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This is our new kitty, Amaya. But we've got a lot of pictures to catch up on, so there's more Amaya pictures at the end, but let's go back to Fall.

Ah, better. This is our secret slug spot that we found in the summer. Jordy's Mom, Jan, came out to visit us and they stopped here on the way out to Bear Lake.

Looking almost straight up from the secret slug spot shows off some of the beautiful rock coloration.

This is the same spot Anna and Jordy took pictures at during last winter. Her Jan gets a shot of the last of the fall colors.

Okay, we took a wrong turn -- on purpose. About halfway to Bear Lake we took a detour up one of the many off-road trails that crisscross the mountains around here. These aspens are just beyond peak, but it was still spectacular.

And on the other side...

Just a couple weeks before these hills really looked like they were on fire. You can still see some of that redness here.

And here, too

There's a little store at the end of highway 89, just before the lake that Anna has always wanted to stop at. She stayed home on this trip, but Jordy and Jan stopped. It was cute, but not really worth it. Here Jan meets the natives.

And, the corn maze. One of the nights that Jan was out she convinced us to go to the Green Valley Corn Maze they have every year. It was HUGE. It was something like five acres of corn maze. Scary big. Here Jordy is just being corny.

Anna and Jan are all ears.

"Aw, shucks, the corn will tell us where to go!"

Please note the gathering darkness of these pictures. We started into the maze during the early evening. But it grew darker as we stalked the right path.

Here Jan has given it all up and decided to rest.

The scary part really did come after dark, as they "haunted" the maze with a dude carrying a real running chainsaw and other scaries.
Later on in the maize, we finally reached a high lookout at the exact center of the maze. It didn't help. And yes, it's completely dark. And, no, we didn't have flashlights. But we decided to follow paths that led away from the chainsaw sound.

We did make it out and back to our crib. We all decided to make our own variation on Martha Stewart's gourd-pumpkin-owl. Jordy and Jan plot the course.

"Whoo, whoo!"

"Jordy, you are such a dork."

And here's our family. Jan took the photo of Jordy, Shurik, Anna, and the owl.

Please note the flowers. They're still beautiful. We've forgotten what green plants look like. More of that to come, though.

And what trip to Utah would be complete without a trip to Temple Square. Here, the Temple looms.

Jan and Anna in the world's biggest indoor hookah.

Okay, it's the Morman Tabernacle.

More pipes.

This is in the Conference Center where the Mormons hold their twice yearly General Conference -- which we refer to as "The Super bowl of Mormons." It seats 35,000 people and takes up an entire city block. But you won't find Janet Jackson here at half time.

What you will find are annoying proselytizers -- Jan was accosted by one smarmy looking beady eyed fellow who tried to talk her into the fold.

Yeah, we escaped the proselytizers!

Jan and Jordy pose in front of the LDS World Headquarters.

Shortly after Jan left, Anna planned a surprise birthday party for Jordy. She got him there by convincing him that it was a baby shower for Melissa (who had her twin girls on Christmas day!).

Here John and Jordy apply a little IT know-how to the candles.

Blowing out the candles, you know the deal.

We're convinced we're missing at least one roll of film that captures our drive out and Christmas. Hopefully they'll turn up.

While we were out in California, though, Jordy made it down to see Jill and Lenny's new house. They showed him the before and after pictures. It's scary how good it looks now!

And where better to escape from a snowy place in the mountains than to another snowier place higher in the mountains! Whee!

After Christmas, we drove up to Lake Tahoe with Anna's folks for a week of shoveling, err, relaxing!

This is the trusty Bucephalus after it had snowed all night.

JORDY AND ANNA ICICLE FIGHT TO THE DEATH!!!!

Okay, not really, but there were some serious icicles!

It dumped an enormous amount of snow while we were there, so there wasn't much more to do than relax. Here Jordy reads.

Anna works on crocheting the world's largest afghan, Methuselah.

"It's cozy and comfy," she declares. And we might add that not only is it almost done, but the entire nation of Afghanistan will be covered in it's yarny expanse.

Gary and John relax in front of the fire.

Note: Gary is looking at Jordy's Orchard Supply Hardware train calendar which Jordy stupidly left behind in the cabin. Alas, it will be a trainless year!

