Sundance With Our New Friends

The day after Payson Lakes, we found ourselves in nature again - this time on a grander scale. Bori and Aggie wanted to meet up with some other dancers and go to Sundance, so we left early and went to meet their friends. We all drove up to Sundance and decided to ride the lift and then hike to Stewart Falls. The other host family didn't come with us, so it was just our little family and 7 of the dancers.

This is the back of Mt. Timponogos from the ski lift.Jeremy, Nathan, Alexandra, and I shared a lift chair. Nathan and Alex were so excited to be riding on the lift. They both held on the whole way and they kept just looking all around and giggling. Nathan got a real kick over the mountain bikers that were riding on the trails under the lift. He kept yelling out to them and laughing when they would go off jumps.

This is the view looking behind us.

Once we made it to the top, the views were spectacular! Turned out to be a perfect place for pictures.

This is the Hungarian group we went with. I didn't ever get the names of the men in the group! LOL! We just spent the day with them. The girls from L to R are Agnes, Bori, Katie, and Dalma.

I didn't know there were monkeys up here, but Jeremy found some and took a picture really quick.

Once all the pictures were done, we started our hike towards Stewart Falls. Jeremy and I have never hiked to the falls from this direction, so it was an adventure for all of us.

I had Alexandra on my back, and within about 10 minutes of hiking, I could feel a deadweight little blob on my back. Sure enough . . . she was fast asleep.

Check out how big this tree is! The girls had a little fun trying it on for size. I would have been up there, but Alexandra was still on my back.

And look at the size of that stump! Cute Nathan.

Once we stopped at the big tree, Alexandra woke up. Aggie offered to give me a break, so she took Alex and I took her bag. She carried Alex for quite awhile up on her shoulder. Jeremy asked her if Alex was getting too heavy for her and she replied,"Not at all! My costume is heavier than her."

Here we are bringing up the rear. Nathan discovered these giant dandelions on the hike and LOVED them. He was trying to collect them and kept getting behind.

Ahhhhh, sweet. I got this lovely flower from my sweetie and had to check out how I looked with the camera. What else do you do when you don't have a mirror?

Very pretty terrain. I wasn't sure we were even following a trail at this point.

At last, after about 40 minutes we made it to the waterfall. This is Stewart Falls. It is gorgeous and definitely worth the hike!

We all got to cross that river and the water was absolutely NUMBING! I was standing in the water while I helped Athena and Samantha across and I couldn't feel my feet. BRRRR!

Jeremy wanted to try to get under the waterfall, but stopped here. It still makes a cool picture. :)

Lovely cowgirl, Athena. She borrowed Aggie's new hat for a little while. It suits her nicely.

Of course, the little kids enjoyed throwing rocks in the water. I had quite the time with Alexandra. She would go in and get her hands wet, throwing rocks. Then she would climb up the banks by putting her wet hands down onto the ground and all the dirt would stick to her hands. So I would take her down to wash off the dirt, then she would immediately turn around again to climb up and put her hands in the dirt for leverage! It took a few tries to get her hands clean.

Boy time. I think Nathan was trying to be funny, but really I wonder if he was secretly trying to catch a dragonfly in his mouth.

After spending a fair amount of time at the waterfall, it was time to head back. The trail back to Sundance is 1.5 miles. When we were almost to the middle of our descent, Nathan started getting really tired and whiny. He was having a hard time and I just didn't have enough left in me to carry him down the mountain. This nice boy from our group offered to carry him for a little while. I think his name is Daniel. He knew that Nathan liked the big dandelions, so whenever he saw one, he would stop and pick it for Nathan. It was so cute! Nathan seemed to be in his own little heaven, just riding through the forest with handfuls of dandelions to blow and blow and blow.

Needless to say, we finally made it to the bottom. All of us were completely worn out, but had a good time. I snapped this picture in the car shortly after we left Sundance.

All of us were quite hungry, so we stopped off and ate pizza before heading home.

It was a lot of fun to go hiking with this group and just our family. All of the Hungarians were so nice and helpful too. I enjoyed the opportunity to spend time with them and get to know them a little bit better. Especially in such a beautiful setting! The kids also had a wonderful time and hopefully learned to appreciate our world and our new friends a little more. :)