my beautiful family

A few weeks ago Liz, Soleil and I all prettied ourselves up for a family photo shoot. The setting was a field behind Liz's home in Fruit Heights, UT. The photographer was Jen Herem (possibly misspelled) and she did a great job.

There were a few things that really stand out to me as part of the memory of this. First, it was the first organized family photo shoot my little family has ever done with each other. Second, Liz looked so pretty and beautiful. And last, Soleil just had a really hard time smiling. We kept laughing because she was determined to do what I call her "old man" smile which is kind of an upside down smile, you know, like a frown.

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fowlers vs. lake tahoe

This weekend was the 2nd Fowler family reunion where all siblings were able to make it to play together. We started the trip out on a high after Soleil officially became ours, legally and fully documented. She's our bonafide daughter now. We left Orange County around 6 pm on Thursday and rode the rush hour traffic wave north until about 10:30 PM. We stopped at some podunk gas station oasis on the 5 North and made camp at a Best Western Plus. The "Plus" seemed to be applied to the price of the room. Soleil had a bit of a rough night because we weren't able to bring a Pack 'n' Play so she slept in bed with us. We all kind of tossed and turned until 7 AM.

We hopped back on the road, had some good conversation, finally made it to South Lake Tahoe around 2 PM. Funny, we ended up in another Best Western, but a nice one. Our room was right on the beach. We checked into the room and went out exploring. Soleil even had her first encounter with standing in the waves, which she didn't seem to care for all that much.

The whole family met up around 5:30 PM for some dinner over at Mike and Laura's place. I can't believe how big their kids have grown. Burke looks like a little Mike. The kids all went nuts over Soleil. There might have been some pinching by me to Burke. He's fun to tease. And Bailey looks like a little teenager. We had a killer burger and Liz bought a huge Chocolate malt. Then it was off to bed after some hot tubbing at the hotel, for Soleil. Liz and I stayed up and watched The Hunger Games on my laptop. We only made it about half way, then we fell asleep. And thinking about that movie kept me up a lot of the night. The concept was kind of scary, and the movie presented it very well.

So on to the next day. The plan turned in to going up to Sand Harbor Beach. This was actually a really fun beach to play at. There were tons of big rocks just sitting in the water which made for great makeshift diving boards. I figure we got about 10 ft high.

Liz and I left a little early, around noon, to put Soleil down for a nap, grabbed some pizza, and just chilled in the room for a while. Later in the afternoon we hooked up with Michael and Liz for a hike up to Eagle Lake. This was a high point for me. I was able to try out our new Kelty backpack for Soleil. Two miles round trip and I think she actually had some fun.

Later we met the family, minus Mike G. and the kids, at an overrated placed called Riva Grill. Was way too expensive and I was bummed we didn't get to eat as a whole family. But I'm finding you do what you can when you have kids. We grabbed some ice cream on the way home, sat with Michael and Liz and talked, watched the twilight after sunset, then I finished The Hunger Games movie. Loved it.

For the next day, we tested out my mom and dad's endurance in the hiking arena. We met up early after eating breakfast at the Red Hut Cafe with everyone. Michael and Liz left after that to go home. But the rest of us headed on over to Vikingsholm for a nice little hike. The water at the bottom was some of the bluest I've seen, and reminded Liz of Bora Bora. I jumped in and swam and even bought a water off some kids hanging out by a boat at the pier. After that , Soleil lost it and cried really hard. I ran up the trail to get her some formula and start the A/C for my mom and dad. Liz stayed with them as they hiked up the trail in the heat. It was hot. After the hike, we separated ways for a few hours so that Soleil could sleep and Liz and I could hang out at our hotel beach. I think our beach was the best out of all the hotel beaches. It was very blue and clean.

We eventually met back up with the family for pizza at Mike and Laura's place. The kids were fun and wild. It's fun seeing how much they've all grown up. After that we took my dad to the grocery store to get some road trip goodies for him. Then Liz and I put Soleil down for bed, watched Brave in bed together, and then we tried to sleep. Soleil had other plans though and made Liz hold her all night. I actually slept pretty well, so I know Liz did a great job holding her.