Look! It's a throw rug!

Gary and John weren't the only ones enjoying the fire.

Jordy, John, and Gary managed to get out for a drive to Emerald Bay. In the following pictures we managed to document them in every possible combination.

Actually Gary is saying, "If we get stuck out here, this is the first one we're eating!"

Combo 2: Feel free to super-size John and Gary at the window. Thank you, drive through.

A dead stick.

Little do people realize that Emerald Bay was actually purchased in its entirety during the tech boom. It has since been renamed Ebay.

We left Tahoe under less than auspicious conditions: highway 80 was closed westbound and under a foot of snow east-bound which we drove through.

Then we were in an accident during a near-whiteout outside Wells, Nevada. We had to dig Bu out of a snow embankment and get pushed out by a pair of friendly cowboys. We call them highway angels (with hats).

We were going to stay the night in Wells after that incident, but Wells had no power -- knocked out by the storm. So we pushed on to Wendover at the Nevada/Utah border. We had to smuggle Shurik in inside a pillowcase. But it was the least of our worries that day. This is the following morning and the storm had passed.

On our way out of Wendover, blue skies ahead!

Since Jordy was driving when we got in the accident, we decided to let the other man in the truck drive the rest of the way home. Shurik's quite a good driver, at least until we got to the Great Salt Lake and he drove in looking for fish.
A balmy clime greeted us when we got home. It still looks like this. We had 17 consecutive days when the temperature never got above ten degrees and got as cold as -15. Those days are now behind us as it's currently a tropical 22 and snowing like hell.

This is our courtyard. There's more snow in there now. In the middle of the shot is a little frog for kids to play on. Now you can barely see his head.

Guess which car we drove home and which one sat while we were away?

This was the day (a week after we got home) that Jordy decided to dig out the blue car. Please note that we don't own a shovel, so he used the dust pan on the right and the five gallon bucket on the left. It worked!

Well, sort of. It was a hell of an effort to get it this clear and Jordy just didn't bother with the snow on the roof of the car. The next day at work someone asked who drove the ice burg.

Anna was less than pleased and insisted we remove the ice burg immediately.

I guess the cat's out of the bag now!

One of the things that we hashed out on the drive back was that it was time to get the hell out of Utah. As luck would have it, Anna's folks own a cabin on the Russian River in Guerneville, and the current tenet moves out in April. So we decided to pull up stakes and move back.

Here are some pictures of the cabin which were taken by Gary.

The house isn't far from the river and is prone to flooding so FEMA paid to raise it a few years back. Now there's a cool deck and stairway -- the latter of which we're not looking forward to on move-in day.

The front of the cabin. This is in December, and look how green it is! And there's no snow anywhere. We like.

Ah, but we started this series with a picture of our new kitty Amaya. Here Shurik meets the new cat on the block.

And here he shows her his loving paw.

Let's be clear, she has claws. He does not. He's got sharp, sharp teeth. And he's really smart. Their fights have become epic. Though, to be fair, they have gotten along remarkably well and have been known to sleep together in the same chair. It's the cutest thing and we hope to have pictures soon.

Vet day! It was time for Shurik's annual vet visit, and we wanted to make sure Amaya had a clear bill of health. Neither feline was very pleased about it, though.

Note our ingenious Aggie Village smuggling method. "Cats? Noooo, these are just loads of towels in laundry baskets!"

We set up a little bed for Amaya in the bathroom. But guess who decided to move in? Yeah, he's the top cat and he'll damn well sleep where he wants.

The legendary, nay, mythic, Red Iguana in Salt Lake City. We met our friend, Josh, there for lunch last weekend. Our visits there are now numbered so we have to partake when we can.

Anna grew fond of this poor wooden bear chained inside a snowy motel parking lot. It's symbolic, we think.

And we'll leave you with this picture. It was still in the teens for this shot. It's currently snowing like crazy outside and we needed Bu's four-wheel-drive just to get out of the parking lot today. But these days, too, are numbered. We can't wait to get back to California, but we'll enjoy the rest of our time in Utah.

Happy early Valentine's day, everyone!