Spring Break Edition

This is going to be a serious post about our "super deluxe" spring break. I took way too many pictures and didn't post nearly all of them but still had a hard time choosing. We hit the annual Baby Animal Days festival and then headed south for the weekend. The weather was beautiful, and we had so much fun hiking around in the desert with our friends the Snyders. It was so fun to get together with them with all six of our kids. The oldest was barely seven, but they hiked like troopers and we all had such a great time. It was hard to come back home to schedules and piles of laundry.


Baby Animal Days this year included some baby bear cubs from Bear World. They were so cute, and my man cubs are too.

Seth insisted on this train ride, so we stuck it out in a long line to loop around the track twice. Very exciting!

Ian spent most of his trip in this or his car seat, but he was so happy 90% of the time. I didn't realize until we got home how quiet he was all weekend. He was just back there taking it all in.

By Thursday night we had reached our destination at the Thousand Lakes RV Park in scenic Torrey, Utah. It was a great place to stay and considering it was quite cold at night I'm glad we decided on a cabin...a "super deluxe" cabin no less...more on that to come. Luke began asking, "Are we there yet?" about Salt Lake City and did not stop. It is a new and less than desirable phase. That last hour we resorted to every old school tactic: I spy, 20 questions, ABC game to make the time pass.

Friday we drove to Goblin Valley, and the kids had such a blast. It is like a huge, natural playground. They ran and jumped off rocks non stop. Luke would have stayed there all day if we let him. It really was so fun, and we will for sure go back there again.

They're tiny but you can see Luke and Stella on a "goblin." They became best buddies right away.

After lunch we hiked into Little Wild Horse canyon. It is an amazing slot canyon, and it was nice and shady. The kids had tons of fun exploring here too. Seth really got into it here and wanted to climb everywhere the bigger kids went.

Luke, Stella, and Miles in their hole which required quite a bit of climbing to reach.

Heading into the "squeezy part" as Seth called it. He was my hiking buddy, and I managed to not yank his arm out of socket while saving him from about 100 face plants.

It was getting a bit wet and hard for the littlest kids at this point, so we headed back. We will definitely go back when they are all a bit bigger and we can make the whole loop.

Back at the cabins we tortured ourselves with a cold, windy night and extremely smoky fire. Seth and Miles were in it for the long haul with the marshmallow roasting. Jer is a smore maker extraordinaire, so he was teaching Seth the fine art of it.

Luke and Stella were too cool for the fire and too involved in their own silliness to join us. At one point they had blankets over their legs and looked like a couple of little old ladies.

Saturday we went to Capitol Reef to do some hiking around. This was our first stop on the trail to Hickman Bridge. Poor Ian was really tired at this point due to his late nights and lack of naps.

We did let him out of that pack every once in a while.

Stella and Luke with Hickman Bridge above. This was a really cool place, and we hiked down underneath it and took the explorer route back. The kids did their best to catch a lizard but were unsuccessful.

This little hike was 2 miles round trip with some steep parts, and Seth was a trooper. He only refused to go once and I carried him a minute (which is about all I could) and then he was fine. He did great and probably hiked at least 6-7 miles in 2 days...not bad for a 2-year-old!

We enjoyed homemade ice cream and pie after lunch in historic Fruita. We then headed to do the Capitol Gorge hike. Ian finally rebelled at this point as did Brighton, so Kristy and I ended up heading back with them. All the kids were pretty tired by now and they followed shortly and we called it a day. We topped it off with some greasy burgers and fries in Torrey.

Here's the one and only picture of the whole gang. Getting this shot was challenging.

When we rented our cabin we got the one and only "super deluxe." The Snyders were left with only the "deluxe" which gave us all a laugh the whole trip. As far as I can tell the only thing "super" about it was it was a bit bigger and had a separate bedroom. It was on the other hand a trailer while the deluxe was an actual cabin. Either way it was a great place to stay. Luke and Seth loved their little loft.

All the kids right before we parted ways. This was shortly after Seth did a #2 outside our cabin. That's right. I guess he thought it was okay because he had done it outside the day before when there was no other option. This by contrast was right by the steps to the "super deluxe." Not cool. All Jer could say was "that just happened" which I think is from some dumb movie. My wheels were spinning about how I could rock/scissors/paper my way out of cleanup or something, but in the end it was a team effort. Go team--human fecal matter successfully cleaned from the super deluxe steps. I'm praying for no repeats on that one.

A parting shot at the cabin. It really was a great trip. The desert in the spring is always amazing. Beginning in college and continuing up until the year Luke was born and then restarting again in 2006 (also excluding last year when I was about to pop), we have always ventured south in the spring. Before we had kids they were backpacking trips. Times have changed now, but it is a tradition I'd like to keep going in some fashion until I'm too old. Several of our desert adventures back in the good old days were with the Snyders, so it was really fun to do it again with all of our kids. To many more!