August started off with Spencer heading to Logan for Grandparents weekend. Taryn picked him up on Thursday on her way home from Flowell. She dropped Dustin off at our house to stay the weekend with Hailee. Spencer was very excited to have a sleepover in Dustin's bed. Grandma picked them up Friday morning for a weekend of fun.
Thursday night Jeremy and Josh came down to our house and Friday morning the guys headed down to Zions (National Park #2 for Heath) and hiked the Narrows on Saturday morning. They almost didn't get passes,Jeremy convinced the guy in front of them to go on Sunday instead so that they could have the last three passes for Saturday. They hiked it in 10 hours and came home Saturday night very dirty and very tired!
Friday morning Mindy drove down to spend the weekend with me and the kiddos. She brought some things to make a ooey gooey treat, she played playdough and tag at the park and was an all around good sport for being nearly 9 months pregnant!
Sunday after church we packed up for a trip to Yellowstone and drove to Logan to pick up Spencer and drop of Alyssa for her Grandparents week.
Sunday after dinner I drove us all up to West Yellowstone for more vacation fun! My family had planned to go there all together but it ended up that everyone either couldn't or didn't go. So my little family had the condo to ourselves for a few days then Devi, Jeremy, Mom and Kellee came up Wednesday and finished off the week. We had a three bedroom condo so the kids each took their own room and we made ourselves at home! We arrived just after 11pm so we just unloaded, looked around the condo and headed to bed. Monday morning we slept in a little then got ready and headed out for a day at Yellowstone (National Park #3 for Heath #2 for the rest). It was a slow start getting into the park which Heath informed me was normal and would be common throughout, but we got stopped for about an hour waiting for road construction. I got out with the kids and we met dogs, climbed on rocks and went exploring while we waited. I have been to Yellowstone before but I was probably 5 years old and don't remember it, so it was another place on my vacation list to visit someday. We stopped at a few hot pots and saw an Elk or two. Then went to Old Faithful and had lunch and waited an hour for it to go off. It was pretty neat but the kids were sick of it by then, and Heath and seen it before, so as soon as it was over we joined the happy throng of tourist and got back on the road to see some more. We stopped at the falls and the kids had fallen asleep. I told Heath that we could just take turns going to look at it. I watched him walk over to the path that said trail and then the kids woke up so I hurried and got them out to catch up to Heath. We started hiking down the trail and calling out for Dad, but never caught up to him. We made it all the way to the bottom (about 3/4 of a mile and about 15 or so switch backs). The end of the trail is right at the side of the second waterfall. It was really pretty, the kids even thought it was cool-but Heath was NOT at the bottom. So I was now DREADING the hike back. It went kinda like this.
Me: Let's race to the bench up there!
Kids: Okay!...a few steps later...
I'm tired Mom, hold me.
***repeat that about every switchback or so, picture me carrying both kids in different uncomfortable positions, add a couple of comments from passersby
ie-"Oh wow!, you've got your hands full"-
Get the idea?!
Well we finally made it to the top, I was Very hot, Very tired and later realized Very sunburned. BUT I still feel like it was worth it, I think that waterfall was Awesome! If I ever go back to Yellowstone, I am going to the falls and doing some of the other hikes that overlook the falls. It was my favorite part, I was only sorry that Heath wasn't there. He realized that the trail was 3/4 of a mile (I obviously did not) and turned back to an overlook-oops I didn't see that and should have waited:)
He decided to just wait by the car since he didn't know where we had gone, poor guy had to wait quite awhile! We then finished the rest of the loop and headed home to...you guessed it the pool!
Tuesday morning we decided to go to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center just across the street from the condo. It was fun chance for the kids to actually see grizzly bears and wolves up close. Even at an interesting place like this our kids lasted just over an hour. We finished up and went back to the condo for lunch and...swimming:) After naps and dinner we headed to town to look for souvenirs (which are very hard to find unless you want to spend lots of $$$) We came away with a ninja sword and a small stuffed dog in a cage.
Hailee informed us that she didn't need something that reminded her of Yellowstone because she could just remember it in her head!
After some ice cream we headed back and the next morning we packed up and headed back to Logan to get Alyssa and head home.
About the time we passed Springville, Mindy called and told us that she had her baby! Baby Thomas was here! We decided rather than turn around that we would just go visit her the next afternoon.
The next weekend we went with our new friends Shelly and Jimmy to Capitol Reef National Park (#4 and #3 on the NP visits-look at us go! Don't worry after GC we realized we'd be visiting alot and bought a pass, so there are more NP to be visited by us in the next year!)
