Parker and Roger Blow Out the Candles - May 27, 2014

Tuesday - May 27, 2014

Since we neither Parker or Roger had a chance to blow out the candles on their birthdays, we decided to sing to them and let them blow out the candles now that we are home.  We had a Marie Callender's Pie.  We put some candles in it, sang 'Happy Birthday',Roger and Parker blew out the candles, then we got to enjoy some yummy pie!  The pie was really good.  Sadly, Roger had to go to work as soon as he finished eating his pie.  It is so hard to get back to regular life after a vacation.

A little about our day: Brinley and Parker both stayed home from school today just because.  The last week of school always seems so pointless, so we aren't very strict about making the kids go.  They both wanted to stay home, since we got home so late last night and we were all so tired from all the hiking and driving that we did.  Alissa was tired, but she wanted to go, so she could finish all of her late work, so she'd be able to participate in all of the fun end of the year activities this week.

Alissa called from the school around lunch time and asked if she could stay after school to finish her work, so she won't have to miss out.  Roger took the truck to get an oil change, so I had to ask the Beverly's to pick her up.  Two hours after school got out, I still hadn't heard from Alissa.  I called the school and nobody answered.  I got really panicky when I realized that I had no way to get a hold of her and make sure that she was okay and still at the school.  Roger was still gone, so I couldn't drive over there to check on her.  I called the Beverly's, feeling super panicky, and asked if they would go look for her.  Lucky for us, the Beverly's are such nice people.  They went to the school to find her.  She was still in class, but just finishing up.. She was so focused on getting her work done, that she didn't realize what time it was.  I was extremely relieved when she finally came home.

Another funny thing from today is this news story.  This guy cracks me up!  I can't believe that he was able to fool so many people.  I love the big foot stuff and I was excited when I saw the story that he had killed a real big foot.  I was so excited to see if it was the real deal this time.  It would be awesome if someone found proof that big foot is real.  I love the whole big foot legend and stories.  I just really love unknown and mysterious type of things.  It's sad that it wasn't real, but hilarious that he fooled so many people.  My favorite part of the story is at the end, where after apologizing for lying (twice!), he promises to never lie again, then he claims that he has new evidence that big foot is real.  I love it!  I wonder if anybody will fall for it this time.  I watched a show about big foot that shared stories of people that loved to bring life to the legend of big foot by planting fake evidence and making big feet prints for people to find.  It was their hobby and they did it as often as they could.  There are so many different fun and interesting types of people in this world.  Anyways... I just think it is fun to imagine that Big Foot is real.  It makes all of our camping trips way more interesting when we have Big Foot hunting on our minds.  We watch a lot of 'Finding Big Foot'.  It is good fun!

Wednesday - May 28, 2014
The whole 2nd grade had a field day today.  They all walked over to North Park park to play.  The parents were asked to volunteer to come and help.  They wanted us to come with a game or activity to play with 6 - 10 kids at a time.  So, I decided to bring the bubble solution and a ton of different kind of bubble wands, like I had for Brinley's class.  I'd heard that some of the other second graders had seen us doing our activity and they wanted to try it.  It was pretty hectic doing the activity with the whole 2nd grade.  I had another mom there to help with the bubbles, so that was nice.  We were out there for almost 3 hours.  The kids rotated from station to station doing the different activities.  I was surprised at how long it took to get through all of the activities.  When they finished playing all the games, they all ran over to eat lunch under the bowery.  I hurried and cleaned up the bubble mess and put everything away.  Then I went over to see Brinley.  She was eating lunch with her friend Onnika, Onnika's sisters, and mom.

Friday - May 31, 2014
Here are some pictures I took of Parker and Brinley playing in our little pool on the patio.  It was really tricky to try and fill up the pool with out a hose, but we figured it out.  We set the pool up right next to the spout where we would hook up a hose if we had one.  I made a little slide and used aluminum foil to help keep it in place.  It fell if the water was turned on too high, so it took a long time to fill it up, but it was definitely worth it.  We love playing in our little pool.

The Hardest Hike We've Ever Taken the Kids On - May 26, 2014

Monday - May 26, 2014
We woke up, packed up our things, and headed to the nearest gas station to buy some milk for our cereal.  We planned on spending most of the day hiking.

Here are the maps of where we planned to go adventuring.  We are going to the slot canyons.

It was a long drive on a dirt road to get to our hiking destination.  These pictures are of us getting ready to begin our hike.  We had to pack our hiking backpack with lots of water.

The start of the hike was pretty scary.  Brinley was almost too afraid to try, but Roger and I stayed close to her and we made it across with out any problems.

