Zions National Park

The kids were off track for 3 weeks and the weather was in the low to mid 70's in Southern Utah so what a great time to take off for a 3 day camping trip with the kids!

Ryan was very excited to use his new skills that he learned from scouts. He lit the chimey and helped make the dinner.

On the menu; Hobbo Dinners

Meagan never likes to be left out of anything and gets bored really easy. She has to keep herself busy all the time. I am constantly hearing, "can I help you with that", "can I organize the pantry", "can I make dinner". She is a busy little (cute) bee!

Chase, on the other hand, was up in a tree, down by the creek, wondering around the campground all by himself and he has always been like this. He is a very independant child. I am constantly looking for him when we go places because he just likes to wander off by himself. "Where's Chase?" is a common question in our house.

Isn't it funny how everything taste so much better when you are camping out? Is it nature? Is it the taste of cooking it in the dutch oven? Is it because the dutch oven takes so long that you are starving by the time it is done? Is it just the peace and joy you feel when you are out spending quality time with your kids? Probably all the above. All I know is the only time I have tasted better meals is when I end my fast on Fast Sundays:-).

We had bisquits to go with our dinner one night and cinnamon pull-aparts to go with them the second. Again, so dang tasty!

And of coarse you can't go camping without the traditional smores. I limited myself to just 2 1/2....didn't want to seem like a pig or anything.

I commented to Ryan on how we needed to take his jeans in to Sears and exchange them (Sears will exchange jeans that get rips or holes in them so I don't go anywhere else to buy my boys jeans. All you moms with boys know exactly what I mean). Ryan says, "No mom! I love these jeans. Jeans with holes in them are 'man jeans' ". LOL! He is my only boy who cares about how is hair looks, what he's wearing, if his teeth are white, ect. He even saves his money to get highlights in his hair and will comment when Dave or I are "dressed cool". Couldn't live without this little ball of fire.

This was on our first of 4 hikes. This was Shelf Cannon....off the beaten path and not one of the more popular ones people hike or the shuttle bus takes you to.

This hike made me a little nervous because it had rained recently and the sand on the bottom of our shoes made it very slick. I was sure someone was going to get hurt but I was wrong (thank goodness).

One of the many beautiful scenes we saw in Zions. This was on our second hike up to the middle falls at Emerald Pools.

This is the upper falls at the Emerald pools. The kids loved this hike the most. If we would have let them they would have jumped in the water....the freezing cold water. At what age do you start feeling heat and cold?...cause kids seriously seem to not feel it as well. The temperature here in Utah as been in the low to mid 60's a few times over the last week and the kids keep asking me if I will turn on the sprinkles so they can get their swimsuits on and run through them. What?!?!

This is beneath/under the middle falls at Emerald Pools. Tyler got soaked as he was walking underneath on the trail. A good breeze came in and got him good. He wanted to wait until another breeze kicked in again but it was past lunch and some of us (especially mom who hadn't been snacking on the hike) were getting hungry.

Dave and I are both self conscience about having a "double chin" in our pics so when Tyler asked if he could take some pictures as we were enjoying the sun on the lawn of Zions Park for lunch I promised Dave that I would make sure he didn't have a double chin for the picture. We were cracking up trying to make it look normal. SO, here's our "no double chins" picture. :-)

The girls have been taking Gymnastics since shortly after we moved back to Utah. They had fun in the big open grass space doing their cartwheels, front walk-overs, back walk-overs, and round-offs. Here I am helping Jenna with her back handspring (which she almost has).

Now that lunch is done and we are rejuvinated we decided to do 2 more hikes. But first....time to get the old man up. ;-P

It takes a family to raise a....Dad!

The squirels were very friendly here. It was fun because they weren't afraid of people so they would come right up to you.

Quick picture with my honey at the start of the Narrows. We couldn't go up because of the water level but we want to come back in 2 or 3 years and go up with the kids and camp over night.

The last hike we went on was a short 20 minute hike into the Weeping Gardens. We all had fun but were ready to go back and start dinner, relax and play some games.

This is a random picture of the girls I threw in here. They had just had their haircut and wanted to take pictures. Aren't they the sweetest things!!