Last weekend the kids had both Friday and Monday off of school so we decided to take advantage of the long weekend. We waited until Tyson was done with classes on Friday (around noon) and then we drove down to my parents house in Orderville. We enjoyed spending time with Grandma Debbie and Grandpa Gerry at their house. One night we went up to Grandma Elaine's to visit and to help her try to figure out how to use her remote controls to watch a DVD or switch to VHS or back to satellite. Boy, it was a bit of a process, and in the end we may have left her more confused than ever....but you can't say we didn't try!
My brother Gerry brought his family over to visit on two different nights and the kids had fun wrestling with each other. Zac loves to go visit his "favorite girl cousin," Jani. And Lexi and McKinley whisper and giggle, and put makeup on each other. McKinley made sure to point out, several times, that she is almost as tall as me! (she's 12)
On Saturday we went out for a day of hiking in Zion National Park. My Dad isn't big on hiking but he did come with us and wait for us in the car. First we hiked the trail by the big tunnel that leads to an overlook that shows the switchbacks through Zion. It's a pretty easy, short, one mile hike that we figured the kids could do pretty well. They proved to be great little hikers. And the weather was really nice! We started out wearing sweatshirts but pretty soon we had to take them off and carry them. It didn't feel like the middle of February, that's for sure!
After that we found a nice little "beach" by the river where we could have a picnic. It was no small feat to find a parking space though. Apparently, LOTS of people thought hiking Zion on President's Day weekend would be a great thing to do! Poor Grandpa Gerry couldn't eat much of the food we brought though because he was having trouble with a broken tooth.
After lunch all of us except Grandpa and Lexi (she said she was sick....I'm pretty sure she was just "sick" of hiking!) decided to hike up to Emerald Pools. It's about 2 1/2 miles round trip. It was a good little hike, though it got a little chilly toward the end (it's mostly in the shade because of the tall mountains all around) and when we got to the top it was a little anti-climatic because the pool was frozen over. I don't know what we expected....a sparkly emerald pool with lush greenery all around and frogs leaping out of the water....in February?!
Tyson decided that he needed to go back later that night to do some night photography from on top of the canyon overlook. This is a long exposure picture of a car driving up the switchbacks. It turned out pretty cool but I was worried Tyson was going to fall off the cliff in the dark! It was also very cold and windy and he came back to the house practically frozen stiff!
We had a very nice weekend and didn't want to come home. But, alas, we had to get back to life as usual!
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