In God's Country: Moab - Spring Break 2011 Day 2

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

This was our coolest day, temperature wise, in Moab. And it was also the day that had the highest chance of rain. So we decided this would be a good day to drive through Arches National Park and hike to Delicate Arch. Even though we have been to Moab several times since, the last time we were in Arches was in 2007 when Steve's sister and her family were visiting us. It was so so lovely to be there this time and be hiking when the temperatures weren't scorching. It took us a couple of hours to hike to the arch and then back down. Here are some of our pictures along the way. As you can see, Aubrey and Zac were still enjoying their new found friendship.

I can't tell you how good it did my heart to see them getting along so well Little Miss Addy Thing did so well on this long hike. Although about half way up she started getting tired so about every 30 steps she would do this: Her sisters posing with her on one of her many breaks

It got to the point that her little breaks came about every 5 steps so we had to find a way to help her along. Steve explained to her what a cairn is and told her that she had to be our leader. It was her job to find the next cairn and lead us to it. It was a job she took very seriously and was very excited about. There was no more lying down on the job for her. She was up and running from cairn to cairn. It became hard for us to keep up with her.

The endless walk. At least the weather was cool!
Emily

We were getting close to the arch but still couldn't see it. There was a little arch window up on a cliff that we climbed up to that gave us our first glimpse of our destination.

Aubrey looking at Delicate Arch from the smaller arch

Emily

Steve helping Addy down from the small arch that served as our window

We're almost there!

And we made it!

The last time I was here, I was pregnant with Zac. A lot has changed since then.

Aubrey and Emily

I freaked out a little when I saw this picture because Zac is taller than me. Then I realized we are on a slope.

Zac and Steve decided they wanted to take a more adventuresome route back down

So the girls and I started back down on our own

At the trail head for Delicate Arch there is some Native American Rock Art which you can see behind the kids in this picture

After our hike to Delicate Arch, we drove around the park taking in the majestic beauty of it all. Then we found a fun, secluded place to climb around. Addy loved playing in the sand.

Everyone enjoyed the climbing. Especially Steve and Zac.

Addy, out on a ledge

Zac helping Aubrey down

Aubrey, out on a ledge

Emily

(Hey, if any of you happen to come across this jacket on the highway, pick it up for us. She put it on top of my van Saturday and I drove off without knowing it. Until it scared the hookie out of me and almost made me wreck!)

Honest Abe, is that you? Double Arch. One of our favorites. You might recognize it from the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

We spent quite some time climbing around in Double Arch.

When we left the park that night, we were exhausted and starving. Pizza Hut seemed to be just the thing we needed. One of our pizzas had this huge bubble on it. Aubrey quickly grabbed it up, causing the rest of her siblings to squabble over it. Really? Yes. Really.

We got back to our hotel and finally the kids got to do what they had been wanting to do since we arrived in Moab. Swim in the pool. What is it about kids and hotel swimming pools? When we were in Disneyland, that was something they were always begging to do. I think this summer we could just go to the nearest hotel, check in and let the kids swim all day for a few days and they would think it was the best vacation ever. Anyway, it was nice because the pool was outside but it was heated. And we even talked Steve, the anti-swimmer, into joining us.

Click here for day 1

In God's Country: Moab - Spring Break 2011 Day 1

April 5, 2011

The trip that almost wasn't. We had plans for going to Moab over Spring Break with the same friends we went with last year. The week before we were supposed to leave, they decided they would be unable to go. Steve and I decided that we wouldn't be able to go either. The next day we were regretting that decision so after a few days contemplation we decided that we would be super sad if we didn't go. So we loaded up and headed out on Steve's Birthday. This time we stayed in a hotel because we didn't want to spend a bajillion dollars on gas driving 2 trucks there (one to pull the camper and one to pull the wheelers). Plus I hate driving a truck and pulling a trailer. And it was supposed to be cold and raining at night and Steve and I are turning into babies in our old age. It was a little sad to not be camping, although the shower and the toilet in the hotel were really nice to have. We had the best time and made so many fun memories. Our family LOVES Moab. It is one of our fav-o-rite places.

We decided that little Miss Addy Thing was old enough to ride along on the back of a wheeler. She is the same age Aubrey was when she started hitching a ride on the back seat. This was Addy's first time to ride with us. I forgot how much fun it is to have a little one on the back with you banging the visor from her helmet in your back every few minutes.

We arrived in Moab early afternoon on the 5th. We drove straight to a trail head and unloaded the 4 wheelers and hit the red dirt. We did the Gemini Bridges Trail.

