Bankhead Adventures

Canyonlands White Rim Trip

Amy and Paul adventured with several other couples to Canyonlands National Park, where we biked, camped, climbed, and hiked through the spectacular landscape.

Day one, we biked down into the canyon

Gorgeous skies at night

Cool rainbow

The rainy weather made for cool clouds for our ride

We climbed a desert tower called Washer Woman

Another view of our climb up Washer Woman

Back on the ground, another view of Washer Woman behind us

Kind of hard to comprehend the enormity of this place

Rappeling

Cool overlook

We cut our trip a day short because of rain: if the road gets washed out, you can't leave, so we braved the mud to avoid an extra few days in the canyon.

October Fun 2025

With his E-sports class, Miles took a field trip to Electronic Arts. He had more fun than this photo suggests.

Sadie and Amos sang in a Renaissance Concert (Amos not pictured).

Miles and Sadie did lots of yard work at the swamp.

Sadie became a National Merit Scholar Semifinalist.

Some of the fam saw Les Mis in San Francisco.

Amos spent a good deal of time with this cool plant.

Sadie's Senior Year: Homecoming

Sadie was nominated for the Homecoming Court, which means she spent Homecoming week making videos, attending assemblies, participating in lunchtime antics, waving from a fancy car in a parade, and generally drumming up school spirit with the other nominees.

Her enthusiastic participation paid off, because during the Friday night Homecoming football game, Sadie won the most votes and became Homecoming Royalty.

Sadie attended the actual homecoming dance with her favorite friends.

Back to School for James

The University of California, Santa Cruz starts the school year much later than many other schools, so James began his sophomore year as a Banana Slug after his siblings had been back in school for nearly six weeks. Because of scheduling conflicts, he opted to drive to school this year instead of walk, so Amy and Miles helped him load up the truck and move his stuff into his new dorm room, which still overlooks the ocean.

This is everything James took to college, Miles not included. Miles was guarding the stuff while James went to get his key.

Sadie's Senior Year: Flag Football

As co-captain of the flag football team, Sadie spent a lot of time watching film and encouraging her teammates to lock in. Amy, Amos, and Miles tried their hands at running the scoreboard and announcing the games, which is harder than you might think. Despite the Spartans' losing record, the whole family enjoyed the season.

Sadie plays defense, and during one of the first games of the season, she got a pick six.

September 2025 Fun

Despite her aversion to biking, Amy started training for a big bike trip with Paul.

Sadie and her best pals found matching dresses at Goodwill.

Amos and Sadie attended choir camp, and James made an alum appearance.

Grandpa came to celebrate his 70th birthday.

Labor Day 2025

Paul's brother John and his family had such a good time at the swamp for the 4th of July that they decided to come again for Labor Day. Alan's crew also showed up. We had many exciting ski runs and lots of standard swamp fun.

Cousin board games are always a hit.

Amos mastered the slalom ski, getting up on his first try multiple times.

The cousins humored Amy by lining up for dinner in order of height.

Up to now James has been a wakeboarder, but this time he figured out the single ski.

Amy in her happy place.

Texas Time for Amy

During her 2 years of living there, Amy made some life-long friends in Texas. In August she spent several days in the Lone Star State with some of her favorite people, celebrating a friend's birthday.