March Madness

I really should title this post March Madness since May is the truly crazy month. But we do look forward to March Madness every year. So here are our fun March adventures to remember!

We celebrated St. David's Day with Mel and her family.

Mom and Dad went to their favorite date spot.

We had lots of boys come over to watch basketball at our house. It was awesome.

Really hoping BYU can pull the win out!

We went to the Taylorsville Temple and did baptisms.

Gotta have a Seth pic each month!

We ate at the Little America and the desserts were delicious.

Date night at the Hale. 

Mark got a fun acceptance package from BYU.

Another food spot we love--the Melty!

The cones at Snelgrove are so cute!

Went to Melisa Osmond's event with Mel and Alice.

It was a fun girls' day!

The zoo did this amazing light show in May.

The whole zoo was full of lights.

We loved it!

We went to an RC car venue and Mom really had to concentrate.

There were lots of different things to try!

We got to go to a hockey game!

It was super fun!

And it included free drinks!

The Grizzly's bear came and sat by us!

Lots and lots of mission call openings. 

Mark's good buddy is heading to Chile. They'll be neighbors in South America.

Zion Day 3

We slept in today and barely made it to breakfast before it ended at 10 o'clock. Then we drove over to Snow Canyon State Park by St. George. There are a couple of hikes there that we hadn't done that are quite popular. Our first stop was Scout Cave. Though we were a little sore, this hike was mostly flat until the climb into the cave. We meandered through black volcanic rock down through a little valley and then made our ascent. The cave wasn't too deep, but it was a large, closed cavern worth the 3 miles round trip.

The trail was easy, but longer.

Inside the cave

Scout Cave has a lovely view.

Dad and Seth ventured to look at another small cave.

Up the road a little further, we stopped for lunch in Snow Canyon. Mom made sandwiches on a nice shaded picnic table at the Upper Grotto parking area. After we ate, we made the very short walk to the Tortoise Statue, which is a brand new hike in this state park.

Mom enjoying her lunch after everyone else ate. 

Seth and Dax ate in the car. They are weird.

The tortoise statue

Seth wanted to visit Pioneer Park and climb among the red rocks, so we made a special stop for him. We all enjoyed climbing around this familiar place, and Dad, Mark, and Dax held a hotly contested game of Hit the Cup with a Rock. 

We love pioneer park.

Seth found face in the rock.

Our last hike was called Temple Quarry Trail. This one was a two-miler, but it was almost entirely flat. We were so glad to be hiking in the Spring, because there was no shade, and the hike turned out to be only so-so. 

The mountain views were nice on this trail.

Seth was dragging, so we gave him the camera to take pictures.

There were a few benches on the trail.

Seth always takes great selfies.

The family pic!

We made it to the end.

While hiking, we noticed a new attraction called The Tech Ridge Stairway. Most people call this stairway up the ridge the Dragon Tail because it looks like a dragon running down the side of the mountain. We decided to check it out. The boys ran down and back up all 333 stairs, and they managed in only about 3 minutes. There were a ton of stair climbers there, but we still had a good time. 

We saw the long flights of stairs from across the way.

The boys ran down and back up.

It is a lot of stairs.

After grabbing a thin-mint Frosty at Wendy's, we headed back to the hotel in Springdale. We didn't sit long, though. It was almost dinner time, so we went to a little restaurant called Porters. The food was great, and we still had a little time to watch a movie and eat popcorn in the hotel afterward. It was a perfect day!

Do we look tired?

The food was really yummy!

Zion Day 4

Kolob Canyon is a pretty drive.

This really wasn't much of a day other than driving, but we did make one adventurous stop. Since we had been foiled by the weather in Kolob Canyon, we stopped to do the short hike called Timber Creek Overlook. This is a new relatively new hike, and the one thing to do in Kolob other than just look. 

Unfortunately, all that snow melted into sloppy wet mud. We avoided most of the mud by arriving early, so it was still frozen, but we still spent a mile avoiding red, caking mud. Most of us came back pretty clean, but the kids weren't too happy. Luckily, we were able to clean up in the piles of snow at the trailhead. 

It was very muddy.

Seth broke the ice with a huge rock.

Lots of snow piled up around Kolob.

The ride home was long, and punctuated by the boys arguing over the top ten NBA players of all time. Mom finally sidetracked this conversation by offering to make a list of top ten best-looking NBA players of all time, which the boys really enjoyed (Rick Fox, Dwayne Wade, and Donovan Mitchell were 1-3). We even made it home in time for late lunch!

It was a great trip!

Zion Day 2

The views from our hotel were amazing.

Our hotel had breakfast, and we were fed and on the way into the park by 8 o'clock. The lines can be horrible, even this early in the season, but the day was fairly slow. We drove 6 minutes to the Visitor Center and got parked early. Then we started our first hike. 

Just having some breakfast!

It was only 30 degrees, which we weren't very prepared for, but moving fast helped us stay warm. The Watchman hike left right from the Visitor Center, running about 3 miles. It was a lollipop up the ridge, which looked back over the valley. We climbed steeply up to the foot of the Watchman, which is a round rock tower than looms over the park entrance. We enjoyed this hike and the lighting was perfect this time of the morning. 

Zion was super pretty in the early morning.

There was frost on everything.

We are freezing, but we are making it!

Look at those mountains!

Seth loves to climb.

Mom was the only one with a coat.

So pretty!

This time with Mom!

Someone took our family pic!

The Watchman

Since we were safely parked, we rode the shuttle out to our favorite hike in Zion called Emerald Pools. This one walks along the ridge until it comes to an overhang. Water drips right off the edge into the pools below, and since it has been snowy the last few days, it was really running! 

This trail has beautiful views.

It turned into a beautiful day.

There is one part through a narrow canyon.

The Lower Emerald Falls.

You can walk right behind it.

Next, the shuttle took us to end of the road. We didn't do the Riverside Walk that leads into the Narrows, but we enjoyed the towering rock walls. Finally, we rode the shuttle back to the Visitor Center and Mom made lunch in the van. 

The end of the line.

We had to drive out to our last two hikes, neither of which is listed in park literature. The first was a long uphill walk along a mostly dry wash. This hike is called Many Pools, and that was an apt description. We hiked up the wash past dozens of shallow, stagnant pools. It was really pretty, but it was steep and ran two miles round trip. It ended at a nice little grotto, and we scrambled up to the top of the final rock so that we could see back down the wash. This was a fun bushwhack, but it was hard on old ankles. 

We had fun exploring all of the pools.

Seth getting ready to dive in.

Some pools were quite large.

But most were small. 

The end of the trail, or at least where we stopped.

The rock formations were super cool.

Less than a mile down the road we did the Petroglyphs Hike. This one was really short, but it took us under the highway to some nice petroglyphs. We thought about going farther because we heard there was a slot canyon ahead, but it had been a long day of walking. We finally decided to drive back to the hotel and sit for a few minutes. 

We find petroglyphs so interesting.

Around 5 o'clock we walked to dinner at a sports bar right near the hotel. The food and service were great, and everyone ate really well. We didn't go back into park after that. Instead, Seth used the hot tub, and we watched the BYU-Utah basketball game.

The scenery at the hot tub was top notch!