August

August started off with Spencer heading to Logan for Grandparents weekend. Taryn picked him up on Thursday on her way home from Flowell. She dropped Dustin off at our house to stay the weekend with Hailee. Spencer was very excited to have a sleepover in Dustin's bed. Grandma picked them up Friday morning for a weekend of fun.
Thursday night Jeremy and Josh came down to our house and Friday morning the guys headed down to Zions (National Park #2 for Heath) and hiked the Narrows on Saturday morning. They almost didn't get passes,Jeremy convinced the guy in front of them to go on Sunday instead so that they could have the last three passes for Saturday. They hiked it in 10 hours and came home Saturday night very dirty and very tired!
Friday morning Mindy drove down to spend the weekend with me and the kiddos. She brought some things to make a ooey gooey treat, she played playdough and tag at the park and was an all around good sport for being nearly 9 months pregnant!
Sunday after church we packed up for a trip to Yellowstone and drove to Logan to pick up Spencer and drop of Alyssa for her Grandparents week.
Sunday after dinner I drove us all up to West Yellowstone for more vacation fun! My family had planned to go there all together but it ended up that everyone either couldn't or didn't go. So my little family had the condo to ourselves for a few days then Devi, Jeremy, Mom and Kellee came up Wednesday and finished off the week. We had a three bedroom condo so the kids each took their own room and we made ourselves at home! We arrived just after 11pm so we just unloaded, looked around the condo and headed to bed. Monday morning we slept in a little then got ready and headed out for a day at Yellowstone (National Park #3 for Heath #2 for the rest). It was a slow start getting into the park which Heath informed me was normal and would be common throughout, but we got stopped for about an hour waiting for road construction. I got out with the kids and we met dogs, climbed on rocks and went exploring while we waited. I have been to Yellowstone before but I was probably 5 years old and don't remember it, so it was another place on my vacation list to visit someday. We stopped at a few hot pots and saw an Elk or two. Then went to Old Faithful and had lunch and waited an hour for it to go off. It was pretty neat but the kids were sick of it by then, and Heath and seen it before, so as soon as it was over we joined the happy throng of tourist and got back on the road to see some more. We stopped at the falls and the kids had fallen asleep. I told Heath that we could just take turns going to look at it. I watched him walk over to the path that said trail and then the kids woke up so I hurried and got them out to catch up to Heath. We started hiking down the trail and calling out for Dad, but never caught up to him. We made it all the way to the bottom (about 3/4 of a mile and about 15 or so switch backs). The end of the trail is right at the side of the second waterfall. It was really pretty, the kids even thought it was cool-but Heath was NOT at the bottom. So I was now DREADING the hike back. It went kinda like this.
Me: Let's race to the bench up there!
Kids: Okay!...a few steps later...
I'm tired Mom, hold me.
***repeat that about every switchback or so, picture me carrying both kids in different uncomfortable positions, add a couple of comments from passersby
ie-"Oh wow!, you've got your hands full"-
Get the idea?!
Well we finally made it to the top, I was Very hot, Very tired and later realized Very sunburned. BUT I still feel like it was worth it, I think that waterfall was Awesome! If I ever go back to Yellowstone, I am going to the falls and doing some of the other hikes that overlook the falls. It was my favorite part, I was only sorry that Heath wasn't there. He realized that the trail was 3/4 of a mile (I obviously did not) and turned back to an overlook-oops I didn't see that and should have waited:)
He decided to just wait by the car since he didn't know where we had gone, poor guy had to wait quite awhile! We then finished the rest of the loop and headed home to...you guessed it the pool!
Tuesday morning we decided to go to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center just across the street from the condo. It was fun chance for the kids to actually see grizzly bears and wolves up close. Even at an interesting place like this our kids lasted just over an hour. We finished up and went back to the condo for lunch and...swimming:) After naps and dinner we headed to town to look for souvenirs (which are very hard to find unless you want to spend lots of $$$) We came away with a ninja sword and a small stuffed dog in a cage.
Hailee informed us that she didn't need something that reminded her of Yellowstone because she could just remember it in her head!
After some ice cream we headed back and the next morning we packed up and headed back to Logan to get Alyssa and head home.
About the time we passed Springville, Mindy called and told us that she had her baby! Baby Thomas was here! We decided rather than turn around that we would just go visit her the next afternoon.
The next weekend we went with our new friends Shelly and Jimmy to Capitol Reef National Park (#4 and #3 on the NP visits-look at us go! Don't worry after GC we realized we'd be visiting alot and bought a pass, so there are more NP to be visited by us in the next year!)
Shelly and I took the kids, tents and food and headed out around 12 on Friday so we could be sure to get a campsite. The guys and one school-goer were going to leave after work. We made it to the campground fine, but it was raining and muddy so we decided to get ice cream and wait out the storm. Well the kids fell in the mud first thing out of the car! After ice cream it had dried up a bit so we started to set up tents.
While we were setting up a nice older couple camped next to us asked me if we had brought shampoo (after telling us they had been camping for several days) I thought it an odd question but said "no".
They then pointed at Alyssa and said "Well, You're gonna need it!"
Spencer had so lovingly plopped piles of mud on her head...but as you can see, she didn't seem to mind too much!
Well it was very muddy and dirty after that, our clothes and coats were with the boys so there was nothing to do but let them keep playing! And they did, all that night and the next morning too!
We went on a hike, the one we wanted to had been washed out by the rain. We saw some petroglyphs and went for a drive. We also went to a U-Pick orchard where you can pick and eat all the apples (or fruit) that you want while in the orchard and pay about $1 lb for anything you take out. Hailee LOVED picking apples, she doesn't like to eat them though and she wasn't always good about picking good apples, but she got a few and we took them home!
I asked Hailee what her favorite part was. "It was playing in the mud, but you wouldn't let us do that Mom!" -Well it's true we kept telling them to get out of the mud, but it's not like they listened:) Sorry Hailee!
The next weekend we picked Heath up from work on Friday afternoon and by 4:15 we were unloading the car at Oak Creek campground in Oak City. We only camped there once while living there but we really enjoyed it and wanted to go back, and since it was my birthday weekend, that is what I chose to do. We can also get to that campground faster than we can get to one up Nephi canyon since we don't have to wait for Heath to get home from work, so it's a new favorite place. We were the only ones in the entire campground. We did a little hiking, some base ball, soccer, exploring, cow finding and complaining:)We also dipped our feet in the creek right by our campsite, but Hailee had a run-in with Stinging Nettle nearby and that is probably where part of the complaining came from. She is now writing a book about stinging nettle. (It is about a page long and so far I've done all the writing!)
I would like to say that we didn't bring enough for them to do, but we did and they only wanted to do each thing for about 5 minutes or less. It was just a one nighter and we packed up and had lunch at the Oak City Park. It was fun to be back in O.C. but I guess I am still glad that we live closer to everything over here in Nephi!
Whew! What an August!