Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Beautiful Arches!

We spent the weekend hiking Arches National Park. This place is AMAZING, and we had a great time. We hiked 17 miles in two days, and saw all but 2 of the arches. I took 150 pictures in the park because everything was so cool, but even the pictures just don't do it justice. It's so much better in person.

Our first hike was from the Park Avenue Trail Head. It was a short one, but there was so much to see. We saw the Courthouse Towers, The Organ, Tower of Babel, 3 Gossips, Queens Nefertiti and Victoria, and my favorite, Sheep Rock.

The 3 Gossips

Sheep Rock

Balanced Rock was a cool one to see. It's a rock bigger than 3 school buses balanced on a skinnier rock. I don't know how it stays up there!


Balanced Rock: See how small the kids are.

Next, we went to the Windows Section of the park. There was a ton of stuff to see here too. We saw the North and South Windows, Turret Arch, Parade of Elephants, Cove of Caves, Cave Arch, Ham Rock, The Garden of Eden, and Double Arch.

Bailey in the Garden of Eden.

Turret Arch

Sitting on top of Double Arch.

Our last hike of day 1 was Delicate Arch. This is by far the most amazing arch in the entire park. The hike getting there was so cool! The pictures don't do it justice. You really need to see this in person to appreciate it.

Delicate Arch: We are so small standing under it.

We started our second day with a pretty long hike. We went to the Devil's Garden Trail Head and hiked a 7 1/2 mile Primitive Loop. We saw 9 arches along the way: Tunnel Arch, pine Tree Arch, Landscape Arch (this is the longest arch in the world), Wall Arch (which had fallen down the year before), Partition Arch, Navajo Arch (one of my favorites), Double O Arch, Dark Angel, and Private Arch. This hike was AWESOME! After we left the area that had all the arches, we walked through the giant 'fins', and even across the top of some. It was so cool, and a little scary in some parts.


Landscape Arch


Sawyer and Bailey are standing in Partition Arch. It was way up a mountain overlooking a lot of the park. it was a gorgeous view, but I wouldn't let them get too close to the edge.

Navajo Arch

Sawyer is standing on top of one of the fins. We had to walk across the top of one. It was so cool. I didn't let go of Bailey's hand until we were off the rock. It was a VERY long way down on both sides.

Hiking through the fins.

Our last couple hikes of the day were short ones. We were pretty worn out by this time. We ended the day by seeing Skyline Arch, Sand Dunes Arch, and Broken Arch. We had a great time, and we're already planning our next hiking adventure.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Happy Father's Day & Garage

Happy Father's Day Mark!

We had a great Father's Day! Mark got a GPS that we are all really excited about. We can't wait to try it out on our hiking adventure this weekend. The kids helped me make him a yummy dinner, and then we just had a relaxing evening.

I asked the kids what 3 things they liked best about Dad:
Sawyer
1. He's funny
2. He's nice
3. He loves me

Bailey
1. He always makes me laugh
2. He lets me work on projects with him.
3. He's easy for me to talk to





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My side of the garage is totally finished! Mark has worked on this for a long time. It's taken a long time because he doesn't have a ton of free time, and because he's a perfectionist. It turned out great! It's so clean and organized now. Totally worth the wait! All he has left to do on his side is the floor, but the weather has been terrible all summer. Here are a few pictures of his masterpiece!



He put epoxy on the floor. It turned out so good. It's so much easier to clean now. He has a squidgy and a mop, and it just takes a few minutes to have it looking great. We love it.


Monday, June 15, 2009

Bailey's Guitar Recital

Bailey did great at her guitar recital. She played 2 Hannah Montana songs. She played the chords to Pumpin' Up the Party, and the notes to If We Were a Movie. It still makes her really nervous to sing in front of people, but she did a great job. Here are the videos.

Pumpin' Up The Party

If We Were a Movie

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Vacation

When the kids got out of school on the last day, we loaded them up and headed off on our road trip. We did a big loop through South Dakota and Wyoming. There is so much to see through those areas, and we had such a great time!

