April Fun

We love going to the Tulip Festival every year.

The beginning of April was a lot of fun with Spring Break adventures, and then baseball and soccer started and life got crazy. We still had time for a little fun here and there, and sports are always fun for us! April flew by!

Mom and Dad tried a new restaurant and it was delicious!

Then we stepped outside to crazy weather.

Dax got braces, so here is his smile one last time with crooked teeth.

Brand new braces.

Seth's team went to a BYU baseball game.

Seth loves to takes pics at the Tulip Festival.

This is one of our favorite Spring traditions.

Mom loves the tulips.

It was a beautiful day!

We went back to Stirs and everyone ate too much cereal.

Sometimes we laugh a lot taking pictures for the blog!

Dax is growing up so fast. Mom can't believe he is one year closer to a teenager.

Mom and Dad snuck out for a date to Handel's for some ice cream!

Mark always asks to go bird watching on his Wednesdays off.

Mom loves spending Wednesday with Mark.

We saw some awesome birds like this snowy egret.

We also saw a weasel. He ran right along next to the van.

Then we spotted a fox. It was an exciting Wednesday!

Mom loves all the cute little baby birds.

We also saw a bunch of muskrats.

Then we found this in our backyard. Eek!

Spring Break Day 4

Red Reef Waterfalls were dry, but the hike was still beautiful.

On our final day in St. George we decided to take it easy. We woke up late and had a lazy breakfast in the hotel. Then we headed out to our main feature of the day, Red Reef hike in Leeds. Dad had done this hike 25 years ago, and he found it much drier. Even though it was early spring, there was only a little water in tepid pools. Still, we had a great time at Red Reef.

This hike heads up a few narrow canyons and allows you to climb up different obstacles. At a few points, the canyon narrows all the way down to what would be a waterfall under wetter conditions. Then, you are required to scale, skirt, or swim up through the pinch point. We did this several times, with each of the obstacles getting more difficult. Without Mark to pull from the top, and Dad pushing from the bottom, we may not have gotten all the way to the end! We even stopped to help other people along the way. It was really fun to work together and help each other along.

I love that Seth still wants to hold our hands54 while we hike.

Always climbing.

Mark is happiest on the trail, or birdwatching.

The canyon was beautiful.

There were quite a few fun places to explore.

The boys tried throwing rocks to guess how deep it was.

They also tried using sticks.

They were so brave to climb up without help. It was a great hike.

Since we were in Leeds, we stopped at the small CCC Camp that still exists and took a few photos. It was a short stop, but we always admire the CCC program and the young men who worked so hard. We made another stop at the Historical Museum in Washington. We were lucky to find it open. It reminded us a lot of a Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum, so we were happy with it. 

The CCC camp was cool, and that tree was covered in millions of caterpillars.

Mom had heard about a kiln oven at the end of a trail made especially for kids in the hills above Leeds. We drove some rough dirt roads and found the trail. It was a nice hike, but all the signs were too worn to read. Only the kiln was worth seeing. We did talk to some old codgers from Manti, though, and they gave us quite a laugh!

The kiln was cool, but the hike was kind of a bust.

There was one more stop to make at a dinosaur track site. The hike was very short, but the tracks were nice. Again, we were hoping to spot a turtle, but we had to settle for lunch out of the back of the van instead. 

Dax ran up and down the sand.

There were quite a few large dino tracks to see.

We decided to take it easy for the rest of the day. First Dax really wanted to show Mark and Dad the racing park. This park in Washington has a small track that times you, as well as an obstacle course. The boys had fun racing back and forth, but Dax was devastated when Mom beat him in a race. Mark narrowly beat Dad. There will probably need to be some rematches next time we are in Southern Utah.

Racing on the track is super fun.

Mom does not love this photo, but she is focused on winning.

Then we took the kids back to the hotel and let them swim for awhile. This time, all three boys enjoyed the pool, and we let them swim until dinner. 

We make it a point to try new restaurants when we travel, and we had never had a glacier from Larsen's Drive-in. While we ate, we made a game of complementing each person in the family, and it really affected how the boys treated each other for the rest of the trip. They got along so well after they heard their brothers say nice things about them!