We reached the first slot canyon.  It is called Dry Fork.  I loved hiking through this area.  I took way too many pictures.

We made it through the first slot, but we couldn't find the trail that would lead us to the next slot canyon.  We followed a trail for a while and the trail got smaller and had fewer and fewer foot prints on it as we went.  We turned back and found another trail that we thought might be the right trail,but we didn't have enough water with us to be hiking for too much longer.  If we took the wrong trail again, we would have been in trouble.  so, we just headed back the way we came.  So the next few pictures are of us hiking back the same way we came.

Climbing back up the mountain was way more difficult than I had expected.  It was much hotter by this point and a big part of the trail was sand.  The sand had been fun to go down, but it made going up much more difficult.

These pictures are from the drive back from our hike.  It felt like we were on that dirt road forever!  It's one of those situations where you know how many miles you have to go and you think, "That's not bad.  It shouldn't take us too long."  But the dirt road makes it take much much longer than expected.

I had read on a website before we left, that the drive between Anasazi State Park and Escalante is a thrill in and of itself.  I hadn't heard of it before, so I had no idea why or what could make a drive through an area like that so thrilling.  I really wasn't expecting much and I had kind of forgotten about what I had read, until we reached the top of this mountain and all of the sudden there are big drop offs on either side of us.  There was hardly even a shoulder on either side of the road.  Also, there were no guard rails.  It was definitely thrilling!  I was scared, but also impressed with the scenery.  It was a very exciting drive.  I didn't want to look down even for a second to grab the camera and take pictures.  I hoped we would drive this away again on the way home, so I could take pictures then.  We did drive home this way and that's what these pictures are from.  It was still an awesome drive, but I think it was way more exciting when we first drove over it.  Probably because we weren't expecting it.

Roger was starting to get tired and I needed a bathroom break, so we stopped at a rest stop in Dixie National Forest.  Roger said he wanted to try and take a little nap, so the kids and I decided to hike around and play outside for a while.  It was very beautiful and we had a lot of fun.

The girls kept trying to quickly put their hands in front of the camera before I took their pictures.  They thought they were hilarious.

Taking some selfies.

Getting creative with camera angles.

Alissa decided to pretend that she was an old lady who had fallen and couldn't get up.  For some reason, this really cracked me up.  I couldn't stop laughing.

I laughed so hysterically at Alissa pretending to be an old person who had fallen, that Parker decided he would give it a try.  I thought Parker was pretty funny also.

Now the kids each took turns running toward me while I snapped pictures.  I forgot about putting it on sport mode until Parker reminded me.  That's why there are only a few pictures of Alissa running and a lot more pictures of Brinley and Parker running toward me.  When the camera is in sport mode, it snaps like 10 pictures in a row.

Alissa had a funny idea to have me take a picture of her smiling, then take another picture from the same spot, but this time, she'll balance a pine cone on her head and make a hurt face, like the pine cone just fell from the tree and hit her.  We loved that idea, so Parker and Brinley tried also.

Parker wanted me to take a picture of him laying in the road like he had gotten run over.  After I took the first picture, the girls ran over to join in the fun.  They thought it'd be funny if they had pictures of them looking like they were stepping on him.  We just had too much fun goofing off.

I thought the sky was very beautiful.

Roger woke up.  He took about a 40 minute nap.  The kids and I were walking around and goofing off for about an hour.  We did good.  Roger felt well rested after that and we were able to head home again.

We didn't plan very well and ended up being in the middle of nowhere when it was time for lunch.  It took clear until 4:00 until we were somewhere that had a place to buy food.  We weren't too far away from Nephi by that point, so we decided to be strong and hold off until we got to Nephi.  We were starving by the time we finally got there.  We were very happy to have some food in our belly's and have another bathroom break.  We drove straight home from there with no more stops.  We were exhausted by the time we got home.  Parker and Brinley decided to stay home from school the next day, so they could sleep in.  Alissa needed to turn in some homework, so she could participate in the fun end of the school year parties, so sh woke up early and went to school the next day.

Roger's Birthday and Our Trip to Capitol Reef - May 25, 2014

Sunday - May 25, 2014
We woke up early and headed out on our adventure.  It was a long drive, but very beautiful, so we were okay with it. We stopped at a rest stop for lunch.  It wasn't too exciting, but roger took our picture while we were eating.

