Camping in Moab 2013

With Brent's semester break and a three day weekend we were going to be able to take the boys camping, and Chico was counting down the days until we could go. As it got closer, Brent didn't feel well, we couldn't find a site that we could backpack into that was a short enough hike, warm enough, and had water accessible.  But the boys were SO excited to go that we decided to go ahead and go forward with the camping trip and not backpack this time.  We had wanted to go somewhere different than Moab this year but with Brent not feeling well and the weather in the state the way it was, Moab was the place to go.  

We left Friday morning and found a place outside of Moab in Castle Valley, it was the coolest spot to camp and it was free!  We found it by going up through highway 128 along the Colorado River.  After we got camp set up some cows came around and we figured out that we were camping in their open grazing fields. It was fine but it was funny to see Chico get so freaked out by them.  We needed to go down to Moab for a couple things and then we wanted to check out the Negro Bill Canyon Trail. We hiked a little ways in and just let the boys have fun.  Chico discovered how fun it is to play with cattepillars. He wanted to hold one so bad but once he would touch it he would scream and jump away. It was quite comical...

Grizwald was busy playing in the water. He'd come running up telling us, "Ma ka-chow in da wadow!" which means My "ka-chow" (lighting mcqueen shoes) in the water!"  He was having a blast!

Griz just wanted to keep going and going so Brent went a little ways further with him.

He looks like such a big kid in these pictures! 

 Chico had to go to the bathroom and we felt like we were still close enough to the trailhead that he could go back and use the outhouse (we had forgotten toilet paper since we were going just a short ways).  He lost the need to go and we found a nice rock to sit and wait for Brent at.  As I was sitting there a hummingbird caught my eye and I saw it land in a little tiny nest in the tree right next to where i was sitting.  The nest was built on this flimsy little branch that would sway in the wind and the bird just sat in it unphased.  She kept taking off to fly around then would come back. Over and over and over.  I was mezmerized watching. Chico kept getting close to the nest and was frustrated I wouldn't let him try to catch the bird.  It was so close to the ground he really could have tried! Well Brent and Griz finally met up with us and he pulled out the camera and got some nice shots. Here are two of them.

This is back at our nice shady campsite! 

After heating up our yummy tinfoil dinners we made s'mores and Brent pulled out the camera and captured the fun! 

This was our view from our campsite, so neat and beautiful!

Griz likes to show his bum off, such a goof! 

After all the sugary fun we went into the tent to go to bed. I laid down in my sleeping bag and was out within seconds.  Brent was probably even more tired than I was but he dealt with two very hyper boys for the next hour or so until they finally fell asleep too. Unlike most camping trips where we are up around 6 or 7, we all slept until around 8. It was so weird to get up and out of the tent when it was light outside and warm!  Anyway, we made our oatmeal and muffins, packed for the hike, and drove down to the same trailhead as before.  We came prepared with sunscreen this time because it was HOT! Chico's hasn't quite gotten rubbed all the way in yet in the picture below. Such a cool picture though as they climbed around on boulders at the beginning of the trail.

 There were lots of lizards on this trail and Chico was so excited for daddy to catch them.  Brent caught a few of them, this is the first one...

  it looked so cool with the bright blue underneath.  It had latched onto his thumb, we tried to get Chico to hold it but he was too jumpy and it got away.

There was  a fun area to play in the water and boy did the boys have fun doing that! None of these pictures capture the joy that they were experiencing running around in that water. It was an adorable site.

 We had to drag Griz out of there kicking and screaming practically so we could keep hiking.  The hike up was slow, Brent had to carry Griz in his arms most the way (unless we were crossing the river, in which case he was more than happy to jump out of Brent's arms and get himself soaking wet again).  We got to the top and collapsed in the sand and watched people repelling off the arch. Can't do that in arches! Guess it's a popular thing to do here though!  After eating some food and replenishing our water we all started feeling better.

Chico and Griz made friends with this lady that sat down near us. They were having fun talking to her and showing her things.  We pulled out the camera and got some pictures of them with the people. 

The hike back down was a little easier.  I can't believe how many river crossings that trail had!  This picture shows us hiking down the creek instead of the trail. We did that a couple times because the boys loved hiking through the water so much.

Silly Griz has watched a few too many shows about dinosaurs and I guess he wanted to try his hand at leaf eating.  This was just one of many attempts on this hike to eat the vegetation.  Meet Griz the Herbivore. 

Gotta have some water to wash out that nasty taste. ;)

Meet Chico the carnivore. 

