Wholesome Recreation

This past weekend we took a much needed fall break. I took days off of work, my kids had a few days off of school, and off we went to the cabin. Hooray for the cabin, what a perfect opportunity to find some peace in this crazy world.  We know that part of having a strong family is having wholesome recreational activities together. Wholesome recreation increases family bonding as well as reduce negative emotions. However what counts as wholesome recreational activities? In our lives today our time is more and more crunch, patterns show that in today's world when people are recreating they are more escaping.  doing activities that require less and less brain activity such as staring at what I call a "glowing box" watching TV, playing on the smart phone, playing video games, or on social media. It seems that we are connected to more and more people electronically, and fewer and fewer people for real life. This is part of the reason we planted our Garden out in our Front yard, to encourage us to be in  the front yard so we can get to know our neighbors (more on this in another post).  As we see an increase in spending time in doors connected to electronics we see an increase in anxiety, depression,  and adhd, as well as health issues related to being sedentary.  My grandparents were raised on farms and orchards. naturally the spent most of their young life outside.  there is more and more evidence that the move to indoor's and the lack of out door experiences is negatively effecting people as a whole.  So this week end I decided that despite it being a bit chilly we would not stay in at the cabin. We spent sometime planting daffodils all over the cabin property. I love this because in the spring they look so pretty. and it was some good hard work that I could do with the kids.  Then we went up to the reservoir.

My father was the engineer over the reservoir, he designed the reservoir, he designed the campsites around the reservoir, and coolest of all he designed the dam for the reservoir. then he over saw the construction of it all. He marked which trees to cut.  And one of them he even cut down for our Christmas tree when I was little. It is here (where the trees were cut) that my family likes to hang out in the fall.

Normally it is all underwater, but during the fall the water levels go low enough we can hang out  at the river bottom.

we were all running around and playing climbing on and off of tree stumps (that I would have assumed after 30 years of being under water would have somewhat decomposed by now, but they haven't) we stumbled on a bunch of rocks. The rocks appeared to spell something. As we took a closer look we realized that they did spell something. . . Lurch. . . they were the same rocks that we had put there last year and spelled Lurch with. . . seeing as our last name is much too long to spell with rocks L O E R T S C H E R, we abbreviated it down to L U R C H. It was fun to rediscover our creation from last year and to see it left undisturbed I wonder how many years it will remain there untouched.

 

It was amazing how spending time in the quiet out doors did so much for my personal calmness. but it is also interesting to note that while my kids can rarely go more than 25 minutes at home without fighting, up in the lake bottom while jumping on tree stumps and jumping over rivers they all play together happily and don't fight at all. I wonder did siblings fight as much back in the 1800's as they do now? or have glowing boxes rewired our brains to argue?

Self Reliance - Health Management

I have been taking a personal finance class with my husband for the last several weeks.  There are four couples, and two individuals taking the class together, we have really become quite close and it is a lot of fun. I look forward to my Wednesday nights because it is so much fun. I have learned a lot and think that the principles we have learned will really make our financial situation lots better. The class is very spiritually based. The course focuses a lot on how all temporal things actually have a spiritual side too, there is nothing solely  temporal.  It takes faith to keep your finances in order, and you will be bless spiritually as you learn to keep your finances in order. I love how we need to keep the Lord involved in every aspect of our lives, including how and where we spend our money.  We started this finance class thinking we were going to strengthen our finances and instead we have strengthened our marriage, and our relationship with God, made new friends, oh and also improved our financial situation. One big aspect of the class is having an action partner. This is someone  who is not your spouse that you just check in with a couple times a week to see how you are doing.  There is no exchange of financial information,  just in general how they are doing,  how they are doing on the challenges and goals of the week, if they are struggling with anything, etc. I thought it would be uncomfortable discussing such information, but really it hasn't been bad at all; in fact, I have discovered it is very helpful having someone check in on me, remind me of common goals, and someone I can discuss my struggles with and be excited about our triumphs. It has been helpful to share what we have learned, and share tips or ideas we have discovered.  A couple of times during the class we have discussed how similar Finances/budgeting is to health/weight management. I commented last week I wish that they would create a course just like it for health and weight management.  I realize that this might be difficult because they could put themselves in a very precarious situation if someone had some weird health condition, so no one should start any health program without first consulting their physician.  But I figure that I can create my own program if you want to follow along with me that would be lovely.

