The Grizzly Lodge

Car Sleddin’

posted by admin
Nov 28

Duck Creek Pines is the perfect neighborhood for car sledding. The kids begged us all day to take them car sledding. Despite the fact that there is no harder thing on your sleds (they got shredded then we had to quit) it was worth it. So here is a little video showing some of the fun times we had car sledding in the neighborhood.

We also did some regular sledding where the snow was so deep and the hill quite steep, but this only lasted about 45 minutes as dusk was settling in and everyone was soaked after rolling through the thick snow a few times.

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Bryce Canyon

posted by admin
Nov 27

With 3 major National Parks within a one hour drive, we can’t resist showing off the wonders of Southern Utah to our family members who are visiting from San Diego, CA. Today we went to Bryce Canyon and had so much fun together…

Enjoy the video!

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Thanksgiving Tradition

posted by admin
Nov 25

We met my sister Rachael from Carlsbad, CA with her family in Duck Creek for Thanksgiving. What a blast we are having hanging out together, playing games, eating great food, car sledding (highlight for the kids), hiking at Bryce Canyon (tomorrow), telling stories, playing video games (the kids), reading books (like Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth), cooking, eating (oh my we have soo much food), playing with cousins, snowball fights, ice cycles, watching Chester follow Rusty around, eating junk food, watching football (just me for about 20 minutes), snuggling under blankets, watching the cousins having fun together, talking about work-home-school-life, telling family stories (confidential), laughing, and so much more.

The day we drove down to Duck Creek, Utah was expecting a huge blizzard running down the I-15 corridor. So I hustled out of work and Missy had packed most everything so we left by 3 o’clock. We stayed ahead of the blizzard the entire drive down south. However, as we headed up the canyon from Cedar City the snow was falling and the fog was thick so we could barely see 20 feet in front of us. When we arrived we noticed that the driveway was not plowed but we had just passed a dude with a snow blower/plow so we turned around to find him. We found him at The Grizzly Lodge plowing that driveway and the renters happy that the snow plow arrived. Next he came to our cabin and we were able to get up the driveway and unpack. Rachael’s family arrived around 11 pm.

The fresh power provided a great environment for “car sledding” which is the lazy way to go sledding. But the kids have had so much fun car sledding (I’m sure it will be the highlight of the trip for them). The roads in Duck Creek Pines are perfect because there are very few other cars on the roads and they are very hilly and the snow is awesome. The only problem is that car sledding trashes the sleds and rope…well worth the fun! Even Steve and Missy tried it out…

Car sledding begins

Come on Rusty!

Abi and Ryan are best friends and cousins. They have had so much fun together especially because they don’t get to see each other frequently because they live so far apart.

Happy Abi n Ryan

Best friends - Cousins

look at me, no me, no me, no me...

Well coming to the cabin is a great family tradition and I’m glad that my kids will have this a part of their childhood memories.

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Weekend in Duck Creek Pines

posted by admin
Sep 8

Last weekend we drove from Salt Lake City, Utah to Duck Creek located near Brian Head, Bryce Canyon and Navajo Lake and stayed at The Grizzly Lodge. Even though its about 4 hours (normally) and we only went for 2 nights…it was so worth it! My wife and I invited my new business partner Spencer Shaw and his family to come down with us. Spencer and I wanted to get some work done together while having our families get to know each other.

It started out with our Volvo XC-90 being loaded down with bikes and a Thule carrier (plus tons of great food) and then our front tire was loosing air fast. My wife and I could tell that things were not stable but we assumed it was the bikes since this was the first time we had brought them with us. Another driver tried to tell us of our dangerous situation (with the tire so low) but we apparently didn’t understand them. It wasn’t until about 20 minutes later when that same driver drove by us AGAIN and we were in the middle of a prayer asking for God to watch over us (we knew something was wrong). Then we truly understood that we were having tire troubles and we needed to pull over. So we pulled over and Spencer helped me put on the spare. Little did I know that Spencer has a curse when it comes to flat tires and such (he keeps an air compressor in his trunk). Anyway, thanks to the good Lord watching out for us we made it safely.

We had a blast hanging out together. Spencer and I played with our families the first night but then the next day and into the wee hours we cranked out content for our new online training business PaidIn14Days. We even worked in the car on the way down to Cedar City to go to the WalMart Auto Center and get new tires for my car. We filmed videos at a look out point (overlooking all the way to Zions National Park) and in the WalMart eye center.

We had a bonfire on Monday night where we sang, did skits (you should have seen Spencer pull out some of his old Boy Scout skits), and had fun laughing together. Check out this video of my boys building our bonfire (this was from the actual night): Utah Cabin Bonfire

Just a note about where The Grizzly Lodge is located. Duck Creek Pines has to be the premier subdivision in all of Kane County, Utah. The elevation is somewhere between 9,000 – 10,000 feet and the cabins in this neighborhood are all posh. The trees are all huge pines and quaking aspens. The ATV, bike and snowmobiling trails go on forever. The hikes nearby are amazing (like Bryce Canyon and Zions Narrows). Great fishing is about 2 miles away at Navajo Lake or Duck Creek pond and creek.

Can’t wait for our next trip…

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Our first Thanksgiving tradition in Duck Creek

posted by admin
Aug 2

We spent our first Thanksgiving in Duck Creek during 2008. We stayed at the Eagle River Cabin located at 115 Browning in Duck Creek Pines. The previous 15 years we have always spent Thanksgiving at my parents home in Maryland where I grew up. But this year we wanted to start a new tradition…and we had a blast together! There is something different about spending time together as a family at a Utah cabin. Time is different when we are staying at the cabin. We relax and really enjoy each other because there are few if any of the regular distractions of home (like phone calls, kid’s sports/lessons, neighbors, Internet, etc.). Every activity at the cabin is a together activity it seems (even if we are all reading books because we lounge around on the couches).

During this visit some of the highlights were cooking our Thanksgiving meal in the awesome kitchen of The Eagle River Cabin, doing our Thanksgiving crafts – drawing pictures of all the things we are thankful for, building Frosty the BYU snowman, sledding down the driveway, taking walks around Duck Creek Pines, playing games like 5 Crowns/Sleeping Queens/Stratego and some of our other favorite games. My wife was stressed out when the power went out in the middle of cooking the turkey…she was a mess! But luckily after only a few hours the power came back on and the food was amazing!

This is a Thanksgiving tradition we are sure to continue…

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