Memorial Day camping trip

I swore for years I would not be one of the crazy people who went camping over Memorial Day.  It rains and/or snows every year without fail.  Well, now that we have the camper we decided to be brave and go camping over this usually cold holiday.  It did rain and was cold, but we hung out in the dry camper and played games with the heater running :)  

Brandon did set up a tent all by himself and he even slept in it the first night which surprised me!  He spent the second night in the camper because he was so cold.

 We went to Mesa Falls and were lucky enough to get a campsite without making a reservation.  It is beautiful and only 1 1/2 hours from my house!

We walked and slid down a very steep boat slide right by our campsite and the first thing Zurie did was get in the cold water to get a drink.

We didn't know what we were in for when we started out on this walk.  It was rough and there was some crying, but we all made it!

Yep, the water is still REALLY cold!

There were lots of huge bugs by the water, so Sara was trying to stay safe by curling up on this rock.  Too bad it didn't work out so well for her.

Our hike back up the boat slide.

It was so steep and slippery Sophia decided to crawl up.

Taking a break and trying to lighten the mood.

I found this hilarious!  Maybe I was just extremely tired, but it was funny to watch Ben trudging up the hill with Sophia on his back hanging on for dear life.

Sophia waving the smoke away.

Roasting starbursts.

Zurie was super tired after our little "walk"

Yep, we get dirty when we camp!

The next day we drove up the road a little bit to see Upper Mesa Falls and do some more walking!

We also did the 2 mile nature walk to get another view of the falls.

We had chicken and vegetable tinfoil dinners that night.

Sophia LOVED them!

Sara putting on more bug spray.  The mosquitos were horrible and we all got eaten alive! 

Ben is enjoying his director's chair I bought for an early Father's Day present.

Ben reading a programming book by the fire.  What a nerd!

We packed up Monday morning to drive home and when I needed to move the truck so we could hook the camper up to the van we couldn't find the keys anywhere.  We looked in every bag and all over in both vehicles before popping the camper up again and looking all over in there.  Sara finally found them in my purse.  

I moved the truck so we could move the van and hook up the camper.  When Ben tried to start the van in was dead.  At this point we just laughed at how bad this morning had gone and jumped the van and drove straight home. 

I love being outdoors and enjoying nature!  Ben and I decided we need to do this more often to help our kids build better relationships with each other.  I mean there's nothing better than cramming 5 people into a small camper to build some relationships right??

May 2013

I'm still getting caught up, so here are a few random pictures from May.

 Sophia loves playing the xbox with kinect.  One day I found her downstairs fast asleep and the game was still going.  She must have been super tired, so I covered her with a blanket and let her sleep.

 Our garage door opener broke and in true Ben style he figured out how to fix it.  When we tried to turn on our sprinklers we found out they were broken too.  $200 later and both things were fixed!

 Sara came up with the idea to make me this fruit bouquet for Mother's day.  Ben helped her pick out everything at the store and put it together.

 At the first sign of warmth the kids are in their swimsuits with the sprinkler under the trampoline.  Sophia wanted nothing to do with it.

 Sophia has been obsessed with dance lately, so when the dance team at the local high school did a dance camp I signed her up.  It was from 9-2 on a Saturday and she did great!  The girls took good care of her and made sure she had lots of fun.

Easter and spring break 2013

Spring break and Easter were the same weekend this year, so the kids and I drove to Utah to hang out with Kim and Monte and their kids.  We all went to Tara and Nat's condo to color eggs.

Sophia had fun, but since she was using her hands she got super messy!

Sara and the other older kids colored eggs by putting food coloring in shaving cream and rolled the eggs around in it, then let them sit for about 10 minutes before washing them off.  It actually worked great and they had a lot of fun playing in the shaving cream.

I had wanted to go to St. George for spring break, but since I waited too long to book a hotel they were all completely booked!  I had no idea it was that popular, but I should have known there were other people looking for warmer temperatures.  Instead we went to the zoo, Goblin Valley and Arches.  The kids all had fun at the zoo and really liked the new exhibits!  We will probably go back again this summer.

Kim has been telling me about Goblin Valley for years and how much fun her kids had there playing in the dirt and climbing on the rocks.  Since we didn't go to St. George we left early and drove to Goblin Valley and Arches in one day.  CRAZY!!  We drove over 600 miles in one day, but all the kids did great!

Goblin Valley was amazing and the kids didn't want to leave!  They had fun running around with their cousins, playing in the dirt, climbing on the rocks and finding little crevices to hide in.  The weather was perfect and now we need to go back, so we can take Ben with us!  Maybe we will camp there sometime........ 

Sophia was not interested in having her picture taken.

We ate lunch at Goblin Valley then packed up and drove to Arches.  We stopped at the visitor's center and picked a few things to see.  If I remember right we saw Balanced Rock,  North and South Window and the Delicate Arch viewpoint.

Sophia and Brandon both picked a rock to take home with us.

It was a super long day and we barely made it back to Kim's house, but the kids slept most of the way and had a lot of fun!