Wow! It has been a really long time since I have sat down to blog. This summer has been crazy, full, and quite the adventure. We just spent the last month in
Panguitch for one of Tim's Pharmacy School rotations. Tim and I have always said that we want to end up in a small town and for some reason we didn't really know about
Panguitch. We always said
Richfield or Cedar City would be perfect and our dream places to end up, but for some reason I have never
felt like we would end up there. Yet right as we drove into
Panguitch (a first for both of us) I felt the strongest connection to this special little town. I really feel like it is a place we could end up, put in our roots,
ect..... and we hadn't even met anyone yet. The longer we were there (a total of 4 weeks) the stronger I felt that way. I have to admit that I was quite sad to leave when the time came. I took over 500 pictures ( that is after cutting all the bad ones even) while we were there. It will be extremely hard to limit or pick which pictures to put on here. So I guess I will do our trip in a few different posts. This post will just be about the trip in general and I will get more specific with other posts.
This is the little cottage we stayed in. It was one of the first places built in
Panguitch and this was actually originally a mill next to a Pioneer house, but was later fixed up for a man that went blind to live in. Then about 20 years ago restored by the new owners that live right next to this cottage.
lucky for us they build on a little counter sink area and a bathroom to the side of the old mill. It was such a fun ADORABLE little place to stay in. It was actually a bed and breakfast at one time. So how spoiled are we to stay in a bed and breakfast for a month.
We really fell in love with the owners of the place we were staying in (The
Crumps). They are such examples to me of Christ like people who welcome, love, and accept anyone into their home/lives no matter what they are like. I learned so much from them and their examples while we were there. This car is just one of the MANY generous things they did for us. Just after meeting them I mentioned one of Tim and my dreams is to rent a convertible car and drive up a canyon somewhere. So they opened this old shed door to reveal this car and said, "We will watch your kids while you take this car up red canyon. Which looks like this.... "
It was SO FUN and beautiful!
Emery and
Kaven were such good buddies during our stay there. Because we were only there for 4 weeks, my kids didn't have any other kids to play with and we spent a lot of days with just the three of us (while Tim was working at his rotation) with no obligations or activities to attend. They got along so well and are still best friends.
Panguitch is such a tourist town and has lots of little paintings like this around the town. We couldn't resist getting at least a picture with one of them. He He. We actually ate the best Ice-Cream I have ever had in my life at Gem Theater this day as well. It was homemade and delicious. I love Emery's facial expression in the top one.
Panguitch has some fun 24
th of July celebrations while we were there too. They has a super cute parade that went down the street and then came back to go down the street again while still throwing tons of candy. At the end of the parade all the firetrucks that sprayed everybody as they drove down the road. This was the best picture I got of it. It was actually a lot neater that it looks in this picture.
Between all the fun we still had to do laundry. This is the laundry mat where we hung out for several hours (total). The kids were so great to be patient.
Kaven was in heaven sitting on and going for rides on all these different contraptions/moving objects. I only got pictures of these two. Leon
Crump took him on
four wheeler rides, let him dive a bobcat and this tractor. I especially thought this toy firetruck was neat. If you notice he "hooked up" the wagon to the truck (one of his favorite things to do,
with everything he gets his hands on).
Emery and
Kaven having an afternoon treat (frozen juice boxes) after another long walk across town. I also want to point out the cute skirt Emery is wearing. Claudia
Crump (the owner of the house) made it one night for her. It is the best twirly skirt she has ever worn and has spent many hours dancing in it.
The kids found creative ways to have fun. Plus they are learning great skill for helping wash the car in the future.
Claudia and Leon set these pools up many times while we were there.
We also got to stop and see my sisters family on the way there and back from our rotation. They are quite talented at making balloon animals and objects.
Talk about a memorable trip that will stick with me forever. I am grateful for the time we spent there and lessons learned. This is just the tip of the
iceberg though. We experienced and did so many other things while there. I will post more about it later though.
Roasting Smores for dessert. Emery actually made a whole smore all by herself. I was pretty impressed. She really is growing up!
After a fabulous breakfast made by Leon. He showed us his current project he is working on. He and his friend Duke are restoring a Pioneer home, barn, outhouse, chicken coupe and shed. They even have some really neat pioneer equipment around to look at. These people just amazed me!
We then went to show them the quilt walk park that the Crumps worked so hard on. This was so amazing! This park is made in remembrance of the 7 men that walked from Panguitch to Parowan in the middle of winter to get supplies/food to save their starving families in Panguitch. The snow was so deep that they felt inspired to lay quilts down one at at time and walk across so they would not sink into the snow. Such sacrifice and trials these Pioneers faced. I am SO GRATEFUL for my ancestors and all the Pioneers for starting the foundation of the life and world we live in now. It is such and amazing story. The Crumps started this town tradition of having a quilt walk each year and this park is the memorial to these brave men. This statue is beautiful.
We then took his family on a few of our favorite hikes we explored while staying in Panguitch.
The end of probably the hardest hike we went on. Emery walked the whole way! Way to go girl. She was all practiced up by now. Thanks to Tim's parents for taking the time out to share this neat experience with us!
