about hell being cute… Actually  when I think of hell, I think of a horrible looking place that I would never want to see or even contemplate being at… When reading the Bible, this is how it is described…

Hell According to the Bible: 

(1) Hell was designed originally for Satan and his demons (Matthew 25:41; Revelation 20:10).

(2) Hell will also punish the sin of those who reject Christ (Matthew 13:41,50; Revelation 20:11-15; 21:8).

(3) Hell is conscious torment.

  • Matthew 13:50 “furnace of fire…weeping and gnashing of teeth”
  • Mark 9:48 “where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched”

Is this HellHell is eternal and irreversible.

  • Revelation 14:11 “the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever and they have no rest day and night”
  • Revelation 20:14 “This is the second death, the lake of fire”
  • Revelation 20:15 “If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire”
  • Revelation 14:10 “he will be tormented with fire and brimstone”

Some people would say that God is loving and would never send anyone to Hell… I also think that God is just and has laid out what will happen… There are many verses in the Bible that are difficult to interpret .. My own views is that no matter what someone thinks Hell would be like, I wouldn’t want to be there… I would never want to be somewhere where  God isn’t present…

I have friends of all faiths and some that have no faith at all… Some think that hell is a out darkness without the pretense of God… Some say that it is a place of tremendous torment and gnashing teeth… Nowhere in my thoughts is it a place that is “cute”... If someone thinks that, they need to have a heavy dose of reality…

I would like to say that peoples views vary greatly… But my thoughts is that your destination and hope lays only in the hands of God… I feel that in order to be saved we must accept and acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He alone died for our sins… Without Christ dying on Calvary  we would have no chance at all… There is no way we can live up to the standards that God has set for us… But because Jesus died for our sins and took on our sins, we fall under Grace… Thank God for grace…

 

Ready 4 Some Basketball- Suns Style

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Suns NapkinsOK… So here is the lowdown… For all of you that doesn’t already know this, I’m a Phoenix Suns fan… Not a Lakers or a Spurs fan… Those teams give me a bad taste in my mouth… And now that Steve Nash is playing for the Lakers, he is on my trader list… 

My daughter Jessica is the culprit to this rant… She sent me a link to Oriental Trading and they have a whole line of Phoenix Suns party items… So now my brain is whirling around and wanting to do a tip off party… I will even invite Miss Shirley to the party…  The games begin on Weds October 10th… But I’m thinking about this little get together for Friday November 16th… My reasoning is that I want to see the Suns beat the Lakers on their home court… Now if they loose, I may be whining all night long… So they best beat them and wipe the court with them… My thinking for this is all because of Jessica… So thank you Jessica for showing me the link to the Suns Party stuff… Now I have to put it to good use… That is hard to do ya know? 

Now the image below is just not natural… There is no way that Kobe and Nash should be wearing the same team Jersey… Not Cool AT ALL!

Image

My Day…

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Today was a full day… I did a number of things… I have a feeling I will pay the price tomorrow though… It started off with me having to go get my husbands check and then I went to Michael’s to get stuff to do my fall door wreath… They had silks on sale for 50 % off and then I knew I had some coupons… I looked in my purse and for those who know me, knows I can never find anything in my purse… But there was this really nice lady standing behind me with her droid application opened to Michael ‘s .. She shared one of her discounts… So I had an added discount… She just purchased Floral Market of St. George and will be open in a couple of weeks… I will have to remember that and go to her place… I like to shop at local places and it was awesome that she shared her discount with me… That was a chaching moment… I came home and put together my new door wreath… I’m thinking I should sale these and see if I can make some money at it… Not sure how many would buy them… But if they are custom ordered, that could work and it would give me something to do… As long as they didn’t want it right this minute… I have to do things when I can or feel good enough to do it… Let me know what you think of it…

After doing my fun craft of making my door wreath, I told  my daughter Jessica that I would video and take images of my grandson JJ while he got his belt promotion at Karate… I’m pretty impressed with the patience of his instructor… JJ has Attention Deficient Disorder and has issues with anger… Poor kid is only 4… So we will see how that goes with that diagnosis… But his instructor is awesome… I notice that JJ is doing somewhat better with paying attention… Not sure if it is the karate or the medicine… But that is a yay moment for me… I love the little guy and I feel bad when I have to constantly tell him to be quiet or stop running… He is always on turbo speed… He doesn’t do that on purpose, but sometimes it gets to be a bit much… So it is great that the Bobby Lawrence Karate St. George can handle him and help him stay focused on a level JJ can understand… Well most days understand… Check out the Belt Promotion Ceremony…