Our first destination was Capitol Reef.  We forgot to stop and take a picture of us in front of the sign, so we did that on the way out.  This was the scenery when we first got here.  It was so pretty and I just wanted to stop and see everything and take pictures.  We pulled over on the first pull out and I took these two pictures.  Then we noticed that there was a hike a short distance up the road.  So, we got back in the truck and parked at the start of the hiking trail.

Here we are at the start of our hike.  We hiked to Chimney Rock.  It's the rock directly behind Parker.

The temperatures were in the 80's.  We were glad they weren't hotter.  I can't imagine hiking in this area in the summer time.  That would be ridiculously hot.

Alissa and Brinley waiting for us to all be ready to start hiking.  Roger had to change his shoes and we needed to make sure we had enough water.

 The hike was a lot of uphill.  I kept using the excuse that I needed to take a picture, so I could stop and catch my breath.  Hiking this year is much better than last year.  Last year, I was really out of shape and it took us much longer and way more stops to wait for me.  I'm excited that it's getting easier since there are so many trails and hikes I want to go on this year.  Especially when we go to Montana.

Brinley and Roger stopped to pose for me. A lot of the pictures that I took were scenery pictures.  I used bits and pieces from my scenery pictures to create a pretty picture frame for the Brinley Roger picture that I took.

 After a lot of uphill, we made it to a sign that gave us options and pointed the direction of what trail to take to get where.  We opted to do the round trip hike to Chimney Rock.  That meant a lot more uphill.

 We treaded a long for a ways, then realized we might not have brought enough water for this.  We had a great view of Chimney Rock (Which is what we came to see), so we took some pictures and decided to turn around and head back.

 The hike down was much easier and went much faster.

 At the bottom, toward the end of the trail, roger noticed a lizard.  I have no idea hoe he saw it.  It was hidden pretty well.  We stopped to take some pictures of it.

 After our Chimney Rock hike, we headed up the road and found another hike to go on.  This one wasn't nearly as long and it took us to an overlook.  After our hike, we realized that we were way to tired from our waking up early, driving all day, then going on two hikes.  So, we decided to head to the cabin that we would be staying in.

 We remembered to get our pictures on the way out.

 On our way to the cabin, we saw a dirt road with a sign that said 'Hidden Lake' or maybe it was 'Peek-a-boo Lake'.  I can't remember, what it was, but it was something that implied it was hard to see.  Maybe it had blind in the name.  I really wish I had a better memory.  Anyway.... we decided to follow the dirt road and go see this lake.  The dirt road was really long.  The scenery was beautiful.  We were really enjoying the drive.  But eventually the road got smaller and smaller and less traveled on.  We kept going, because we really wanted to see this lake.  Eventually the road got too bad and we decided it would be too risky to keep going.  It was a nice scenic drive, but we never did find that lake.  On the way down, we noticed there was a lot of wood that would work great for building a fire when we got to the cabin.  So, we stopped and gathered some wood before we headed the rest of the way to the cabin.

 I had read on a website that the drive from Anasazi State Park to Escalante was a thrilling drive.  I kept wondering what could be thrilling about a drive.  I had forgotten all about it, until we came up to the top of the hill and I finally understood.  There is a stretch of road that was very thrilling.  We were at the top of a mountain with a drop off on either side of the road.  There were no guard rails or anything like that.  It was kind of scary.  But exciting.  I was so surprised and a little nervous as we went over the road, that I forgot to take any pictures.  We stopped and took pictures on the way back though.  We also stopped at this scenic area not too long after passing the scary part on the road.  It was interesting to learn about how this road was made.

 The entry way to our campground. We did a lot of calling around on Saturday night trying to find a place to stay.  Every where we called was all full, since it was Memorial Day weekend.  We had just about given up hope of finding a place.  Roger decided to call one more place.  This was the place.  They had one cabin available and it was much cheaper than any other place.  So, that was really nice.

 The cabin we stayed in

We sat around the campfire and enjoyed some s'mores.  Before our desert, we decided to go out to eat.  We were just too tired and the thought of starting a fire and cooking a meal, just felt like too much.  So, we went to Subway for dinner.  When we got back, someone had started a fire in our fire pit.  We were a little confused, but also felt like, sweet!  We get to sit around the fire with out all the work of starting the fire.  Soon, some people from one of the fifth wheel trailers came over.  They said that they had started the fire.  They didn't realize anybody was staying there and they were hoping to have some s'mores.  We didn't mind sharing the fire pit for a while.  They seemed like nice enough people.  They lived in Holladay area.  They enjoyed their s'mores and we visited for a while, then they left to put their little ones to bed.  We enjoyed sitting around the fire for a while longer before heading to bed.

We saw a rainbow