Escalante

For Dad's birthday, my sisters and I gave him a camping trip. We decided on Escalante since it's one of his favorite places. We arrived on Friday in the late afternoon, but MarKey and Jon and Sunny and Courtney didn't get there until after it was dark and had started to rain. We all pulled together and helped them get their tents up.

Saturday morning most of us woke up with all of our bedding soaking wet and puddles in the tent. It had rained hard all night and we were miserable! Mom, dad and the kids stayed cozy and dry in their Springbar tent. Dad was the best advertiser that item ever had.


Here is all our bedding thrown out on cars once the sun finally came out. Jon and Courtney went into town and bought tarps. They were so resourceful! Mom took MarKey, Sunny and Natalee to the Thrift Store in town where MarKey managed to find a stylish sweat suit to keep her warm and Sunny found a lovely head wrap.

Nothin' like two dudes in love!

MarKey taught us a fun game called "9 Down." It was very fun and I am horrible at it!

Mom took Natalee and Hayden to the top of this huge rock. Then Natalee said, "Hold still Hayden so my mom can get a good photo." She says the funniest things.

Here are some random shots of us hanging out.

The second night it didn't rain, but man the wind blew! We were feeling kind of sleep deprived and dirty, but made our way to church anyway. The Bishop said that their prayers have really been answered because of the rain. I guess they've been praying for it for some time and are even holding a special fast.
Then we felt kind of guilty that we'd been so grumpy about the rain. It's all in your perspective. Anyway, after church we went outside and saw a family with a pet baby raccoon.
This is what Bennett looked like when he saw it.

My gosh, that kid is hysterical.


They were so nice to let us hold her and play with her for a minute.


Calf Creek Hike

On Sunday afternoon we went to Calf Creek and hiked up to the waterfall. It was so pretty and the weather was perfect for a hike. It's about 3 miles each way and we were so proud of the kids for hanging in there and doing it with us. Some of us got in the water and it was so cold! When we were looking at the falls, Nathan noticed something a little strange. A brown trout was trying to swallow a much smaller rainbow trout and had somehow flopped them both up on a sandbar. When the brown realized it was not going to get lunch, he gave up and worked his way back into the water, leaving the rainbow there. I picked up the rainbow and noticed he was still breathing so I tossed him back in. Natalee said, "Mommy, you are really a hero for rescuing that little trout!" Sadly, we have no photo documentation of this particular fish story, but it was pretty cool.

Monday morning we left for home. We drove through the Dixie National Forrest. It was so pretty. We stopped for lunch at this really yummy restaurant in Bicknell. Bennett and Natalee were having so much fun playing together and they were so good considering that we had to wait almost an hour to eat. At the end Mom got us a pie sampler platter which included Pickle Pie (not good) and Pinto Bean Pie (actually quite good).

By the time we made it home on Monday night we were sure ready to be here. It was so much fun!