Capitol Reef National Park

We had another beautiful day at Capitol Reef. There was rain in the forecast, but we did not see it until we were driving back to our campground. We soon learned why we had never visited this national park before. It is way out in the middle of nowhere. It had some interesting colored rocks and a lot of history around the area, but I'm not sure we will ever go back unless we happen to be passing through(not likely since, like I said, it is out in the middle of nowhere). Our first stop was the visitors center to pick up the junior ranger packets. They kids all had to sit in this black rock because it had a big indentation in the top of it. They called it the potty rock.

Our plan was to take a hike down this canyon that was supposed to have petroglyphs. Ashley had just done a report on Carbon County and learned all about petroglyphs left by the Freemont people, so we wanted to show them to her in person. However, we had to stop for a bathroom break before we attempted the hike. We got sidetracked to this area with some fun climbing rocks.

 After we all climbed up the big rocks and back down, Tyler and Camden making us nervous the entire time, we headed to the trail head. The canyon walls were pretty impressive. Not only were there rock pictures left by the Freemont people, but there were also names printed on the rocks left by pioneers who traveled through the canyon on their way west.

The hike was a little over 2 miles round trip, but the kids did really well. We did have to carry Camden for a bit and we wished that we had brought the hiking backpack, but we all survived.

 Alyssa is our climber and she climbed up any rock that looked interesting.

 They called these swiss cheese rocks.

 I loved the tiger striped ones.

And finally, the rock art. There are some people drawn at the bottom of the darker striped section. It is kind of hard to see them, but Ashley loved it.

We headed out just in time to miss the storm, headed back to our campsite, hooked up our trailer, and drove all the way home in the rain. We were sure glad it didn't hit while we were in the canyon. The kids all earned their junior ranger badges in both Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon. Now they have badges for Bryce, Capitol Reef, the Grand Canyon, Glacier, Yellowstone, and Craters of the Moon.

Bryce Canyon

Our day at Bryce Canyon was perfect. The weather was beautiful and the kids did amazing with the hiking. We decided to hike the Navajo/Queens Trail Loop. It was about a 3 mile hike down one wall of the canyon and back up another wall. We took a lot of pictures along the way.

Tyler walked the whole 3 miles and Camden walked all of the flat parts and parts without small rocks on the trail. They were troopers. The girls did great, as well. After the hike, we drove around and saw some of the more accessible sites along the canyon. We stopped and saw this arch. Camden was sleeping, so he missed out on being part of our family selfie.

We drove all the way to the end of the road to this highest point of the canyon. It was pretty, but cold up there.

The last thing we did that day was take the short hike up to mossy cave. There was also a waterfall and river along the hike. The river was brown, so we told Camden it was a chocolate milk river.

 The cave really was mossy.

 It's hard to see, but the waterfall is right above my right shoulder.

It was a fun day at Bryce Canyon. The last time we had been there was when I was pregnant with Tyler. I couldn't hike very much that time, so we weren't able to see a whole lot. It was fun to go back and see more this time.

Camping Season Begins

For the second half of spring break, we took advantage of Ashley's "Every 4th Grader in a Park" pass and went to Southern Utah to visit some National Parks. We knew, for sure, that we wanted to visit Capital Reef, since it is the only Utah National Park that we have never visited. We decided to also visit Bryce Canyon and the Fish Lake area. In the Fish Lake area, our plan was to go and see Pando, the oldest living organism still living on Earth(about 80,000 years old). It is also the heaviest known organism. Above ground, it appears to be a forest of quaking aspens. Apparently, they all share the same root system below ground.

Amazingly, these trees covered both sides of an entire mountain.

While we were there, we decided to walk a bit around Fish Lake. It was still frozen, but it was still pretty. We had to bundle up because it was cool and the wind was blowing pretty hard.

We had fun throwing rocks onto the ice to see if they would break through. It looked pretty funny after we were done.

We were able to light a campfire 2 of the 3 nights we were camping. Our kids love the s'mores, but I think they love their Daddy's campfire stories even more.

 We are excited for another fun summer of camping.

