Camping in Southern Utah

 For the last part of spring break, we loaded up our trailer and headed down to Southern Utah. We camped at the KOA in Green River so that we could go to both Goblin Valley and Moab. On the first night there, we set up camp and then made a campfire so we could roast marshmallows and eat smores. The kids love campfires.

Camden was not the best sleeper for this trip, but he sure is cute, especially when he's with his big brother (and his Daddy).

The kids especially loved the little playground in the KOA. They spent all of their free time at the campground playing there. Tyler loved the slide. Ashley loved the two person swing, and Camden loved the teeter totter. I'm not sure which part of it Alyssa liked best. This picture isn't great because it was dark, but the kids had fun going on the teeter totter together.

Goblin Valley State Park

On Friday, we headed to Goblin Valley State Park. The weather looked promising that day, so we dressed in our shorts and t-shirts and headed off to the park. We did not anticipate the wind and the cloud cover and we spent a good part of the day wishing it would warm up. We also didn't anticipate the wait to get into the park. It was like they only allowed so many cars into the park at a time, so cars could only enter as other cars left(at least, that is what it felt like.)

The favorite activities of the day were climbing on the coolest looking formations and playing hide and seek. We split up into teams of two. Danny and I each took a boy, and the girls were a team. We spent about an hour and a half exploring before we got hungry.

We ate lunch in the truck because of the wind and cold. We debated on whether or not to call it quits for the day at that point. We took a vote and more people opted for going back down into the valley. We were so glad we did because on the second trip in, we headed over to Valley #2, where it was less crowded and hardly windy at all. We had a lot of fun back there. The only down side was that Ashley got worn out and struggled making it back to the car. It was a really fun day in spite of the wind and clouds.

Moab

On Saturday, we went down to Moab for the day. We started the day at Arches National Park. We were pretty excited when the Park Ranger let us in for free while everyone else had to pay. We still aren't sure why, but we weren't going to ask questions, just in case he was going to change his mind. Our destination was Delicate Arch. We went to Arches a couple of years ago, but our kids were too small for us to want to attempt a 3 mile hike up to the arch. Now, our kids are good hikers, and they all did really well. Camden probably walked the first mile on his own, drawing out all kinds of comments from other hikers about how cute he was. This first picture was taken on the hike up.

The wind was blowing pretty hard that day, especially at the top. The kids were a little scared they were going to blow off the mountain. We kept Camden in the hiking backpack to give us one less kid to worry about. Here are the pictures with the arch.

Me waiting to take a picture of the others right under the arch.

After the hike, we were all worn out. We drove to a part of the park that we hadn't seen before and found a picnic area so we could eat. However, it didn't last long because of the wind. We ended up finishing lunch inside the truck. We found a really short hike to another arch after we ate. We had fun climbing up to this cave and then sliding down the rock.

 And Danny went up to the top of this big rock with the girls.

Here is the arch we hiked to. I don't even remember the name of it. It was way up there, so we couldn't actually stand under it, but we got as close as we could.

 The kids especially liked this narrow passageway between two big rocks.

After Arches, we attempted to find a good bike path to do a family bike ride. However, after unloading the bikes, we discovered that Alyssa's bike had a flat tire. So Danny took Alyssa with him in his truck about a mile up the road from us and they played Frisbee while they waited for us to ride there. Right about the time we were passing them, Ashley also got a flat tire on her bike. That was the end of the bike ride. We loaded the bikes up again and found a pizza place for dinner. The wait was much longer than we expected, so that was the end of our Moab day. We did enjoy the rest of our smore's that night with a short campfire(the wind was blowing too much to make it last longer.)
On Sunday morning, we loaded up and headed back home. It was a really fun trip. We just wish the wind wasn't blowing so much.

Spring Break, Part 1

Most of the girls friends left for spring break, so we came up with some plans of our own. We've had a camping trip to Southern Utah planned for months, but we didn't leave for that until Thursday, so we had three days of fun before leaving.
On Monday, we had fun at Thanksgiving Point.

I didn't take pictures from the other days, but on Tuesday we met Danny at the Rec Center to go swimming together. On Wednesday, I got someone to watch the boys for me so I could take the girls to a movie. We saw "A Dogs Purpose." It was the perfect movie for Ashley. Alyssa and I enjoyed it, too. That afternoon, after we were all packed for our camping trip, we went for a bike ride that turned into geocaching. We also stopped at a couple of parks along with way, for the boys. I'll tell about our camping trip in another post.

The Lion King

As a final Hoorah to my birthday present from last year, Danny and I went to see the Broadway production of "The Lion King." I had seen it shortly after it came to Broadway many years ago and it was just as good as I remembered it being. They changed a few things in it to keep it more modern. Mostly, it was nice to have a night out with Danny doing something I love.

Our seats were pretty good, too.

I did not wear the animal print on purpose. I didn't realize what it probably looked like to others until just before the show when I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. Danny and I had a good laugh about it.

Silly Sock Day and The Dance Festival

The girls had silly sock day at school in honor of April Fools Day. They decided to each pick a pair of silly socks and then each trade one of their socks with each other. Alyssa chose long dog socks and Ashley chose short cat socks.

The next day was the school dance festival. Ashley got to do the May Pole Dance, which she loved doing.

Alyssa did a French dance. Camden was sleeping on my lap by the time her dance came and I didn't get any pictures of her, just a video that is too long to post. She didn't like her dance so much because she had to "wear smelly costumes and dance with boys." It was a nice way to end school right before spring break.

Creative Pancakes

We had fun with our breakfast for dinner and made some creative pancakes. Alyssa got this idea from one of the You tube channels that she follows and really wanted to try it. We did 5 different colors and had a lot of fun with it.

I think that Danny and I had just as much fun creating fun pancake designs as the girls did. The boys had fun eating them.