DEVIL'S TOWER

I have to admit, I thought this place might be boring, but I wanted to use it to break up the drive. It ended up being really cool. There is 6 miles of hikes around the tower, and we did all of them. The tower was huge, and the area around it was beautiful. On our hikes we saw 3 snakes, a wild turkey, and tons of eagles and prairie dogs.

The tower from a distance.

The first snake we saw.

The last snake we saw.

Sawyer and Bailey at the base of the tower.

The area around the tower was beautiful.




JEWEL CAVE

Jewel Cave is in South Dakota. It's the second longest cave in the United States. We took a tour through the cave, and then did a 3 mile hike around the area. The hike would have been nice, but we found out there were ticks, and Sawyer HATES them! He was freaked out, and had the heibie jeibies the whole way. We knew he wasn't a big fan of bugs, but we didn't realize just how freaked out he would get :)!











CRAZY HORSE


Crazy Horse is a mountain carving of an Indian on a horse. It isn't finished yet, but when it is, it will be huge! Mount Rushmore would fit in just the head of the Indian. We walked around the shops and museums during the day, and then came back at night and watched a laser light show that they projected up on the mountain. It was pretty cool.








This is what the carving will look like when it's all finished.


THE BADLANDS

The Badlands were Awesome. We did 8 miles of hiking, and saw some really cool areas. We also fed some prairie dogs, which was really fun for the kids.





The view from the top of the notch trail.



This was a ladder we had to climb to get up on the cliff of the notch trail. It was cool, but kind of scary for Bailey to climb down.


Bailey and her little prairie dog friend.

Sawyer and his prairie dog friend.


MOUNT RUSHMORE

Mt. Rushmore was great. We watched all the videos, looked through the museum, and did the walk around it. We were amazed at the details that were put into the carving. Definitely something everyone should see in their lifetime.

The view from the terrace.

George Washington

Abraham Lincoln

This is the sculpture that they based the mountain after.



CHURCH HISTORY

We are going on a trek this summer with the Young Men and Young Women in our stake. We thought it would be fun to read Fire of the Covenant before the trek, so the kids would have a better understanding of what the pioneers went through to get to the Salt Lake Valley. Then I decided that we should see some of the church history sites on our way home. We listened to the rest of the book in the car (which made the drive go by so fast). We finished it right as we were going through where all the sites were. It was awesome! We truly have an appreciation for the trials, hardships, sorrows, and sacrifices the early saints made. This was one of my favorite parts of our whole vacation.


This is Independence Rock. It was a huge landmark along the trail for the saints, and everyone who traveled the Oregon Trail. To make it safely to the Valley before the winter weather set in, the saints needed to be to this rock by July 4th. The Willie and Martin handcart companies didn't even arrive to the rock until October.

Sawyer and Bailey standing on top of Independence Rock.

This is Devil's Gate. This is where the Martin handcart company was camped during a terrible storm. They had to move them 3 miles to Martin's Cove to shelter them from the wind.


When we got to the Visitors Center we pulled handcarts on a 4 mile loop to Martin's Cove.

Bailey pulling Mark.

This is a picture of Martin's Cove as we walked up to it on the right hand side. The Martin handcart company camped there for 5 days while they waited for the storm to pass. Lots of people died there, and we saw where they think they were buried.

Martin's Cove is behind them over the little hill.

This is a statue at the 6th crossing. This is where rescuers spent the day carrying the people across the river. This is one of the most touching stories in all of our church history, and it was awesome to be able to see where it happened.



The 6th crossing.

This is Split Rock. It's the landmark they looked for right after Martin's Cove.

This is part of Rocky Ridge. This is the place I wanted to see the most. The story of Rocky Ridge is heart wrenching and amazing. It was a 5 mile stretch of a 12 mile day they had to walk. It was one of the hardest parts of the entire trek to the valley. It was a full blown blizzard when they hiked it. This is where the Willie company lost most of it's people. We tried to drive there, but it had just rained. It was 11 miles down a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. We got so close to the landmark, but we had to turn around so we didn't get stuck. I was so disappointed. You can actually hike Rocky Ridge, so we are going to go back someday and do it.

Rocky Ridge.

This is South Pass. This is where most of the rescue wagons were waiting. The handcart companies knew that if they could make it here, then they would live and make it to the Valley.