Our Mini-Vacation

So this weekend we went down to Saint George for a little mini-vacation with Peter's family. Pat and Tim had finals so it was just Joe and Jessica and their little family and Mom and Dad Ehat. We had a lot of fun! We drove down Friday afternoon and stayed with some friends of Jessica's. The kids were so cute in the car. We had Peter's dad driving with us on the way down and so we had all 3 big kids in the backseat. They were snuggling and playing so well together the whole way there.
I sat in the captains chair next to Nathan and he kept himself busy with my sunglasses!
We BBQ'd that evening and the kids had a ball playing in their fabulous backyard. I'm certain they would have been content if all we did the whole weekend was just hang out in the backyard!
Each of the kids had a new friend to play with since the family we stayed with had kids just about the same ages as our kids. Here's Tyler and Collin (who's almost 9) climbing on the rocks just behind their house:
and here's one with Mack (the 4 year old) and the older boys
Here's Maddie and Celine (who's 7) They discovered that they had the same capri's and decided to dress like twins on Saturday morning! As we left Celine gave Maddie some lip gloss as a token of their friendship!
It was so great to have such a fun place to stay! The kids were up so late just talking and playing with their new friends. Tyler and Collin built a fort in the game room where most of our group slept and stayed up past midnight playing on some handheld video game and then they woke up early to go exploring in the backyard. Maddie and Celine had a sleep-over in Celine's room and read books to each other until they fell asleep. Not only did they have matching capri's and cute personalities but they also both sleep with a blue carebear called Bedtime bear! Such cute girls! There was a little guy named Luke who was Nathan's age but they were way too much alike to really play together at this stage (both wanting to have possession of every ball and toy car in the house)! And Tracy and I are both expecting baby number five, only about 4 weeks apart. They had an in-ground trampoline which EVERYONE enjoyed (even Peter, there's a clip of him on the video below), a great swing-set and a hot tub and fire pit and sandbox and plenty of room to run and play not to mention the rock mountain just behind their fence that the boys climbed and explored on the majority of the time! So we got up Saturday morning and packed up and drove up to Zion's National Park.
This next picture is one of my all time favorites of Nathan! I don't know what it is about it but I LOVE it! I just want to eat him up! Too cute for words!
We did some research before we went about which hikes we wanted to go on depending on how much time we would have. When we got there we talked to a few people and decided just to do the River Walk trail and see how the kids were after that. It was only like 2 miles round trip but that was long enough for the kids in the heat (I say heat, but I think it was only 75 in the park on Saturday). We rode the shuttle up to the trail head for the River Walk and before starting our hike we ate lunch and the kids found all sorts of bugs and squirrels! Here's Tyler with a few caterpillars and Maddie with a Ladybug:
This is one of my favorite pictures from our hike. Tyler was extra enthusiastic on this fine day and kept wanting to climb on every rock and tree he saw and kept a short distance ahead of us most of the time! He's in the bottom left of this picture just dragging his sticks looking around.He also kept running back to me telling me that he'd found the PERFECT place for me to take a picture of him. Well he was always right, but I thought it was so funny how he wanted to pose for a million pictures! He's growing up to be quite a handsome kid!
Here's Tyler and Maddie after they'd climbed to the top of this huge bolder (with the help of Aunt Jessica) I thought it was so fitting for their personalities! Tyler being super macho and Maddie with her little arms folded posed so cute! I love my sweet kids!
Lauren got sick on Friday night after dinner and spent most of the day Saturday in the stroller. Emily and Nathan joined her on and off through the day - sometimes all 3 of them riding at once. Here's Lauren and Emily just chillaxin!
After our hike the kids were tired. The shuttle ride back down was about a 30 minutes and Maddie was just too tired and took a little nap on Grandpa's shoulder. There were skylights in the ceiling of the bus and so the sun was shining right on her when Peter took this picture and I think it's so cool how it turned out!
And how cute are these two in this picture?!
I was sitting next to an old man and he just kept laughing at the things Nathan was saying and at one point he took out his iPhone and took Nathan's picture! A little later Nathan wandered over to Grandpa and starting making friends with the girl sitting in front of them. He's so friendly!
Peter heard a few girls who had been sitting by Nathan on the trail say to each other as they walked away, "Did you see how cute that little boy was?" We couldn't agree more!

Here's a video of some of the highlights of our trip caught on video:


Here's what we all felt like (and some of us looked liked) on the drive home... Exhausted after a fun long day in the beautiful sunshine!