Shelly and I took the kids, tents and food and headed out around 12 on Friday so we could be sure to get a campsite. The guys and one school-goer were going to leave after work. We made it to the campground fine, but it was raining and muddy so we decided to get ice cream and wait out the storm. Well the kids fell in the mud first thing out of the car! After ice cream it had dried up a bit so we started to set up tents.
While we were setting up a nice older couple camped next to us asked me if we had brought shampoo (after telling us they had been camping for several days) I thought it an odd question but said "no".
They then pointed at Alyssa and said "Well, You're gonna need it!"
Spencer had so lovingly plopped piles of mud on her head...but as you can see, she didn't seem to mind too much!
Well it was very muddy and dirty after that, our clothes and coats were with the boys so there was nothing to do but let them keep playing! And they did, all that night and the next morning too!
We went on a hike, the one we wanted to had been washed out by the rain. We saw some petroglyphs and went for a drive. We also went to a U-Pick orchard where you can pick and eat all the apples (or fruit) that you want while in the orchard and pay about $1 lb for anything you take out. Hailee LOVED picking apples, she doesn't like to eat them though and she wasn't always good about picking good apples, but she got a few and we took them home!
I asked Hailee what her favorite part was. "It was playing in the mud, but you wouldn't let us do that Mom!" -Well it's true we kept telling them to get out of the mud, but it's not like they listened:) Sorry Hailee!
The next weekend we picked Heath up from work on Friday afternoon and by 4:15 we were unloading the car at Oak Creek campground in Oak City. We only camped there once while living there but we really enjoyed it and wanted to go back, and since it was my birthday weekend, that is what I chose to do. We can also get to that campground faster than we can get to one up Nephi canyon since we don't have to wait for Heath to get home from work, so it's a new favorite place. We were the only ones in the entire campground. We did a little hiking, some base ball, soccer, exploring, cow finding and complaining:)We also dipped our feet in the creek right by our campsite, but Hailee had a run-in with Stinging Nettle nearby and that is probably where part of the complaining came from. She is now writing a book about stinging nettle. (It is about a page long and so far I've done all the writing!)
I would like to say that we didn't bring enough for them to do, but we did and they only wanted to do each thing for about 5 minutes or less. It was just a one nighter and we packed up and had lunch at the Oak City Park. It was fun to be back in O.C. but I guess I am still glad that we live closer to everything over here in Nephi!
Whew! What an August!
We had a graduation bbq and a little program at the park and they each had a speaking part to tell us about their favorite animal. Hailee chose a unicorn. They also did the pledge, some abc's and sang some songs.
This was also the month of Hailee's final Dance Revue! I think she enjoyed dance but she refuses to admit to it. It was like pulling teeth to get her there every week yet she always walked out happy as could be! The last week of practice she let me know that she was NOT doing dance anymore after the performance. Her teacher thinks she is probably more of a performer...and after seeing her that night I believe it! She did a great job and was so excited to be there. She didn't want me to buy any professional pictures of her or her class, which is fine-saves me a few bucks, and she isn't very easy to convince to smile in front of a camera!
When the show was over and we were in the car driving away, I asked her if she wanted to do dance again. She asked if she could perform again, we told her yes but that she would have to go to classes first to practice...she decided it wasn't worth it!
Thanks Grandma and Grandpa, Aunt Alisha and Cousin Sydney for coming down to watch the show!
We chose this month to go on vacation because we wanted to take advantage of our national park pass before it expired, and more importantly so that I wouldn't be hot and uncomfortable while we hiked around!
We left on Thursday night and drove to Richfield (the nearest town to Bryce with an indoor pool) The kids LOVED it! We went swimming as soon as we got there and again in the morning before we left...that was probably the highlight of their trip and of course I didn't bring a camera to the pool!
On Friday we drove to Bryce on our way in we had to stop and wait for almost 1/2 hour (felt like I was in Yellowstone again!) Turns out a car had caught on fire on the side of the road. I didn't get a good look at the flames, we were too far back, but we did see them and we saw plenty of smoke! When we finally got to drive past and see the car it was completely burned to a crisp!
We arrived and had a picnic then went for a hike. We thought we would try and see Fairyland (something fun for Hailee)It was a bit longer than we had planned and the weather was starting to turn windy and rainy so we turned back. The kids didn't really enjoy it, but they made it back. We spent the rest of the day just driving to the viewpoints and jumping out to take a peek, then jumping back in the car to warm up. It was SOOO windy and cold.
