Lake Powell

Crystal's blog captured our trip so well that she stole most of my energy for writing a long post. Check out our pictures first, and then go read more about the trip here.

We worked hard to keep the kids hydrated. Sometimes it felt like we were all part of Man vs. Wild, except Bear Grylls wasn't there in his underwear.

Into the heart of darkness. This is why Powell is better than Lake Mead.

I can't stop taking pictures of sunsets, but my camera can never do them justice. This one is ok, but nowhere near as beautiful as the real thing. Even better were the stars at night. We sat up with Meg on the top of the houseboat and explained the Milky Way to her. She said, "I already know that, Dad, I saw it on Cyber Chase."

Mexican fiesta night on the beach. My mom is a wizard at coordinating meals for large groups of people in less than ideal conditions.

2 of my 5 siblings. Chelsey was there too, but too cool to be in my pictures. Maybe next time the whole family can be there. I'm sure we'd fit, no problem.

Who's related to who here? Megan was so brave -- she loved everything about life on the lake.

There are very few spots on earth as beautiful as Glen Canyon.

Interesting note -- that frisbee on the anchor line is my dad's method for keeping mice or other varmints from tightrope walking onto the boat.

Henry made full use of his new crawling abilities.

Kim hadn't lost her stuff.

Me either.

Actually, I was struggling to wakeboard like I used to. I blame it on the new wakeboard.

Henry drove us everywhere we wanted to go.

After a two hour boat ride and a couple hundred dollars worth of gas, the sign at Rainbow Bridge declared that it was one of the seven natural wonders of the world, right up there with the Grand Canyon and the Great Barrier Reef. I was skeptical. So is Wikipedia. Megan wanted to know where the hell the pot of gold was, and why there was not only no rainbow, but no magic. Her world image was shattered.

As always happens to the Frost clan, our mettle was tested with a serious squall.

Our damn anchor lines failed us, stretching about 30 feet longer than they should have.



Don't worry, the storm wasn't the reason why the boat ended up in dry dock, check out Crystal's post for the full story. It's related to this picture.

Henry Is On the MOVE

From Kimmie (except the cursing):

On July 23, 2009, while visiting Cory and Alisha's family in Nashville, Tennessee, Henry started to CRAWL at 15 months, PVL be damned! We are so excited to have Henry finally know that he can move. He has been getting ready to crawl for a month or so, but just wasn't ready to make the leap until now.

It is pretty cute to see him crawl, he works so hard. He finds a target within reach and zones in, then into position on all fours, and with his tongue in his cheek or jaw thrust out,



he crawls, stops to think,



crawls, stops to think, reaches target, uses his more trustworthy fine motor movements to wreak havoc



then sits up and victory!



Slow and Steady wins the race. We are so proud of you Henry.



Other fun things Henry is doing at 15 months:

• Henry loves to sing and dance, whenever music is on he moves and shimmies to the beat
• he has (his own invented) hand movements and some words for: itsy bitsy spider, the wheels on the bus, 5 little ducks, patty cake, and 5 little monkeys teasing Mr. Alligator and jumping on the bed, twinkle twinkle little star, bingo, row row the boat
• he knows what the songs are on his kid cd
• his words are Ma Ma, Da Da, May (Megan), Row, Amen (he will fold his hands during the prayer), and Hi. He also makes sound for dog: ruff ruff, duck: quack, bear :rah
• colors with a pencil, pushes a car and says "vroom"
• points to things and tries to name them
• Henry still loves Megan. He thinks that he is 4 in a 1 yr old body, he wants whatever she wants or to do whatever she is doing
• he loves his turtle blanky, and little Backyardigan stuffed animals (Tyrone and Pablo) and will make them sing and dance

Ghana

I'm back from another month in Africa, this time in Ghana. I was there to do a similar activity to what I did in Tanzania, but with a few differences --- one of which was using cell phones to collect information at health facilities, rather than using pen and paper.



I spent the first week in Accra, training people from the Ministry of Health on how to use the phones and making the preparations for our week out in the Western Region. President Obama had visited Ghana the day before I arrived, and there were still signs everywhere to welcome him.

I discovered that the LDS church was huge in Ghana -- I saw 4 pair of missionaries, 15 churches and the temple, all as I was driving around from place to place. Since we work all day, everyday while we travel, the best I could manage was to snap some photos from the car window:

The Temple

Some missionary's right arm

After our week of preparation, we headed out to Takoradi, where my team was based for the week of data collection. We went on some pretty hairy roads.



We had to get out at a couple of points to clear fallen trees and things that were blocking our way.



Like my last trip, a box of Clif bars from Costco sustained me as we spent a week traveling from place to place, with little food available to us.



My driver, Raymond, was something of a lunatic. Here he is yelling at some cows that had the audacity to get in our way.



His driving did not improve when he came down with malaria, and was given a bag full of drugs from a health facility we stopped at.

As usual, the kids were happy to to see us

The Western Region was pretty rural.

We spent most of the time working, but we did try to stop for a few minutes whenever we saw something cool. Here's me and Albert on the coast.



This little village was the birthplace of Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, which was actually the first country in Africa to gain its independence.



As I mentioned in my last post, we stopped to see the Cape Coast and Elmina castles when we were done in the Western Region and on our way back to Accra. These castles are surrounded by bustling port cities.

We also stopped at a poorly run jungle walk on suspension bridges. After waiting for more than an hour behind a school group to get a chance to go on the long bridges,we gave up and went on the shorter bridge. I went beyond the point I was supposed to, and one of the people working there yelled, "Do you want to die!" at me repeatedly. I decided that I didn't, and we left early.

We stopped to grab some lunch at a little restaurant built over the river. There were crocodiles everywhere.



Here I am looking very nonchalant, completely unconcerned about the crocodile that was about to eat me. I'm just that tough.



We spent the last week and a half in Accra, visiting with the USAID Mission and the Ministry of Health to present our findings and make recommendations about how to improve the availability of medicines at rural health facilities. My trip went well, and I really enjoyed Ghana. The food was good, and the people were very friendly.



But I was definitely looking forward to seeing my family, and heading to Lake Powell.



You'll see more of this series of pictures of Henry when I get a minute....