October 31, 2011

Camping near Zion

Brent had fall break a few weeks ago so we packed up Saturday morning and drove down to Southern Utah. We chose Zion because it was the warmest place in Utah at the time. We found a great spot.
Brent had read that there was lots of BLM land to camp on at the top of Smith Mesa, just kinda outside of the south entrance of Zion Park which sounded great. We found what we thought was Smith mesa and the coolest campground ever! As time went on, though, we realized we weren't where we thought we were.
It turned out that we atop Hurricane Mesa which is home to the Hurricane Test Track, an old test ground for ejections seats and supersonic aircraft. After all was said and done, Brent checked our campground location with respect to property boundaries and realized we were technically outside the BLM boundary by 150 feet. I don't think anyone would mind though. No one said anything, we didn't cross any of the tresspassing signs, we loved the place and we'd readily camp there again.
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While Brent was moving rocks around to make a fire he discovered this cute little lizard.  After overcoming initial hesitations about touching the lizard Chico became best friends with this little guy and took him everywhere he went.  Every emotion Chico was feeling, the lizard apparently felt too.
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The night before we had a ward party that Chico got his face painted at.  He loved his tiger nose and whiskers and he looked quite adorable. :)
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After a long cold night it was finally morning and the sun was coming up as we tried to get warm by the fire.
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Chico of course got right to work digging while we made breakfast.
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After a scrumptious pancake, bacon, and egg breakfast we got ready for church.  Brent forgot his church clothes, we felt a little bit dumb walking in looking like such a ragamuffin crew. But we made it to Sacrament meeting and then left to go visit the Saint George Temple Visitor's Center and walk around the grounds.  It was beautiful, and we really enjoyed the messages we heard at the Visitor's Center.
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The boys were SO full of energy and had fun wrestling with us on the grass.
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I love this next picture...
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The rest of Sunday was spent lizard hunting and relaxing at camp. We lost the first lizard we caught which devastated Chico. Brent caught a second lizard. This one was a baby so he was pretty small. In fact he somehow escaped through one of the air holes Brent had made in the tupperware we were keeping him in.  Luckily Brent caught him again and we actually still have him as our very first pet we've ever owned.

The next morning we packed up camp because we would spend all of Monday hiking. Then we drove away from our beautiful plateau that we had camped on.
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Quick story from later that day after our hike I saw people coming off the trail and laughing as they saw our 4Runner with toys on the top. They knew that it was our car because we were the only ones with toddlers on the hike.
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Zion is so majestic and beautiful.  After we got a map at Zion we realized that the hike we actually wanted was back off of I-15 at the Kolob area. So we had to backtrack which wasted a little bit of time, but it was still nice to get to see Zion.
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So, we finally started off on our hike.  Look how cute our Chico is!
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We read the sign at the beginning of the hike that talked about what wildlife is in the area.  I was just getting done repeating it Chico, "We'll possibly see mule deer, lizards, eagles..." and Brent laughs and points to the ground and says, "and apparently tarantulas!"
No joke, we were not even 50 feet into the hike and we see a giant tarantula.  We were trying to figure out how to illustrate how big that sucker was so we put down our key and he crawled over it.  Our key is pretty big but we don't feel like it properly shows how big it was.  
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So yeah, that was pretty exciting and Chico had fun telling everyone we passed on the trail that we saw it.  Most of the people we told thought he said, "dinosaur" instead of tarantula but we were always quick to translate.  Only one other couple had seen one too.
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And of course he's got to climb a bit while we're hiking.
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And throw some rocks into the stream.
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Isn't this a cool rock formation?!
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Brent thought this rock looked like a big tongue but Chico thought it looked more like a big table for eating "hamburgers" at.
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There is nothing like BEING there. We're getting a little better at capturing things on the camera that we see, but we still find ourselves wanting. You just can't capture what it's like to BE there. That's why we love hiking so much. It's always an incredible time.
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And we just love spending time with each other and the kids. Chico says the cutest things and learns so much on our hikes. I'm so glad I married Brent, he is my best friend and the best travel companion I could ask for. He is SUCH a good dad.
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And he's a pretty dang good photographer too...
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This next picture shows Chico sweetly picking up this big tree branch so that Brent could get by easier.  Is that not the cutest!?  A guy on the trail saw Chico do that and turned to me with an impressed look on his face and said, "That kid's got a future."
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And then we made it.  After 2.5 miles and about 40 shallow stream crossings on the way up, we finally made it to the double alcove arches.
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  It echoed really cool which kinda weirded out the kids at first (see pic of Chico below). But they eventually liked it and we ate our dinner there and then headed back.
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It was a good hike all around. We met some cool people originally from Russia, then some people from Nevada, and from another part of the country. We learned about "scouring reed" and pondered on the "mansanita leafs".  Never saw any lizards but we did see some deer tracks.  Didn't see another tarantula until we were packing up in the parking lot.  Could be the same tarantula we saw at the beginning though.  Brent was crazy and picked it up on the end of a long stick. We didn't keep it though, I do have my limits. :)  After that we drove the rest of the way home. It was a long drive but not as miserable of a time staying awake as we normally have.

It was a much needed vacation during this hard long semester!



October 28, 2011

First Part of October

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They had a lot of fun playing with Grizwald's new birthday toys while we tried to watch conference.
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Brent has such great ideas and edits so well. I love these pictures. They might look cool in a double frame or something in their room... I should look into that.
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Lovin' this warm October weather!
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Grizwald sittin in "Daddy's Canyon".  By the way, see the fence there?  That's where the snake was poking out his head staring down at Chico.  I'm so glad Chico came to tell me instead of trying to play with it. And I'm glad it wasn't a rattler.
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Chico was being adorable with all his dinosaurs in his hook truck.
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He's such a cute silly boy.
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The next week it turned cold. My boys wouldn't be deterred though and they HAD to play outside... even if the temperature was registering in the 40s when I took these.
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And I finally pulled up my carrots and was pleased that they were somewhat fat (though quite short)! I had enough for one batch of chicken noodle soup.
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October 18, 2011

Grizwald's Party

We had a party at the park for his birthday in the evening after Brent got off work.  It was a lovely day, we couldn't have asked for better weather and better company.
While we waited for everyone to arrive we had fun on the playground for a bit...
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After eating some Alfredo Lasagna and salad I whipped out the birthday cake. I decided to do it similar to the cake smash pictures because it wasn't too hard to do for such a cute cake. Look out kids, the cakes might look like this more often than not. :)
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"these polka dots look familiar..."
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Watching Grizwald open his presents was so much fun. He was so excited about all the new toys and loved all the attention from everyone.
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This next face is the tale end of his suprised/excited face after opening his first present.
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He wanted to hop right on it and he started making engine noises as soon as he sat on it. This next picture shows him doing the engine growl...
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Sorry, there are a bunch of him opening his presents. It was just too cute.
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Taking Chico for a spin on his new bike...

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Some of his cousins showed up a little later because of difficulties on the road but we're glad they came for what they could of it. :)

His other cousins couldn't come because they were with their mom that weekend instead of with my brother.  So we met up with them at a park so they could wish him happy birthday and give him some presents. I had my camera with me, here are a few of them:
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It's amazing how well our second child handles being surrounded by kids.
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Rocking out on his new xylophone.
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Chico has had a hard time with all of these new toys being Grizwald's and not his.  When he uses them he says he's "sharing" them.  It's been a little bit trying to tell you the truth. :)
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Coming soon... the rest of October and then our spur of the moment trip to Zion.