I randomly decided to try to get a picture of Brent and I together and was surprised at how well it turned out! Let me tell ya, it ain't easy holding that big old camera backwards!

We made it to the end, Chico didn't know if he could walk any further, he was so tired and was getting hungry for dinner (as were the rest of us).  So instead of hot dogs around the fire that night we decided to splurge and went into town and went to the Moab Diner and got hamburgers and ice cream. We earned it after an almost 5 mile hike that took 6+ hours! ;) Oh, and a word of caution if you ever get a waffle cone from the diner, they are HUGE.

Next morning as we were packing up camp Chico was finding tons of caterpillars and wanted to keep them all in a cup.  I convinced him that he couldn't take them with us finally and we got a picture of one before he released them.  It was fun seeing how much his opinion had changed on holding them in just a days time. 

We drove home, showered super fast, and made it to Sacrament meeting during the opening song. I was amazed at our speed!  

Such a fun weekend!!!

Brent had his Bio-Chem final on a Wednesday and so Thursday through Saturday we made sure to party to celebrate the end of the semester.

Thursday we meant to take the boys to the Aerospace Museum but I didn't realize it would already be closed when we got there so we took them to Castle Park in Kaysville instead.  They don't remember having gone there so it was a fun new experience for them.  Brent and the boys discovered that you could hike down into a swampy stream area and I joined them soon after. They were looking for dinosaur bones. It was so cute to see their imagination at work as they'd pick something up and talk about what dinosaur bone it was.  Then they discovered how much fun the mud was to play with and that's when we pulled out the camera. 

Boys!!!

All the sudden they remembered there was a whole big playground waiting to be played in so they trucked back up the hill and started playing, yes, still covered in mud.

Griz is "helping" Chico get onto those monkey bars.

Chico loves the monkey bars now. There is a Wild Kratts about Spider Monkeys, they teach about how swinging arm over arm (like on the monkey bars) is called "brachiating". So the other day we were getting in the car to go to the park and Chico said, "I want to go to the park with the monkey bars so I can practice brachiating!"  Our crazy smart 4 year old is always rattling off information that I didn't know.  Thank goodness for GOOD public television that teaches them.  Wish our shows were that educational when I was a kid, maybe I'd know a little more. :)

Friday afternoon we went skiing with the boys to Snowbird. After one or two times down the mountain the boys got their skiing legs back and did an awesome job the rest of the time we were there.  Chico can still ski amazingly well without any help.  He even successfully attempted skiing backwards because he wanted to learn how!  He is ready for a helmet and polls and some harder runs next year, we can't wait!

Grizwald is 2 years old. Last time we went skiing a few months ago he started protesting about our help (guiding him with the pole hooked to his skis). He wanted to do it alone! This time was the same way, so we decided to just let him do it on his own while one of us skied right next to him. He fell a lot at first but within a run or two he was skiing without falling much on his own accord with just a little orange bungie holding his skis together. We were amazed! Skiing as a family is SO much fun.  I hope we can do it a bunch next season.

Saturday morning Brent was itching to go skiing again. We felt like it would be the last opportunity this season so I dragged myself up and we went skiing again. It was even warmer on Saturday, I didn't even wear a coat! We wish we had brought the camera again.  Oh man, it was such a fun day, the boys continued to do amazingly well. In fact, a man in the lift line was asking Brent about how long Griz had been off the harness, Brent told him he never was on the harness and just uses this bungie.  Well Griz was apparently listening to this conversation and as soon as they sat down in the lift chair Griz pointed at the bungie and said, "Off". (Well he actually said "on" but that actually means off, we're still working on that, But Brent knew what he meant)  So Brent took it off.  Grizwald's skis crossed a bunch at first and he fell a lot. But after a couple runs he was skiing like a pro without ANY help at all.  Brent is totally shocked about this. Back when he was a ski instructor they didn't even teach 2 year olds, and here is our two year old skiing all by himself!  We are thinking he might even get to go on some of the harder runs by the end of next season if he keeps up his amazing progress.  He is SO independent and he wants to do whatever Chico does. In fact that week at church he wouldn't go to nursery, he wanted to go to Chico's class. Chico's teacher was alone that day and she said Griz could stay if I did. So there was Griz, in CTR 4, sitting on his chair, listening to the lesson, wanting to participate. It was so funny.

Anyway back to Saturday, that evening we took the boys to a movie, "The Croods". It's fun going to the movie theater with them. It was a pretty good movie too. There was a scene that made Brent laugh for like 5 minutes straight which is always fun for me to watch when he laughs like that.

Sigh, SUCH a good weekend. Wish weekends could always be this much fun!