Christmas 2009

This year after spending so much time traveling and wedding stuff we decided to just sit tight in Utah. It was a pretty cool idea since it would be our first Christmas together at home. The last 4 Christmas's had been spent dashing to visit family, and while that allows much celebration and jubilation it is also a lot of stress around the holidays. This year Cassie's parents made the trip to Utah from Oregon. We did all the normal Christmas stuff such as eating way to much food and exchanging gifts. Many hot toddies were enjoyed and even the dogs got pork bones as treats. Luckily our tree also decided to hang on till Christmas though even a slight bump caused needles to rain down on all of us. Much fun was had by all. We also went cross snow shoeing, skiing at Sundance, a trip to Antelope Island, and a trip to the frozen Stewart Falls.

Antelope Island is an island on the great salt lake. Surprisingly it has a few large peaks on it so the terrain is quite diverse. Back in the early 1900s bison were inroduced to the island (only to come close to devestation during the filming of "the last great buffalo hunt around 1926ish" apparently at that time they didn't mind killing 400+ bison for a movie. Luckily the herd is now protected and numbers somewhere in the 600+ range. You'll notice in my photos all of the golden grass that is on the island. It's sustained by  springs that come out of the mountains. The bison eat the grass and apparently the habitat is quite good for them. Also on the island (hanging out in the trees) are porcupines. These guys were taking naps when we spotted them and were pretty happy just lazying around soaking up the sun. After the photo ops we hiked up as far as we could before the sun started setting.

On Sunday we hiked to Stewart falls. Those of you who have come to visit  have probably hiked to this fall with us during warm weather. We had never hiked it in the winter until this trip and wow was it amazing. Nothing like a 100+ foot frozen waterfall with water roaring down behind the thick ice. Quite an impressive site.