Bryce Canyon Day 2

Today we started off our day with an early Easter Surprise from Rachel & Mike!!

We are so excited for them.  She is 12 weeks pregnant!!  However Isaac would like to know where you are getting your baby from??

We started out our day today with the Queens Garden Hike!! This is us on our way down the trail.

As we were going down the trail we got to go through these cool little tunnels!!

This is Queen Victoria, if you can see her??  You can see her crown on top and she looks like she is holding something in her hands.

This would be her castle!

Standing in front of Queen Victoria!!  This was the perfect hike to start off our day, not to hard for the kids, however to our surprise the kids choose to keep following the trail around to the Navajo loop which we hiked yesterday.  This made our total round trip 2.7 miles!!  Can i just say my kids are awesome.  They made it the whole way.

This is on our way around to the Navajo Loop.

At one point on the trail, there were hundreds of stacked rocks.  They were very cool.  They were stacked anywhere people could get them to stay.  We added four more to the hundreds as each one of my kids wanted to make one.

This was my kids impression of the stacked rocks.

This is how Alexa wishes she could hike!!

Once we were done with our long hike the kids were not up to much more hiking so we made our way around to some of the overlooks!!  This is the view from the Paria View Point.

Paria Viewpoint again, it took us around to the other side of the mountain, giving us a different view!!

This was the view from the Swamp Canyon View Point, looking down into Sheep's Creek.

After dinner tonight while we were passing some time, we walked over to the Old Bryce Town.  Nothing over there is open as we missed there peek seasons by a month.  But we were still able to put our kids in Jail!!

And take there pictures as some Cowboys!!

I think that Kaleb was scared of the girl next to him!!

Tonight to end our night instead of swimming we decided to take the kids up to the Bryce Canyon lodge were we listen to a Park Ranger give his Astronomy lecture!!  It was actually quite fun, but i was expecting to learn a lot more on the stars, and all that was talked about was the moon.  But once the lecture was over we were able to head back to the visitors center where we were able to look through there big telescopes up into the night sky.  The kids were able to see Venus, The Orion Nebulae, & Andromeda Galaxy.  I think that Kaleb and Alexa really thought that was cool, it has been really fun being able to teach the kids new things while we have been here.  It was the perfect way to end our night!!

Bryce Canyon Day 1

Today was our first full day here at Bryce Canyon and it was a fun filled day!!  We started out the day learning that if you are not up at the crack of dawn you do not get a warm shower in our hotel.  Once we were all done taking our COLD showers, we were off to the Visitors Center.  At the visitors center we watch a short video to learn about how Bryce Canyon was formed and all about the things we would see while we are here.  Then it was into the small museum that was there as well.

The kids are excited that they may see some Black Bears!!

Alexa leading the boys away on there horse!!

And this is where we are at on the map!

Our first stop for the morning was the beautiful overlook at Sunset Point.  From the over look we set off on our first HIKE following the Navajo Loop trail.  It was a really fun hike down the canyon.

The switchbacks we hiked down!

Here we are part way down.

Taking a rest in the hole we found in the rock.

The first stop on the hike was at Two Bridges, which you can see in the back ground.  These bridges were naturally formed from water flowing through the canyon.

Resting in a Juniper Tree.

The trail was supposed to take us in a loop back to our starting place but as we came up to Wall Street, the trail was closed due to a rock slide, so this was as far as we got, and then we had to head back up the same way we came down.

Some of the kids were not to Happy that they had to hike back up!!

Starting back up the switch backs.

We are almost to the top!!  YAY

We got to pass by Thors Hammer on this hike.

Look at what we just hiked down.  What troopers we all made.

This was on our Second hike on our way out to Sunrise Point.

View of Sunrise Point.

Look at Alexa go!!  She was not to happy she had to spend the day hiking, but she did an awesome job.

Jeremiah on his was back from Sunrise Point.

I believe this is looking out over Wall Street that we did not get to hike through earlier in the day.

Kaleb is the one i worry about the most as we are hiking, boy does he need to learn to pay attention to where he is walking.

Our last hike of the day out to the Bryce Point where we could look back at where we were hiking all day from the other direction.  From up here we could also look out to the small town of Tropic.  As we got here last night looking for a place to eat, we learned there is only one restaurant open this time of year, so tonight we headed out to the small town of Tropic were we added two more restaurant to our list of eating places!!  The Pizza Place hit the spot tonight!!

The rule of the trip:  You have to Hike to swim in the Pool.  So once we got back from dinner we headed off to the indoor pool here at our hotel.  This kids had so much fun there!!

We forgot there life jackets so we purchased a tube for them to float around in!!  Despite the lack of Life Jackets it did not seam to slow down my Isaac Fish.  And to our surprise our Jeremiah who has been deathly afraid of swimming pools turned into a fish himself tonight.  Even jumping off the side to Adam!!  Who would have ever guessed he would learn to like the water??

What a great way to end the night, i think we wore the Kids out!!  There where out like a light tonight!! Oh and we learned that if you shower at night you can take a hot shower!!

It Finally Came!!

Back in January I signed up for a block of the Month Quilting Class!!  I have been searching for just the right fabric since then.  When i found this fabric a two weeks ago i was so excited!!  I have been anxiously waiting for it to arrive.  I will be learning how to sow two different block a month, and i am now two months behind.  I don't think it will take me to long to catch up.  If i can just find the time to work on it!!  I will post pictures as i sow the blocks, i can't wait to see the finished quilt, unfortunately it will now take me all year to get to that point!!

Kaleb's Birthday Invitation!

Invitation card customized with Smilebox

Kaleb's Birthday

Today was Kaleb's 7th Birthday.  We didn't plan a ton as we are having a party for him later in the week.  He had to go to school today so he took Cookies to share with his class, he was excited to come home and show me the treat his teacher had given him for his birthday and share the left over cookies with the family.  We let him choose what he wanted for his Birthday dinner, no surprise there, we had home made Pizza with Pumpkin Pie instead of Cake!!

After dinner we gave him his present!!  He was very excited to have his very own Basket Ball Hoop to put outside.  He really enjoys basketball, and we figured it was time for him to have some place to play it!!

Zorro the Musical

Today we got to take Alexa to go see the US Premier of Zorro the Musical at Hale Centre Theatre.  It was so much fun, full of sword fighting, dancing, and great music, it was hard to sit still in my seat.  I really enjoyed this musical.  We had to ask Alexa several times if she understood what was going on, but i think that she enjoyed being there as well, but who wouldn't enjoy it when we get to see our favorite Uncle Davey playing Alejandro (Zorro's Dad)!!  He did an awesome job!!

Adam & I decided to make the most of the night and after the show took Alexa out to dinner.  I think she enjoyed being able to spend that time with us, without her brothers!!  It was a perfect date night for Adam and his girls!!