Tape gloves? check. Harness? check. Diapers, burp rags, and baby? check, check, check.

Despite the dwindling comments, I'm assuming people still check our blog. And even if they don't, I had too much fun on Monday to skip this post. After three (3!?!) failed attempts to climb at Indian Creek (curses to mother nature and windy/rainy March weather!) we finally made it. And it was amazing. Indian Creek is my favorite place to climb; the endless perfect splitters (literally thousands), the sunshine, the views, the smell of sweat, dirt and rope, and the feeling of exhaustion after every climb. I hadn't been here for almost an entire year!

This is Brian starting on Our Piece of Real Estate (5.11)-- my favorite climb of the day. I'm so bummed I don't have any pictures of me or him climbing!

A full day of baby bliss was not without it's challenges. This is me sporting a massive poop stain on my leg after a serious Liesel blowout. Luckily, feeling inspired by Leslie's preparedness when she spilled half a Nalgene on her baby while offering a drink, I had packed an extra change of clothes for the first time ever. And my harness still wears the badge of motherhood.

Cutest baby ever award.

Alex and Michelle, our friends from Rocky Mountain NP, came to stay with us and climb.

So did Nick, another climbing ranger and friend from the Tetons wearing the black shirt.

And so did Clay, Leslie, Owen, Skyler, Rylee and Heidi. Talk about a hard-core-baby-friendly group of people. This may have been the first climbing group with three babies under the age of 7 months ever. And look at these proud papas! I love this picture.

This is actually a photo from the next morning (we went climbing at Wallstreet in Moab before Brian had to work). I thought this photo was so cool of the both of us climbing.

Brian instructing Liesel on the joy of hand jams.

And this expression pretty much sums up the day.

We owe you one Moab.

I L.O.V.E. living in Moab. I seriously love this place. I love biking to City Market. I love seeing everyone I know at City Market. I love the red rock. I love that the Ball Willows are leafing out already. I love climbing in the sunshine. I love hiking with the gals. I just love it.

These are pictures of Brian climbing Zenyatta Entrada in Arches National Park with Ben Cooper. Some guy took them and mailed them to us matted (hence my finger shadow; these are pictures of pictures).

Brian on the same climb.

And thankfully for us, we also have awesome friends who love to get out too. These are from Brian and Clay's Ice-canyoneering route in the La Sals.

Here I am climbing on Nervous in Suburbia

Leslie and Heidi (who also have little babies) hiking up Mill Creek.

We get out at least once a week and hike the trails in the area.

There's a reason the most viewed Youtube videos are of babies laughing.

I wish I had a giant-foam-plastic-coated-body-molded lounge chair too.

Lil' L and I have been doin' a lot of this lately.

"used to" is a four letter word

I can't get enough of the outdoors lately (but I think the outdoors may have had enough of me; my arms are so sore I can barely carry Liesel's car seat). I feel like I've been waiting all winter for the weather to get warm (so has every college student west of the Mississippi. Everything in Moab is PACKED! UGH!)-- we woke up at 7am (no college crowds that early) and hit the rock before Brian had to work at 10:30. That was an excessive use of parenthesis.

Her favorite thing to do is chill on the crash pad and look up at the tree.

We are a climbing family (that's right. I "used to be a _____ or I used to _____ is now outlawed in our home).

I love these two.

Trophy Wife

Since becoming a stay-at-home mom, I've mastered a few things:

1) How to store lettuce.

2)How to function on less than 7hrs of sleep.

3) My vanity (nothing like new uglies you can't change to cure you of that).

And I've even met a few goals:

1) be in a book club (more on that later)

2) Be an eco-loving-money-saving-cloth-diaperer

3) Incorporate a new recipe into the routine.

Don't worry, this is not going to turn into a cooking blog, but I felt inspired by 1)Mickey's record of his daily food intake and 2) ourbestbites.com. This week I've been determined to make something new each night. Last nights Southwestern steak salad not pictured (I know you're bummed).

Here are some of this weeks gems: (BBQ chicken and coleslaw sandwich pictured above)

Thai-peanut noodles.

Fish tacos and Cafe Rio style sweet rice.

And since we're on the subject of food, I had to post a picture of my little strawberry (dress courtesy of Aunt Sarah Gerhart/shoes Aunt Sarah Hays).

Genetics Addition

+ (plus)

= (equals)

I'll take, "What is a Mormon" for 500, Alex.

This is not a post to convert, to persuade or to preach. The Haystack, although saturated with religious undertones, has never actually come out and said it: "We're Mormon" (whew, glad that's over). So what is that exactly? Well, it's not BIG LOVE or Sister Wives, in case you were wondering. And it's not Amish. Or that one episode of South Park . . . oh, and it's definitely not the new Broadway play. If you don't care, don't continue; we'll have more pictures of adventures and Liesel in no time. If you're curious, read on.

The nickname "Mormon" comes from the Book of Mormon (duh). The Book of Mormon is not our version of the Bible; we believe in the Bible and we believe in Jesus Christ. We are Christians. Basically, we believe that God (who is a separate being than Jesus Christ; both of whom have a tangible body) talks to man through prophets, and prophets write down His words in sacred books called scripture.

Just like there were prophets in the Middle East (Moses, Abraham, Peter, John etc), there were prophets in the Americas. Those prophets (Mormon, Alma, Nephi, Jacob etc) also wrote their words in sacred books called scriptures, hence the Book of Mormon. They testified that Jesus Christ also came to the Americas. The people here (here meaning modern-day Mexico, central and south America) wrote down a spiritual history of their people that spans about 1,000 years (600BC-400AD).

The civilization eventually falls into apostasy. Apostasy is when the truth is distorted and lost, churches are established to get gain/power, and the authority to baptize and perform other essential ordinances is no longer on the earth-- the same thing that happened in Europe and the Middle East after the death of the apostles). Mormon takes all of the records and compiles the most important writings into one book and calls it The Book of Mormon. He then gives it to his son who buries it in the earth.

About 1,500 years later, a 14-year-old boy named Jospeh Smith is wondering what church to join. He reads in the Bible, "if any of ye lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and ubraideth not, and it shall be given him." He decides to do ask of God. He goes into the woods to pray and when he does, Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ both appear and tell him not to join any of the churches. Several years later he is directed where to go to find the Book of Mormon, which he then translates. If used with the Bible it can lead us to Christ, give us direction and spiritual nourishment. Joseph Smith is directed to establish Christ's church again on the earth the same way it was originally; with 12 apostles, clear scripture, the authority and continued revelation.

I know there are plenty of people who don't believe in God or Christ and are skeptical of religion (and for a good reason). We invite people (ever seen those missionaries on bikes?) to read The Book of Mormon, pray and ask God if it is true and then act on the answer you receive.

We believe that God still talks to prophets (and us) today. We are his children and he loves us (all of us, so please don't believe that we're anti-gay-Glenn Beck-loving-gun-carrying-end-of-the-world-fanatics). I've read the Book of Mormon and the Bible, I know that their words are real and that the only way to true happiness is through Jesus Christ.

And if you don't think that, no problem. We can go on avoiding religion and all things pertaining and continue inadvertently making you feel awkward when we pray before meals or when you swear or order wine with dinner. And you can go hearing odd facts, reading strange articles and watching misleading TV shows and thinking, "aren't Brian and Angela Mormon???" Um, yeah.