And now, here it is morning on the last day and we're all packed up. I'm finishing up this blog entry and Liz is running stuff out to the car. And I think we're off. It was a fun reunion trip.

And that's the end.

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a baby named soleil - part 2

This past Wednesday, August 15, was a day that I will surely remember, if not very clearly. It was all kind of a blur. But here’s what I remember. Today was the day where Liz and I took Soleil to court for her to become officially ours. If what I heard was correct, the judge said “you now have the same relationship to Soleil as biological parents do.” It was around this point that Liz completely lost it to mom tears. I just remember her shaking on my shoulder with her face buried there. Soleil stood there on the table in front of the judge, while I balanced her. I couldn’t see her face, but I doubt she realized that the two people behind her love her more than anything alive.

Tina, Amelia, Bruce, and Arianne were all there for support. After the court proceedings, we all went up to Open Sesame in Long Beach for some early dinner. We have a good family and good friends. I’m glad they were all able to make it. I’ll remember that day, in a blurry fashion, for a long time. Here is Liz’s post on the same day. Here are some pics to help tell the story.

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canyon boys vs. wind rivers mountain range

This year was about our 7th annual backpacking trip. Michael and I try to do these get togethers once a year, but sometimes we skip one or two years because of busy schedules. This year, we were able to pull it off. The approximate mileage was 53-56+ miles. The guys who went were myself, Michael, Bruce Larson, and Dan Smith. No dog this year. Typically, we take my dog but this year Simba became ill and just wasn’t strong enough to do it. 

I’m mostly going to let the pics tell the story this year, (the photo album) but I wanted to write some highlights. We caught about 100 fish total which was not as much as previous years. The scenery was some of the most epic I’ve seen. We were above treeline for about 4 days. No campfires this year so we had to cook all food with gas stoves. We even tried boiling fish this year. It’s not so good. We only had slight physical damage and that was mostly to our feet. Bruce pulled off the worst heel blisters I’ve ever seen. 

The route we took roughly went like this. We started at the Green River Lakes trail head. We hiked the Highline trail the first day until we got to Beaver Park, just past Squaretop Mountain.

The next day we hiked up towards Peak Lake. We took a bad detour here and headed up a wrong canyon. This little adventure cost us Michael’s fishing pole and a good 2 hours and about 4 miles. We realized our error and headed back down the canyon and up over Shannon Pass to end up camping at Elbow Lake. This was my hardest day and, in my opinion, the most beautiful campsite.

Next day, we fished the creek between Upper and Lower Jean Lakes and it was the best fishing we had all week. We pushed all day to Island Lake. We fished the upper creek towards Fremont Crossing and had some epic adventures, casts, and footsteps.

We then backtracked our trail from the day before, but sprinkled in a little cross-country shortcut that saved us about 2 miles and a couple hours. We pushed back on up to Elbow Lake and had a good long lunch. At this point, we cracked open the Mountain Dew that I had been carrying. After lunch, we hiked to Summit Lake at which point we made camp. After dropping our packs, we took a day hike to the No Name Lakes for some really big fish. Not many, but big fish. And the sunsets we saw were stunning.

We woke up next morning and hiked back down to the Beaver Park area, but kept going farther and found a good campsite right next to the water. We were all beat at this point, and we didn’t do any more fishing that night. We just sat on a big log by the water and talked the night away. I think it was the most time we all spent with each other the whole trip. It rained this night and we saw some really awesome lightning storms. The majority of the storm missed us though.

I forgot to mention that today was the only day we were able to fish in the rain on the way down Green River Pass. My favorite.

For the last day, we woke up early and made it to the cars before noon. We took a slow pace and just kind of lamented going back to work. Getting in the cars was kind of sweet and sour. We were glad not to be hiking anymore, but were sad to be leaving some of the most beautiful mountains I’ve seen.

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