Atop Gemini Bridges. OK, so here is the deal. I am not scared of heights. But I seriously had a panic attack when we were here and my kids were walking around the edge of this arch. You will see why in a minute. It is way the heck up there. I felt like if a strong breeze picked up it would take us all right over the edge. I was a total buzz kill up here and I finally just made everyone leave because I couldn't handle it anymore. I had four kids going in four different directions and deep plunging cliffs on all sides. I'm still freaked out when I think about it now.

Walking across the first arch. When we saw what we were standing on when we went down below, well, yeah. There's like nothing underneath us here:

"EVERYONE BACK TO THE WHEELERS NOW! GET AWAY FROM THE EDGE NOW! But here Zac, go stand over by the edge of the cliff one last time so I can take your picture."

I can't believe it, but I actually have a picture of myself standing on that narrow little bridge out there. It was before Steve and I were married and before we had kids and before we had common sense.

Ahhhhhh....let's all just breath a sigh of relief that we are all away from the edge now. I feel so much better, don't you?

We headed down the Bull Canyon Trail which took us below Gemini Bridges.

And there you have it. Gemini Bridges from below. That's where we were standing before. Right up on top of that arch way up there. You see why I was so freaked out. It's a long, long way down.

We had fun playing around in this little valley below the bridges.

We are very much against defacing such beauty so we are not the ones who did this, but apparently just a few days before us, there was another Steve and Emily in this very spot.

The kids had a blast climbing

And so did the Birthday boy, who couldn't think of a better way to spend his Birthday

These two (Zac and Aubrey), who usually spend the majority of their time fighting, became best friends on the trip. They were together the whole time and didn't fight once. It must be something in the desert air.

Emily's looking at me like, "Now whadda I do?"

We decided to have dinner by Gooney Bird Rock

We found a little camp site and pulled out our goods and got a fire crackin'. Steve drove his 4 wheeler (really fast) back to the truck and moved the truck to the other end of the trail so we wouldn't have to go all the way back the way we came in the dark. Then he drove back to us (really fast). I don't know if he actually needed to move the truck or if he just wanted to drive really fast...

While Steve was driving really fast and I was cooking dinner, the kids went exploring. They loved climbing. If you look really hard in the middle of this picture, you can see all four of them.

I enjoyed the beautiful view while the sun was setting

We had foil dinners. Yummm. Although, just a little note to myself. Self: If you are going to pack foil dinners and take them in an ice chest jostling down a trail on a four wheeler all day, do not pack them all in the same bag. They need to be in their own individual ziplocks with lots of padding. They rubbed against each other and there were some places where they rubbed right through the foil. But it was OK. They were still delicious. And just a little hint for those of you who make foil dinners: I always cook all my ingredients at home BEFORE I put them in the foil. Then you just have to heat them up and it doesn't take long!

I couldn't forget about my Sugar Daddy's Birthday. I brought his favorite snack cakes, Zingers (I wanted to make cupcakes but I didn't think they would survive the trail) and a candle. We all sang Happy Birthday to him.

It was dark and it was time to head down the mountain. On a road that was right on the edge of a cliff! I was freaking out a little hoping one of the kids didn't drive right off the edge. Thankfully it was dark so I could pretend that we weren't driving our wheelers right next to a huge drop off. In the midst of my freaking out Steve tried to calm me down by saying, "Honey, I've done this trail 50 times. I could do it in my sleep. Zac did this trail when he was like 7. On a bike." That made me feel so much better. The best part was when we started seeing all the little tiny car lights driving on the road below us. Then I was able to tell how high up we were and how severe the drop off was.

We made it safely down and checked into our hotel and hit the showers and the beds. When I got out of the shower I found Steve and the kids watching some super scary movie about sharks eating people. I can't turn my back on them for 5 minutes....

Monday Morning Musings - Excuse Me But Your Buh'uns Undone

My husband is from Missouri. I hail from the great state of Texas. My children? My children are Utahns. I'm OK with that for the most part. I'm half Utahn myself since I have lived here so long. (I hope my Texas kin don't hear me say the likes of that, they'll freak out!)(I can just hear my sister Farrah saying, "Yeah. It's true.") There are certain things my kids do, being Utahns, that I just have to let 'em do. I mean, they're from Utah, and that is my own doing. For instance, they freak out if there isn't fry sauce for their fries. But there is one thing that neither Steve or I can allow. At all. It is like swearing at our house. The way they say mouh'unh (mountain) or buh'un (button) . I swear. I cannot. Let. That. Be. Emily has learned how much this annoys the heck outta me (Did you hear that? I said heck. I told you I was 1/2 Utahn.) And since she makes a habit of pushing my buh'uns (buttons) she takes great joy in mispronouncing these words on a regular basis. Repeatedly. For my benefit.

