Trip to Utah

We went on a road trip to Utah earlier this month. We ended up leaving several hours later than we had intended on somehow. One of our rest stop stops had Jeremiah in heaven with the rocks and sand to play with. And Isaac was thrilled with the viewing scopes. We were stopped (resting?) for a good 15 minutes, and those boys seemed perfectly happy to be there all day long.

While we were in Utah, we celebrated Bill's wedding!, played with cousins and visited with family, and I took the kids to BYU. It was a great weekend!

On the way home, we camped just outside of Zion National Park. It was beautiful. Enjoying my children enjoying nature is right up with teaching them to love books, two of my absolute favorite parts of my life.

Yosemite!

I took the kids to Yosemite for an extended family camping trip (it's annual, but I haven't been able to go for almost 10 years, so the kids have never gone), and while we were there we went on two beautiful hikes. The first was to see the Big Trees. And boy, were they big.

Isaac went ahead with the faster majority of our group, and Alecia and my mom stayed with me, Jeremiah and Danielle. Everything fascinated them. Here's Jeremiah loving slowly walking across a wooden bridge.

Me and Jeremiah in front of the Fallen Tree.

Danielle pointing to show us how big the trees are!
Alecia "hiking" with Danielle.

Two cute kiddos "fishing" in a small stream.

Danielle asked her aunt if she could pick up the big pinecone. And if she asks so sweetly, of course the answer is going to be "Yes." But when she picked it up, it was covered with sap!

Jeremiah hiding inside a tree.

The Grizzly Giant.


Standing with the kids in the Tunnel Tree.


The boys sitting quietly with their sticks while we took a water break. (Prior to sitting quietly with sticks, I'll just say that they weren't sitting quietly with sticks and there were threats involved.)



The other hike we went on was to Lower Yosemite Falls, just me, my kids and my parents.


Upper and Lower Falls.

Holding hands with Grandpa.

Isaac an Grandpa kept getting ahead of us slow pokes, so they missed out on the very close and personal deer sighting. She was timidly grazing in the forest, and then suddenly leaped across the path. Stunning.
An up-close view of the Lower Falls.
Grandpa making Jeremiah crack up: It's getting me! Aaah!


A half-hearted attempt at a family picture.
Touching a huge rock that the path went around.
And Grandma, always at the end, with her princess. :)