Zac's 15th Birthday

On Sunday, September 2nd  Zac turned 15 years old.  The Tuesday before his Birthday he invited 3 friends to go to Boondocks.  They spent 12 hours there that day.  They have a  pizza buffet on Tuesdays that is $5 and you can go back as many times as you want between the hours of 11am-8pm.  They might have possibly lost money on the day these boys went.  Here are a few pictures I took before I left them for the day.

From what I hear, they had a BLAST!  Steve and I picked them up at 11:00 that night.  On the way home, we were just getting on the highway.  We were in Steve's truck so we had 3 boys in the back and Steve and Zac and I in the front.    There were pretty much no other cars on the highway.  We were still in the merging lane and weren't even fully on the highway yet, and we got pulled over by the police.  Because we didn't use our turn signal to merge.  Even though there was no one to merge with.  I think this was a case of profiling.  I really think that he saw a truck full of what he believed to be all teenage boys after 11 pm on a Tuesday night and wanted to see what they were up to.  He let us go with a warning.

On Sunday, Zac's Birthday, we had my mom and my sister Lauren over for dinner.  We had just got back from our camping trip to Bryce the night before.  Saturday night I needed to go to the store and buy the stuff I needed to make dinner.  Zac would not decide what he wanted to eat.  So I told him I was going to just make him whatever I wanted.  While I was getting ready to go to the store, he was watching some show on TV about avocados.  He decided that he wanted me to make  homemade guacamole and fajitas.  That was a good choice.  Lemmejusttellya.  

 He also wanted mint juleps for the drink.  Another good choice.

And lastly he wanted my mom to make a pina colada cake.  Guess what she did???  She didn't just make him one pina colada cake.  She made him 2!  She said she knew we would eat most of one cake that night and she wanted him to have another to enjoy the rest of the week.  And enjoy he did!

To read The Birth of a Boy Named Z, click here.

Camping In Bryce Canyon

We decided to take a last minute end of summer camping trip before the kids started school.  We left last Thursday, August 30th and spent 3 days and 2 nights in Bryce Canyon.  We had never been to Bryce and we decided it is about time we went.  It was beautiful, the weather was perfecto and we couldn't have asked for better company.

The first day, we got there in the late afternoon and set up camp and read and played games and ate.   Since we had never been there before, we decided to camp in the park.  We have never done such a thing before. When we first got there and Steve and I were popping up the camper, the girls went to the bathroom.  They came running back to camp so excited.  "HEY MOM!  GUESS WHAT?!?!?  THEY HAVE REAL BATHROOMS HERE!!!  LIKE WITH REAL TOILETS THAT FLUSH AND EVERYTHING!!!!"  

The next day we went for a long hike.  We hiked the Queens Garden Trail and added a few other trails to that to make one big loop down through this little beauty:

 It really was breathtaking

If you know my husband, you know that his phone rings non stop.  I am glad he has the dang thing so he can leave town with us and still conduct business.  However, his phone worked for way way too long while we were hiking.  I was for sure that he would eventually lose reception, but he never did.  At one point one of the other hikers asked me if he ever got off his phone.  At one point, way deep down in the canyon, I said, "IS THAT THING EVER GOING TO STOP WORKING?!?"  I then told him that really, it should have stopped working a long time ago and why doesn't he just turn it off and pretend like he doesn't have reception.  Blessedly he did.

OK, so I'm going to warn you right now.  This post has a LOT of pictures.  I was able to narrow it down from over 350, but there's still a plethora that I plastered on here.

When we were hiking in Moab last year, we kept Addy going by having her act as scout to lead us from cairn to cairn.  A cairn is a pile of rocks stacked up to guide you along the trail.  Ever since then Addy has been obsessed with cairns.  We kept seeing them along the trail and every time we did, she got excited.  Well, imagine her excitement when we rounded the corner and saw this:

We all left our own little cairns.  I actually don't think they are cairns.  I think people were trying to duplicate the hoodoos that we were hiking through.  Hoodoos are the rock  formations that grace Bryce Canyon.

Everyone carried a pack with their own food and water in it.  We found a nice shady spot and ate our lunch.  We took MRE's for lunch.  The kids were so excited because they had never had them before.  Neither had I.  I was pretty surprised at how good my beef stew was.

What's up with this tree?

 And here we are at Wall Street, ready to start our ascent up the canyon.  

Up ten thousand switchbacks, I kid you not.

 

1/2 way up! Zac stopping to take a picture of where we came from.

My kids started to complain about all the switchbacks and I told them they should be thankful for the switchbacks   Otherwise they would be hoofin' it straight up the side of the cliff.

 There were times along the trail when I really felt like I was in an Indiana Jones movie

YAY!  We made it to the top!

Taking in the gorgeous view of where we had just come from.

I really wish you could see this in 3D because it is stunning.

After our hike we headed over to the visitors center to take in a movie about Bryce Canyon.  

And true to form, I took that as a chance to take in a little snooze.

I think this picture speaks for itself.

Rainbow point

We are on the side of a cliff here and the railing is not around the whole thing.  My kids were so loony, I think because they were tired from the hike, and this is how they were acting the whole time.  We finally had to leave because I was scared someone was going to go over the side of the cliff.

 Back at camp.  We played games and made dinner and had a fire and roasted marshmallows.

The children warmed their feet by the fire.

Then it started to rain so we watched a movie in the camper.

The next day we drove around and took in a few view points. 

 Overlooking fairyland loop

Zac spent the entire day barefoot.  I started calling him Frodo.  It stuck.  

Everyone started calling him Frodo.  Including the lady who took our family picture above.

 We took a short hike up to Mossy Cave and saw, well, a mossy cave.  Oh, and a waterfall.

You will note that by this time, all the kids were hiking with no shoes on. 

I blame it all on that dang hippy survivalist guy.

"HEY LOOK!  A horchata river!"

Sadly our trip came to a close shortly after that.  We stopped at a picnic area and had lunch.  Then we started to make our way back home.  We loved our visit to Bryce Canyon and are already starting to plan our next trip there.  We want to do some really long overnight hikes next summer.  We shall see...