We drove to tropic for the night and had pizza and hung out in the hotel. The next morning we headed back to the park. We stopped and hiked to Mossy Cave and waterfall outside of Tropic then went back to the park. We stopped at the visitors center then went for another hike down the Sunrise trail. We thought we were hiking to Thor's hammer and the Queen's garden, but I think we were on the wrong trail for Thor's hammer. Ah well, we saw something that was close enough to make Spencer happy! On the way up the kids were tired and Heath carried ALL 3 for a switchback or two! Several people on the trail were very impressed. Some took pictures and said he deserved Father of the Year!
Our last stop was to see the entire view at Inspiration Point! Wow! What a view!
All in all the kids survived and we had a pretty good time!
1 Alyssa and Steph and Natural Bridge
2 A view into Fairyland
3 Spencer and Steph at the Mossy Cave
4 On our way to the waterfall (photo by Hailee)
5 Our "Tea Party" and the Queen's Garden
6 Heath had to duck through most of the "tunnels" on our hike
7 Spencer and Hailee pointing out what we thought was Thor's hammer
8 The Waterfall
9 Our Chipmunk friend and the Queen's Garden
10 The Happy rider, Alyssa
11 Super Dad!
12 Super Dad! and the kids as happy as could be!
13 Inspiration Point
14 Inspiration Point
15 Hailee got a rainbow painted on at the visitors center, so we became "Team Rainbow Hikers!" It helped encourage us on our Loooong looong hike!
16 Alyssa, Heath and Hailee at one of the windy viewpoints along the way!
(copied from Taryn's blog)
Memorial Day weekend was lots of fun (but without me camera you'll just have to take my word for it!-)
On Friday we drove up to American Fork Canyon and met Jeremy and Taryn, some of Taryn's family and Josh, Mindy and Thomas for a couple days of camping! The kids were so happy to play, they found a trail that looped around our campsite and just ran and ran and had a great time!
Saturday morning we headed over to Timpanogos Cave. The last time I hiked that was about 9 years ago with Becca, Kellee and I think Jonathan.
The hike up was cool and breezy and it started pouring right about the time we made it to the top. The cave was really neat. It was fun to go back and see it. Heath had a hard time in some spots and was crawling on his hands and knees to get through, but we all survived. The kids really liked it when the guide let them "help out" they got to open doors answer questions or lead the way. Dustin even got to hold the flashlight so we could all see an old ladder way up high! (Hailee was jealous!)
By the time we made it through the cave Spencer was hungry and tired but we walked out to more rain. We hurried back down to our backpack which was covered in snow!! We put Alyssa in and I told Heath to hurry down and get her out of the rain. Heath and I had ponchos but none for the kids. Mine ripped while I was putting it on so I turned it sideways and kept the other two kids underneath as best as I could.
Everyone rushed down the mountain as quickly as possible, but for a tired Spencer our rushing was the slowest! After about 1/4 of a mile he was too tired and I held him on my side. Shortly thereafter I ended up putting the backpack on my front and Spencer on my back. He fell asleep and slept most of the way down...losing his grip a little at a time, making an enjoyable experience for me! Hailee was such a trooper. She didn't get carried at all even though she was SOOO tired and really wanted to be! I am so proud of her for hiking the whole thing!
We headed back to camp and ate lunch in our cars or under the canopy. Then Spencer, Alyssa and I headed to our tent to try and warm up and take naps!
We stayed another night and woke up to SNOW! We decided to bag breakfast and we packed up and headed to my mom's house!
We relaxed on Sunday and then on Monday, Heath went hiking with Mindy, Josh and Thomas. The kids and I stayed and played with Grandma and Kellee. We went to the park and after lunch we went swimming! They loved the PG pool! Hailee especially loved the slides. Since all the kids are too short to go alone, Kellee and I took turns taking them down. (I think I made over a dozen trips up those stairs!)
It was a great weekend full of rain, snow, sun and Fun!!!
June 2012
The next weekend we saw the weather was supposed to be better so we tried camping again. We went up Nephi Canyon to the Ponderosa Campground. Our site was right by the river and the kids loved it! We threw rocks, practiced some real log walking. Spencer and Hailee braved the log all on their own! We had hotdogs, gourmet smores and bacon and sausage for breakfast-and decided to change Spencer's name to Spencer Reed Bacon Sausage Hall! That boy likes his pork!!
The weather was great...even a little on the hot side! We slept with the rain fly off and enjoyed the stars.
