Our Crazy Fun Long Weekend

We have had a lot of fun the past few days! Here's what we've been up to...

Saturday

This past weekend was General Conference Weekend. The girls in my family always get together (with the kids of course) while the guys go to Priesthood Session. This year, we decided to go to Gardner Village. My mom, sister & I had fun shopping and the kids had fun watching the ducks in the stream...

After awhile, the kids were complaining about being hungry, so we stopped at the Naborhood Bakery (& yes, that's how it's spelled) and got a little snack...


After Priesthood Session was over, we met the guys at Cocolito's for dinner. It was delicious & a lot of fun!

Sunday

On Sunday, we got together for our "semi-annual waffle breakfast" during the morning session. Then, in between sessions, the kids & guys went on a walk and ended up at the park...

Then, they came back to Nana & Poppy's house and played in the garden for a little bit...

After the afternoon session, we had my dad's world famous stew for dinner & then just hung out during the evening. It was a fun day...

Monday

On Monday, we headed down to Moab! This time, we went down with Mike's family. Mike has an uncle who is an awesome jeep rock crawler. Every April, he takes his three jeeps down to Moab and has a blast for a week. We were able to go for a couple days this year & had a great time!

We started out the trip by stimulating the Emery County economy! How, you ask, did we stimulate it? Oh...by paying $82 for a speeding ticket that Mike got on Highway 6! This sheriff's deputy was driving the opposite direction & apparently clocked us and 2 other cars going 81 miles per hour (in a 65) , so he flipped around and pulled ALL THREE of us over! Mike knew he was speeding, but he SWEARS he wasn't going that fast. Luckily the deputy, decided to only write the ticket for 74 mph. But, that was about the only nice thing he did for us. He was definately not in the most pleasant of moods, but can you blame him? He lives in The-Middle-Of-Nowhere Emery County. So, next time you're in Emory County...watch out for Deputy S. K. Jensen. He's a stubborn one! I tried my famous "cop sweet talk", that has gotten me out of 2 speeding tickets, on him...but alas, Deputy S.K. Jensen would not budge! So, we will now be stimulating the Emery County economy by $82! Just what I wanted to do! :)

When we finally escaped the evil grip of Deputy Jensen, we met Mike's parents and headed over to Arches National Park so the kids could do their favorite thing in the world...hiking! First, we stopped at Park Avenue for a little stroll & a little muscle action...

Cohen & I drove to the end of Park Avenue & then hiked backwards to meet the group halfway...

I think it's funny that Cohen is only 8 months old, but has already been to Moab twice!

After Park Avenue, we headed to Balanced Rock for our traditional picture...

And then, we headed over to The Windows & Turrent Arch...

Next was the kids' favorite, Sand Dune Arch...

The weather was so awesome while we were there! We couldn't have asked for anything better! After we were done at Arches, we headed back to the hotel & did a little swimming. This was Cohen's first time swimming, and he LOVED it...

They spent a little time in the hot tub too...

After swimming, the boys (except Cohen) went on their first jeep ride! They went up the first part of the Poison Spider Trail (nothing too crazy). They had a blast, but I think Aiden was a little unsure of the whole experience. When we were going to dinner, Aiden passed the jeep & asked, "We're not driving to dinner in THAT thing, are we?" Haha!

Tuesday

On Tuesday morning, Mike's mom offered to watch the boys for us while Mike & I went rock crawling for awhile with Mike's Dad & Uncle Dave. We went on 2 trails...first, the boys took me on Fins & Things (an easy trail...rated 4 on a scale from 1-9) so I could get used to what jeep rock crawling is all about. Then, they took me on Hell's Revenge (7/8 trail). It was a crazy, awesome experience!!! I loved it! Here's the jeep that we took. It is awesome! It is shown at all sorts of jeep shows & has won lots of awards...very cool!

Here's a picture of us going down one of the big drops on Fins & Things...

Yes, we climbed up this rock! By the way, that's Mike's Uncle Dave that is driving...

The inside of the jeep...

The trail on Fins & Things...

Here's the beginning of Hell's Revenge! You go up this steep fin that has a huge drop off on both sides! That will get your heart pumping...

Another part of Hell's Revenge...

Having fun...

Me in the jeep...

We stopped at a place on the trail called "The bathtub". And, for those of you that are familiar with rock crawling, we went down in the bathtub!!! There are no pictures of the experience as we were all scared out of our wits!!! It's basically a 10 foot hole that has EXTRMELY steep walls (probably at least 50-60 degrees). You drive down one side and out the other! It was NUTS!!! After that, we found this little alcove thing where we ate lunch. It's where Uncle Dave is standing...

It was such a blast! There were so many times where I thought, "There is NO WAY we are going to make it up/down this steep hill!" But, the jeep (and Uncle Dave) handled all of it like it was nothing! We had a blast!

After our jeep ride, we went back to the hotel and went swimming again. Then, we headed home! It was a short little vacation, but a totally fun one! We had a blast! Hopefully, we can go again next year! It was such a crazy, fun long weekend! --Lindsay