QQ goes to Zion

Y'all should know by now that Zion National Park is one of my favorite places in the world. It's only about 25 minutes from where I grew up, and even now, we can drive there in about an hour. We decided to use our annual pass and go last Thursday. I had high hopes of leaving the house by 8:00 am to beat the heat, but it turns out that when you are up with a baby a couple of times a night, the last thing you want to do is get out of bed early. We left a little after 9:00 am. Close enough.

We got there and hopped on the tram that drives down the canyon. The hike we wanted to go on is called the Temple of Sinawava Riverside Walk and is at the very end of the line. It took about 40 minutes till we got there and so didn't start hiking till 11:30. It was getting hot, but the trail was shady.

 

At the beginning of the trail, we saw this big group of people stopped taking pictures of a squirrel. I was thinking..."Have these tourists really never seen a squirrel before?!"

But then it turned out to be a squirrel investigating a rattlesnake. OH. Well, that's not something you see every day.

 

  

 This is a very busy trail this time of year, and Luke had absolutely no regard for traffic flow. He was meandering all over creation and driving us all crazy. Hiking with 4-year olds! So fun!

 We went further down the trail than we had in years, and saw an arch and some hanging gardens that we hadn't remembered being there. If you go all the way to the end, you have to start walking in the Virgin River itself, and you enter the Narrows.

We heard passing tourists comment on the "little baby" in several different languages that day. :)

  

 We finally pulled off to a shady spot where the kids could play in the river. It was the whole reason we came.

  

 Isabelle had a pit stop diaper change and drank two bottles in a row. She must have been thirsty like the rest of us.

 The kids just chucked rocks, mucked around and got soaking wet. They loved it.

 Mark and I both had cameras and took a bunch of pictures.

We saw a lot of wildlife that day. In addition to the squirrels and rattlesnake, we saw a few butterflies, dragonflies, beetles, birds, minnows...

Lots of deer...

This little brown snake marooned on a rock in the middle of the river...

A bunch of lizards...that's the Desert Spiny, Western Fence and Whiptail. Mark took an entire semester of herpetology (study of reptiles). Did you know he has a bachelor's degree in zoology? Well, he does.

Note that the Western Fence lizard is missing part of it's tail. He must have been picked up by someone or something and triggered that defense mechanism.

 I spotted this big birds nest...

 

There it is in relation to the rest of the cliff.

If you've never been to Zion, there's nothing like those sandstone cliffs! We were talking to a couple on the tram from San Francisco, and they said they'd gotten in late the night before and so couldn't see what anything looked like till they stepped outside the next morning. Then they were absolutely gobsmacked.

We made the kids get out of the river and change into dry clothes because our shade was disappearing and we had a long hike back to the tram. It was full sun overhead and 100°F. It was SOOOO HOT to be out hiking.

The rattlesnake was still hanging out on the side of the trail. Some panicky tourists reported it in, but as long as nobody was stupid enough to try and touch it, it should have been fine. It wasn't threatening anyone--just minding its own business.

Poor little Isabelle was so wiped out from the heat. But she was a trooper all day.

We hopped off the tram at Zion Lodge and ate a picnic under this ginorm cottonwood tree.

The shade and the breeze felt so nice!

 7 weeks old! We took baby Luke to Zion for the first time when he was 3 weeks old. (But it was October and not as hot.) We took baby Madelyn to Zion nearly every month.

I can't believe I  have three kids! :)


Before we left Springdale (little town right at the park entrance) we of course had to stop a rock shop. We only had to tell Luke to "be careful" and "don't touch that" about five thousand times.

 Since we had to pass through Hurricane, we stopped by and visited Mark's folks (after getting some shaved ice).

 She had these two baby announcements on her fridge--one is Isabelle's and the other is my great-nephew Koda. So what does that makes them--first cousins once removed? I dunno. My niece Sky [Yoder] had him just 6 days before I had Isabelle. It was fun to be pregnant at the same time and share gripes with each other. They live in Florida though, so I haven't had a chance to meet him.

 

When we finally got home that night around 9:30 pm, we were so gross and sweaty and sticky. But it was a great day!

Camping and fishing

 I can't believe it's been two weeks since I posted. I am so behind!

Luke and Madelyn had a nasty cold for a week, and just as they were getting better, Mark and Isabelle caught it. So I have been on nurse duty 24/7 for a while. Also, my kids are computer hogs. And Mark was home for 9 days in a row. I can't get anything done when everyone is home.

Anyhoo....

 Mark has done a lot of picture taking in his time off recently. He went up to Yankee Meadows with our brother in law Shay to go fishing.

 They got up there too late in the day to get any fish bites, but still had a good time. Then, a huge gust of wind caught Mark's nice DSLR camera his brother James gave him and KERPLUNK it went into the lake...

 He was terrified that it ruined the camera. This is what the first few pictures looked like, post-dunking.

 But amazingly, it dried out and worked just fine. Phew!

 He's been experimenting with night shots. Here's the big dipper. The camera can hook up to a telescope, and we have two of them. I need to get him to take some moon pictures with it.

 He had the entire week off last week (because we were supposed to be going to a family reunion in Colorado but couldn't afford it) so he took the older two kids camping at Cedar Breaks National Monument. It's about an hour's drive from our house.

Since I wasn't there, I'll just have to let the pictures speak for themselves. They went hiking, rock collecting, roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and had a great time. They heard a lot of coyotes at night and didn't sleep very well. But they came home in one piece. And oh, how they stank.

 This is the same spot where we watched the solar eclipse a couple of years ago.

 

♥♥♥

 

 Natural arch

 

Hoodoos

 They found a lava field and collected some of rocks to take home. Except that they forgot to actually put them in the car and so Madelyn cried the whole way home.

 *frolic*

 Madelyn took these next few pictures:

We uploaded these last two onto National Geographic Kids My Shot. She calls them "Sunny Day in the Meadow" and "Campfire Woods".

They became Junior Rangers! Madelyn's been wearing her badge everywhere and wants me to make her a sash for her patch, a'la Girl Scouts.

I'm glad to have a husband who will take the kids to do fun summer stuff while allowing me to stay home and watch 4-hour Jane Austen movies. It's a win-win situation.

6 week selfies

Isabelle is 6 weeks old today and just started smiling within the past day or two!

 For some reason, she is very smiley first thing in the morning. (She did not get that from me.)

So today, I said, "WE SHALL TAKE SOME SELFIES!"

 "Mom, you're a dork."

 We love this little peanut to the moon and back!!