Just back from Utah where we celebrated Nora's 2nd birthday and Evelyn's baby blessing. Marolynn and I drove up with Jonathan for the events and Jon and I flew back to Albuquerque this afternoon.

With the summer season has come some good movies, including the second of the Narnia series, "Prince Caspian" which we all saw a week ago. When the first Narnia film came out, I bought a lecture series on C.S. Lewis to hear during my commute to and fron Santa Fe. Jon and I started listening to the lectures this last week, and we listened to the first four on the way up to Utah. These have been about Lewis' defense of Christianity. C.S. Lewis was an athiest in his youth but was brought to a belief in Christianity by J.R.R. Tolkien who was a fast friend, and Lewis utilized his schooling and a brilliant mind to write several books and essays on his conversion and beliefs. Lewis' line of reasoning is astounding in regard to LDS principles; for instance he discusses the relation of man to God in regard to free agency, and man's destiny with God in regard to righteousness here on earth. Very amazing stuff to me -- as if the missionaries were whispering in his ear. We usually listen to only one or two hours of lectures on a long trip, but we had to keep listening to this. The last half of the 12 lectures will deal with Narnia and his other fictional works.

Before Nora's birthday party began on Saturday, I got a chance to run up American Fork Canyon. The loop is still closed and snowed in at the top, but I went up a left fork in the road to a small lake. I had never been up that way before, and actually found the area on Google-Earth. It was well worth the trip with a pretty view of Timp across the lake, and the back-country of Lone Peak in the opposite direction. It should make for some great pictures of the golden aspen in the fall.