Dave and Jan enjoyed the mid-June visit in Cedar City from daughter Alissa and Andrew and their four boys.  The family’s only trip out of town during their visit took them to beautiful Cedar Breaks, twenty five miles up Cedar Mountain at an elevation of around ten thousand feet.

  But there were plenty of things to enjoy without ever leaving town.   The family only needed to walk a block and a half to the east from the house to ascend an impressive ridge which divides town from Rainbow Canyon.

The canyon beyond the ridge is already a beautiful place to explore and a great place to get some serious exercise – for those who like to climb.

A few blocks from the house Frontier Homestead State Park provided a look at living conditions for those who lived in Utah in years past.

A major attraction for the boys, in particular, was the city’s park system. The evening the Crandalls arrived they enjoyed the zip line in a nearby ball park’s playground.

Ephraim, Silas and Elijah had fun loading their water guns from the small stream diverted from Coal Creek in Canyon Park, and they enjoyed one of the park’s play sets as well.

Park Discovery is a city park designed for kids by kids which the kids found very much to their liking.

And the Crandalls’ visit wrapped up with a celebration of Ephraim’s fourth birthday – the night before the actual birthday when the family planned to leave for home in Huron, South Dakota (via Pioneer Camp near Rapid City).

Dave and Jan are grateful for the blessings of children and grandchildren – the latter described by Solomon as “the crown of old men” (Proverbs 17:6), and Dave definitely fits the bill!

Dave and Jan enjoyed a visit from Andrew, Alissa and their four boys (Levi, 9; Elijah (7); Silas (5); and Ephraim (3) at their new home in Cedar City.  For Andrew it is something of a vacation break from his pastoral ministry at First Presbyterian Church in Huron, South Dakota.  So it seemed like the perfect opportunity to visit Cedar Breaks National Monument at the top of the mountain range just east of Cedar City.

Cedar Breaks is something like a miniature version of the more popular (and crowded) Bryce Canyon National Park, but it is certainly well-worth the visit.  Like many of our nation’s national monuments, it is awesomely beautiful!

Andrew’s family lined up along the safety rail placed by the National Park Service to keep visitors from tumbling to their peril into the depths of the canyon.

Jan joined the lineup for a second group photo.

Following a picnic lunch the group hiked the loop trail from the Cressman Ridge Overlook which took them through beautiful forests, with some snow patches remaining from the past winter, and a pleasant stop at a small Alpine Pond.

Cedar Breaks National Monument – a very nice place for a refreshing “break,” only around 25 miles up beautiful highway 14 from Cedar City (dimly visible in the distance in the photo below).

Dave and Jan feel blessed to be so close to such clear evidence of the Lord’s creative genius – even on an earth whose surface was reformed largely by the Flood of Noah’s day as recorded in the first book of the Bible (Genesis 6-9).