After that, I went over to Red Robin because they were doing a fundraiser for this young man named Kaleb Gunter… I was very impressed with the staff, customers and everyone involved… If you would like to read more about him and follow his progress you can check out his blog called “It’s All In God’s Hands”...  Kaleb and his family, Dr’s and all those caring for him could use your prayers… He has been in the hospital for close to a month now… They all have a very long road to go down… Tonight at Red Robins in Washington, Utah you could tell how much they care about Kaleb and his family… After talking to his dad Glenn and his Step Mom Chanda, I found out that Red Robin and the managers has a very big heart for those who are in need… And I have to say that out of all of the restaurants in Southern Utah, they have to be tops when it comes to a great group of people and food… I have never had a problem there… Well, maybe there is one… They don’t have bottomless Mountain High Mud Pie… OMG! That’s all that needs to be said about that, lol…

One thing that I found totally awesome is that the managers, friends and some family members decided to shave their heads in honor of Kaleb… There was alot of bald heads running around Red Robbin… Even the managers got into the act… And this is the first time I got to really talk to Chanda and the family and I have to say that Brittney is really sweet… She wanted to shave her hair… But not all the way, just underneath the back… That took me back to my daughters doing that in school… My daughter Beckiah did with Michael Jordan’s number and Jessica didn’t have anything shaved into it… But they did shave the underside of their hair… That is so 80’s… All I was waiting for is the Rooster hair style…

15 Kids and She Wants Everyone to Pay

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A lady on my facebook posted this link and it blows my mind that people think that it is everyone else’s responsibility to pay for them and their kids…
This woman has 15 children and three separate guys have fathered the children… I think of Octomom on this one… But anyhow, that is a different topic… I’m not even going to get into the politics of all of this… But these are a couple of my thoughts on this…
Why in the world should it be our responsibility to raise someone else’s kids and to constantly be supporting someone who can obviously work?
There should be a limit on how long and how much a person can get and stay on welfare… If there was a limit people may learn to close their legs and work to support their kids…
I understand that there are times that people need help, but it is obvious that this woman does NOT want to help herself… She wants to help herself to all the welfare and assistant programs out there…
She has nobody but herself to blame for the situation… I feel terrible for those poor kids who are caught in the middle… They didn’t ask to be where they are…
I wish I could get someone to pay for my rent,utilities,medical,cloths,food and everything else…
I have friends and family that get assistance… But at the same time they work and struggle to make ends meet… I don’t have a problem with those who try their best to do better and make a living… If someone needs help, then they should get it to certain extents…
It really ticks me off that this woman thinks that it is our place to take care of her… Uggg… I get disability and that is about it… I would never expect someone else to pay for what I need… But, as I said, if someone needs temporary help that is one thing… But so many are being enabled and why work if you can get everything you need for free…
I use to work in a grocery store and let me tell you that there are alot of people that know how to get what they want from the system… They get free food and other things… It gets me when they would get their cars loaded with the hundreds of dollars worth of food and it all goes into a Cadillac Escalde or a very nice vehicle… Or when someone gets cash assistance to help with bills and they buy beer and cigarettes…Of course you can’t say anything to them because of the sanctions in place… But, yeah.. I will leave that at that.. You get the point…
Then there is the person who gets money under the table so they don’t have to declare it and they still get assistance… Ughh…
So, this is where I will shut up because this topic gets on my nerves… Oh! OK, I lied about this is where I shut up… On a political note, I’m not blaming one party or the other… I put alot of blame on the mentality of those who think they deserve everything handed to them on a silver platter… I do think there needs to be a major overhaul of the welfare system… My answer to this is that if they aren’t going to work, make them do community services for the amount of services they are getting… Shoot, we will be saving money somewhere I would think…
When I first posted this on my blog on blogspot, they were at a standstill… From what they said, the children are in foster care where they are safe… What a mess…