After dinner and a movie in the hotel, we went to bed early. We had to make it back to Lehi by 11 o'clock for Dax's baseball tournament. It was a great Spring Break, and for once, it left us time to do a little work around the yard.

The shakes and glaciers were really good at Larsen's Frostop.

Our trip began with baseball and ended with baseball!

Spring Break Day 3

We spent most of the day exploring Snow Canyon.

We woke up early in order to get to Snow Canyon State Park before the crowds arrived. First, we drove all the way out to the north entrance so that we could start with a hike called the White Rocks Amphitheater. It was still surprisingly cold, and we bundled up in jackets and made our way to the end of the trail. It was really pretty in the amphitheater, and it was early enough that we hardly saw any people. 

We enjoyed the White Rocks amphitheater all to ourselves.

The boys had fun running up and down the rocks.

After that hike we explored the Lava Tubes. There are two pretty good tubes in Snow Canyon, and since we had flashlights and phone lights, we climbed deep into both. They weren't very easy to get into, but that didn't stop us from exploring. The boys love this kind of adventure, so they were in heaven! We even saw bats in these small caves.

Mark loves exploring anything in nature.

The lava tubes were definitely the boys favorite.

Mom was impressed with all the different scenery in one spot.

Lava Tubes for the win!

The park was getting a lot busier as we stopped at the Visitor Center for Junior Ranger stuff. It seemed the farther south we went, the more people we ran into, too. By the time we got to the sand dunes, there wasn't really any place to park at all. Dad sat and waited with his signal light on while the kids played with Mom in the sand. Eventually, he got a prime parking spot, and we were able to visit our last hike in the area, which was a short box canyon called Jenny's Canyon. By then, it waw lunchtime, so we had sandwiches in the van. We'd finished everything we wanted to do in Snow Canyon, and we still had half a day.

Dax ran as fast as he could back and forth across the sand.

Seth found out that deep down the sand was cooler!

Dax also dug like a dog.

Jenny's Canyon was another favorite stop.

There were lots of places to climb. Mark is almost too big for this.

Dax LOVES climbing anything he can.

Seth found a fun spot to peek out from.

Mom and Dad prefer selfies to climbing.

Since there were so many people, we were able to get a family picture.

The ranger told Mark that tortoises and gila monsters hang out over in this area.

We didn't find any, but it was a fun walk.

Seth did not want to take any more pictures.

We decided we had plenty of time for the drive over to Zion to try two hikes that not listed on park literature. The first was Pine Creek Waterfall. It is located at the bottom of the switchbacks below the tunnel. Since there wasn't a single parking space, we headed up toward the tunnel to our second choice. Unfortunately, traffic was a dead stop. We had to flip around and head back to Pine Creek. Luckily, we were able to park this time and we had a beautiful, solitary visit to the waterfall. We didn't see another soul!

This is definitely our favorite spot in Zion.

Dad froze his feet, but he walked closer to the waterfall.

The boys loved throwing rocks into the water to see who could get the bigger splash.

It is such a pretty little spot.

Mom and Dad really enjoyed the peace.

Mark was also thrilled to be in Zion.

There was one section you had to squeeze through. Good thing Dax is so skinny.

It was a great hike!

Feeling that we'd already had a great trip to Zion, we drove up through the tunnel to our second choice, the Hobbit Hole. We had to do a little bushwhacking downhill to get to the slot canyon known as the hobbit hole, but again, we were the only hikers on the trail. We felt like we'd found a second secret in Zion National Park.

The slot canyon was so cool.

The hobbit hole was super fun to walk through.

The boys had fun jumping and exploring.

Seth is starting to climb everything just like his big brothers.

We decided to try our third hike, the hidden petroglyphs near the east entrance. This time we weren't quite so lucky, and we headed back to Springdale for dinner without seeing any petroglyphs. We found a really good restaurant that everyone was happy with, which was a small miracle. When we walked away every bite of food was gone, and Dad hadn't helped clear anyone's plate.

After the drive back to the hotel, we did a little swimming at the hotel pool. Mark chose to watch the Red Sox game, but Dax and Seth really enjoyed the water. We had squeezed so much out of this day!

Meme's Cafe was the best stop for food.

There was a fire near the freeway when we arrived back to the hotel. It was very exciting.