Like I mentioned finances and health management are very similar so many of these concepts will come from the personal finance book.  It can be obtained on line here.

Marion G Romeny states "without self-reliance one cannot exercise these innate desires to serve. How can we give if there nothing there? Food for the hungry cannot come from empty shelves Money to assist the needy cannot come from an empty purse. Support and understanding cannot come from the emotional starved. Teaching cannot come from the unlearned. and most important of all, spiritually weak"

I think it is important to maintain good health, because if you are always out of energy, ill, or to unfit to do things you will miss out on opportunities to spend time with your family, miss out on opportunities to serve others, and miss out on opportunities to enjoy God's many bounteous blessings.  I think it is important to find the reasons that motivate you to maintain your health. Take a minute to think about the reasons that you want to be healthy. My biggest motivating reason to be healthy is I don't want to hold back my kids.  I want to be able to climb mountains with them, run with them as they play games, jump on the trampoline with them, and teach them to ride their bikes. I like spending time with my children in the out doors.  If I don't maintain my health I will not be able to do these things.

Also part of this is realizing what good health is.  So often we equate weight to health and that is not the case. We need to get away from thinking about weight when we think of health.  There are plenty of people who are very skinny that are not healthy, and there are plenty of people who are not skinny but that are actually healthy.  There a people who can work and work and work and despite the fact that they feel loads better they haven't lost weight and they get discouraged because they are still "over weight."  Improving your health habits can decrease your blood pressure, and your cholesterol, and your insulin resistance all without losing weight.

Health looks like decrease stress, increased ability to handle stress, more stable mood, ability to handle anger, being mindful of how your mind, body and spirit interact. Health is decreasing your risk for disease. Health is having a positive body image.  health is not being skinny, having huge muscles, looking beautiful all the time, being unsatisfied with the way you look.

Take a minute to figure out what health really is to you. Write it on a piece of paper and put it some place where you can see it daily. Also write on the piece of paper a positive affirmation about yourself. Such as, "I am a Child of God, who loves me"  "God made me and I am beautiful" or "With God I can accomplish all things"

Starting today start recording everything you eat.  the purpose of this is not to make you feel guilty for what you consume just to make it so in a couple of weeks you can make educated decisions, and be very aware.  Also if you can keep track of your movement, and sleep.  many phones can do these things without a health tracker. or you can get some inexpensive health trackers such as the LetsFit, Yamay, or the LETSCOM, all with as good of ratings as the fitbit and half the price.  Also you can download apps like MyFitnessPal.  that help you track your food and your activity.  you don't have to try and change anything right now.  Just gain knowledge.  Knowledge is power.  or you can just record it all on a piece of paper.  What ever works bet for you.

As  a recap so for this week,
1. Take a minute to decide why you want to be health
2.  Decide what health looks like to you
3. write down what a healthy you is
4. Write down a positive affirmation
5. Place both statements some place where you will see them daily
6. Record your food intake and your movement out put.
7. Find an Action Partner

Dinosaur Land, Vernal Utah

One of my favorite trips as a child was Dinosaur Land.  I remember going to this awesome park / museum or something that had life size dinosaurs. I remember watching people dig bones out of the wall.  I think the reason I cherish my memories of Dinosaur Land so much is I just mostly remember running around and having fun with my brothers. I like to go places that give my children space to run and I don't have to constantly be telling them to stop and don't touch. I think this is why I liked dinosaur land as a child. I always wonder how much of my memories are factual and how much are made up.  I was excited to go to take my kids to see my memories from my childhood, and to see if any of my memories were accurate.  I was discussing our planned trip with a friend of mine who grew up in Vernal, and she warned me that my museum/park was no longer they had built a new one, and it was totally different.  She also told me they had upgraded the visitor center in Dinosaur Land National Monment so I was prepared to be very disappointed.