Temple Open House

We kicked off spring break this year by attending the Jordan River Temple Open House. Danny has a pretty busy schedule these days, so we decided to go to this open house with out him. The kids actually did really well. Tyler wanted to be carried towards the end, but other than that, it went well. We feel so blessed to live in a place where the kids have an opportunity to go to multiple temple open houses.

Easter

We had a nice Easter this year. I took the kids over to our neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday morning before conference started. It wasn't much of a hunt, but at least they split them up according to age. Camden was in the first group(0-3 years), Tyler was in the second group(4-7 years), and Ashley and Alyssa went together in the last group(8-12 years). Alyssa pointed out that this was her last year to be able to participate.

After the first session of conference, we dyed Easter Eggs.

 On Easter morning, we enjoyed our usual breakfast of hard boiled eggs and blueberry muffins.

Even though we didn't go to church on Easter this year, I still made the kids coordinating Easter outfits.

Camden's turned out a little tight, which made me so sad, but we still squeeze him into it. There was even enough of the girls skirt material to make myself a matching knee length skirt. My favorite part about Easter this year was being able to spend the day with family and watch conference together.

Laura's Triathlon

I'm a little behind on posting so I'm going to attempt to catch up over the next few days. A couple of months ago, I competed in my first triathlon. It has been on my bucket list since we lived in Missouri and I saw some of my friends there compete in one. I chose a sprint distance just to get a feel for it. It went about as I suspected. My strongest leg was the swim which was, unfortunately, the shortest portion of the race. We were in a pool, so it was a bit tricky placing myself in a place where I wouldn't catch up to anyone or be caught from behind.

As you will see in this video, I failed. Even with being slowed down a bit, I was still second place on the swim portion for my age group.

As I predicted, my slowest leg of the race was the bike portion. It was quite frustrating to have 100's of bikers pass me during the 60 minutes I was riding. I was told a week before my race that having a road bike makes a huge difference when competing in a triathlon. I tried to borrow a road bike from one of my neighbors, but everyone that I asked, owned mountain bikes. I gave up and decided to stick with the bike I trained on, knowing that it would make my times worse. It was still frustrating during the race. Someday, I'm going to ride the same distance on a road bike and see if it really makes a difference. I'm the purple spot in the middle of this picture. I was transitioning to my bike in this picture.

Here I am riding past the fam after my first lap.

Here I am finishing the race off.

I finished the race in about 1 hour and 40 minutes. When we went back and looked at the times, we realized that I finished my 5K in 29 minutes which is the best 5K time I've ever had. I told Danny that it is probably because I was chasing this 69 year old man the whole run and I couldn't believe that I wasn't able to catch him.  I may not have been the fastest competitor, but I did have the best cheering section out of anyone in that race.

I was glad to have finally been able to cross this item off of my bucket list, but part of my hopes to one day be able to do a longer length triathlon(after I find a good road bike to borrow.)

Tyler's Dr. Suess Day at Preschool

Tyler got to celebrate Dr. Suess's birthday at preschool by dressing as crazy as he could. This is what we came up with.

 He thought it was the coolest thing to wear 2 different shoes, turn his clothes inside out, and spike his hair up. He had these fun glasses on too, but decided that he didn't want to wear them when it got closer preschool time.

They also got to make these fun Cat in the Hat masks. He kept his crazy garb on all day and we enjoyed the comments from people.

Daddy/Daughter Sock Hop

Our Stake had a Daddy/Daughter Sock Hop for all Activity Days Girls and their dads. Ashley was super excited for the one on one time with Danny. I thought that we had a poodle skirt, but an hour before they were going to leave, I went to search for it and couldn't find it anywhere. So this is the costume we came up with for her. I think she still looked super cute and 50's.

Danny...not so much. He didn't have anything in his wardrobe that went with the theme and we didn't plan far enough ahead to get him something(I don't think he minded not dressing up, though).

Before the dance, he took her to dinner at Black Bear Diner(Ashley's choice). Then they had a lot of fun dancing together at the dance.

Alyssa was a little jealous that she didn't get to go, but she forgets that she got to go to a murder mystery dinner with her dad last month, and all of the other combined youth activities.