So apparently the mean girl thing starts early these days. There is this girl at preschool who is not nice to my sweet little Addy girl. She is always telling her she doesn't like her hair because she never has anything in it. She is always telling Addy to wear bows or flowers or other foofy things in her hair. Addy and I have had some long talks about how cute her hair is without anything in it and who cares what that girl at school thinks, if she (Addy) likes her hair the way it is, that is all that matters. I even went in and talked to her teacher who in turn talked to the girl about being nice. I thought we had moved past it. But the other day Addy was putting a flower headband in Aubrey's hair and she said, "Here Aubrey, wear this in your hair and all the girls at school will like you." OK. That broke my heart into about a billion little pieces. My four year old should not have to worry about girls liking her or not liking her because she does or does not wear her hair a certain way. It breaks my heart again just typing this. My poor girls are stuck with a very non-foofy mom.

Aubrey came up to me the other day and asked, "Mom, what do boys give you when they like you?" I asked her if a boy gave her something. She said there is this boy who took some string or ribbon he found and tied it into a bow and gave it to her. Then she said that she was sitting at her desk reading and he came up and sat next to her and put his arm around the back of her chair and asked her what she was reading and then he sat there like that "reading" along with her. I added the quotes myself. I might have to pay a visit to Aubrey's class and check out this fresh little boy.

Addy and I were driving Zac to an orthodontist appointment and it was lunch time so Zac and Addy were eating lunch in the car. Z looked back at Addy and said, "OH GROSS! Her water bottle is full of floating food!" And Addy held it up, shook it and in delight exclaimed, "IT'S A SNOW GLOBE!"

You know how I said before that my phone was on the fritz? Well it is fritzing out big time now. I have got to get a new one. I just feel it is so ridiculous that I have to rely so heavily on something like a cell phone. So I am punishing myself by not going out and getting a new one. Well, that and the fact that I don't have a ridiculous amount of dough to hand over in return for a new phone. Thankfully Emily taught me how to use the voice command button on the side of the phone. That button, or as Emily says, "That Buh'un. Buh'un. Buh'un. BUH'UN!" Until I smack her to get her to stop. That button that always annoyed the heck (← Utah) outta me because I was always accidentally pushing it, has come in very handy since she taught me how to use it last night. I can actually call people now! I just can't get text messages and people keep sending them to me so if you really want to talk to me you are gonna have to do it the old fashioned way. And in the mean time I will keep having conversations with my phone like this:

Me: Call Steve.

Phone: Did you say call Tina?

Me: No

Phone: Did you say call Chase?

Me: No

Phone:Did you say call Kids?

Me: No

Phone: Did you say call Camille?

Me: NO!

Phone: Sorry, command not recognized.

Since I can't see my screen, I can't set my alarms (which I was magically able to turn off last week during Spring Break). So you know what I had to do the other night? Set an old fashioned alarm clock. I couldn't even remember how. I swear this is the image that popped into my head when I was trying to figure it out: A monkey holding the alarm clock and turning it around in his ape hands then hitting it while making monkey sounds. I finally was able to set something that I thought might be, but wasn't quite sure if it actually was the alarm or not. And guess what? It was the alarm. And guess what else? It about gave Steve and me a heart attack when it went off the next morning. How did people used to wake up to that and remain sane? I think those old alarm clocks with their heart attack inducing blaring screeching loudness might have really done some damage to people and that is why society is so screwed up today. I miss my peaceful little piano fluttering melody on my phone that used to wake me up.

I didn't completely mind being woken up that morning, as horrible as the wake up call was. Because I was having a horrible dream. I dreamt that Emily's friend who just moved had both her parents die on the same day. Her dad was in a plane crash and then her friend and her siblings couldn't find her mom so they called me to come over and help them find her. When I got there there was blood everywhere and the house was all torn up. I told the kids that their mom was dead and I was pointing out everything to them like I was some kind of detective. I was like, "Well, you can see there was a struggle here, and then because of the trail of the blood leading to here you can see she tried to get away." It was awful and as I was detailing the whole crime scene to them, I looked out the window to see my mom's house with a bunch of people walking out the door to go to my dad's funeral. I told the kids it was time for me to leave because I had to go to the funeral. I went and was sitting in the church with this whole funeral thing dragging on when the alarm went off. So you see why even though it was an unpleasant way to wake up, it was better than still being asleep at that moment.