We got to Vernal  and had lunch at park.

Ashley Valley Park if you drive up 500 W, it turns into 500 N and it is on this road.  It was a great park to play at for a while after a long drive.

After lunch we headed over to the new museum. . . the one I was prepared to be horribly disappointed at.   I was not disappointed at all,  the kids had great fun exploring  the exhibits.

And all the dinosaurs I remembered from my childhood were relocated to the new museum.  I was so excited! and some new ones like the Utah Raptor that has been discovered since I  little.

 

and my favorite wooly mammoth

 

 

Also in town is the temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

 

We like to visit these anytime there is one around for visiting.

 

then we were off to the McConkie Ranch Petroglyphs.  These are on private property, there is a booth with a donation box that you can give a suggested donation of $5, or more if you would like. We loved these.  From the center of downtown Vernal (Hwy 191 and Main street), head west to 500 West, turn north (right) and head out on the Maeser Hwy (121) to 3500 West.  Drive on this road it turns to  Dry Fork Canyon Road. Watch for the McConkie Ranch turn off.

 By the donation booth there is one route,  it looked like it  went up and to the right and ended,  I was disappointed with all that was there. Luckily there we a couple people that had previously been there and they were going off in another direction.  this is a loop trail.  it goes along the wall of the cliffs, and there are some very impressive petroglyphs along it,  so if you feel disappointed keep walking along the wall, find the other trail. it is well worth it.

 

We were about to head home, when we realized that there was another trail that hikes through the cow pastures just south of the parking lot,  it heads east through the cow pastures and back up towards the cliffs.  stay on the trail by the clifs to see some other great petroglyphs.

 

Bring some binoculars, or your phone and zoom inn so you can see the 3 kings panel way up high.

 

The next day we went to Dinosaur Land National Monument, just the Utah side.

 

 

 We stopped at the visitor center and took the ride up to the quarry.

And then we walked back down to the visitor center on the Fossil Discovery Trail.

And Discovered some fossils. I loved that the kids could touch them, that there was nothing that said to not touch.

 Then we took the Auto Tour of the Utah Side of Dinosaur National Monument. We Stopped at Swelter Shelter Petroglyphs, a 100 yard jaunt.

 

and then we stopped at placer point.  We drove down the turn off, and there was a little path down to the lake.  It was a rocky shore,  but that didn't stop the kids from enjoying the water.

 

up stream I could see sand.  When we went back to the car I could see a trail through the weeds and tall grass.  I followed it and found a private sandy beach. It was beautiful,  and no one else was around. the kids were very disappointed we didn't bring our swim suits.

 We stayed a long time, and built sand castles.  next time we will bring our swim suits.  It was calm and beautiful.

  We then went down to Josie's Ranch.  It was really cool and for some reason I didn't take any pictures of it, there is a little log cabin that Josie built by herself, you can go in the different rooms of the dilapidated cabin, I loved that it wasn't roped off, that my kids could spend time imagining and playing "house" in the cabin, and trying to decide what room was the bedroom, kitchen etc. You can see her chicken coop,  and they have a map of where her garden was, and well, and orchard, and then she kept her cattle in the box canyon  so she used the canyons as fences and only had a fence at the opening of the canyon to keep her cattle in. We enjoyed the hikes through the canyons. My husband decided he wanted to purchase this property so we can live there.  if only in our dreams

then we stopped at the lizard petroglyphs on the way back.  lots and lots and lots of lizards. no one knows why there are so many lizards on this wall.

 

Once again a great place to take the family. I am grateful for the opportunity to spend time with my family. Develop memories with them.  And also to teach them that they can do hard things like hiking up the side of a mountain to discover petroglyphs. This quick family jaunt proved to be well worth our time.