April 2017

Kaleb is always pulling pranks on the rest of us every April Fool's Day. He'll wake up in the middle of the night just to do things. Ashton had a mustache when he woke up and his hand was in a bowl of water.

April 1, 2017

My parents returned from their trip to China and had brought back souvenirs and Olivia tried her outfit and hat on.

April 4, 2017

Last minute we planned a quick trip for the last weekend of spring break to see some of the national parks. We left on Thursday, April 6th after work and drove to Cedar City where we stayed the night. I know it can get really busy in the park and so we left the hotel at 6am since we still had an hour to drive and wanted to be there early.

It paid off because there were no lines, plenty of parking and we had the trails almost to ourselves for the first couple hours. Since we stayed pretty much ahead of the crowds we were surprised to see the huge lines at the visitors center for the buses when we were done and leaving the park.

Zion's National Park

April 7, 2017

It was so pretty everywhere you looked.

Olivia stopped at every bug and flower on the way but she did great hiking everywhere with us.

Can you spy Kaleb?

She was upset Ashton was getting ahead of her on the trail and she wanted to be first.

After we finished at Zion we drove to where we were staying the next two nights (Fri./Sat.) to Page, Arizona. We stopped at the dam on our way in and explored the visitors center and had a closer look. Ashton doesn't like heights so he didn't care to look over the side.

Glen Canyon Dam

April 7, 2017

About 5 miles away from our hotel was Horseshoe Bend. It was a windy walk to get to the edge and very crowded but worth the view. Ashton didn't want to go too close and I don't blame him, it's a scary drop off with nothing to stop you. Kaleb sat right on the edge and I kept telling him to back up. You can never be too careful.

I thought the lady on the far left was crazy sitting there on a tiny ledge with how windy it was.

This is the view from our hotel, you can see Lake Powell. Page was a small town but had pretty views all around you.

For dinner we went to Strombolli's known for their "calzones as big as your head".

The lady couldn't believe we were letting Ashton get one and reminded us they were really big but we don't mind leftovers. And they weren't lying, they were huge and hung over the sides of the plate. I think they both only finished half which is what they're holding up.

We were teasing Kaleb when his salad came because he just wanted plain lettuce, nothing else so we called him a bunny.

Olivia had her favorite which is spaghetti.

The next morning we had reservations to go to Lower Antelope Canyon. It's on a reservation and so you can only go down with a tour guide. There are 2 companies that you can reserve through, we used Ken's Tours. Our tour was at 10:20 and they placed you with guides in small groups. We were last to be placed and so we had our own guide. You're pretty close to the groups ahead of and behind you the whole time and our guide was awesome so the group behind us stayed with us to hear our guide. They help you make sure your camera is on the best settings, although Kaleb had killed my phone right before going in there playing Pokemon Go so I didn't get to use my phone, just my camera and GoPro. You can't take video in the canyon, only pictures.

Lower Antelope Canyon (Page, AZ)

April 8, 2017

This is just to show the walk to get in, you go down stairs and you would never know it was even there looking out at the landscape.

I tried to limit the pictures the best I could but it was just so amazing. Everywhere you looked you wanted to take a picture!

Our guide would take family pictures for us at spots he knew would look good on the camera. I know Olivia is being a grump in this picture but the other couple had people with their eyes closed so I have to take what I can get.

Most people are looking up the whole time but Olivia preferred looking down and playing in the sand whenever we stopped.

He was drawing a chief's head to show us what to look for in the next formation.

There were a couple other formations that looked like objects that were named throughout the tour.

This was the last set of stairs heading out of the canyon. The kids thought it was awesome to see something so different.

And this is at the top of the ladders as you walk out. You can't really tell that there is a slot canyon down below. This was definitely my favorite part of the trip, probably because it was something new but also I just loved the colors and shapes of the rocks. If only it went longer!

Next we grabbed lunch and headed to the Grand Canyon! We really packed everything in to the couple of days we had. The first lookout we walked around and climbed in the tower. It was cold and windy so we pulled out our jackets.

Grand Canyon National Park

April 8, 2017

We first went through the visitors center and walked around a couple of the viewpoints to look at the views. We then took a couple different buses to get to the shuttles at the far end to tour the full loop called Hermit's Road.

I don't want to sound like I don't think the Grand Canyon is amazing, because it is, and it's huge but it's was cold and windy and as you took the bus to all of the different stops they all pretty much looked the same. And they were just look outs that only took a couple minutes to look at and then you had to wait in the cold for the next bus 15 minutes later. And it was crowded so we noticed a lot of people in line not getting on the first bus available. We also didn't have much time since the buses in this area only went until around 5:00. So we stayed on the bus the whole time and looked out the windows since they're right next to the rim of the canyon and you could see everything. It was an 80 minute tour on the bus so there was plenty to see. 

When we finished we stopped at the lodge for dinner at their big cafeteria. Kaleb had ice cream and I think he got his money's worth the way he piled that up. After we finished eating it was getting dark and we needed to get on a shuttle back to our parking area by the visitor's center because they only run buses for 1 hour after dark. So we waited for the bus to come and then headed back to our hotel.

The next morning we packed up and our plan was to stop and see Bryce Canyon on the way home. We first stopped at the visitor's center.

Bryce National Park

April 9, 2017

Being at a higher elevation is was cooler and there was still snow in a lot of areas.

We drove the full length of the park which took almost an hour but we wanted to see everything we could, especially because we could drive and didn't have to worry about shuttles. Next time I don't think I'd drive all the way in since it was a lot of driving for more of the same scenery. :) But it was pretty and we can say we saw it all!

Red Canyon is a small spot on the side of the road not far from the park with other formations and I wanted to get some pictures and the kids wanted to run around for a minute before we drove home.

This picture is to show you how steep it was and Olivia was determined to climb up this hill loose rock and all.

This is what was at the top.

We had a great trip and it felt much longer than it was with all that we crammed in to those couple of days. We wanted to check off some of Utah's national parks with the kids and we did.


Olivia had a princess birthday party to go to and she was all dressed up and ready to go.

April 14, 2017

We planed all of our flowers and Olivia started her fairy garden.

April 15, 2017

Easter

The kids woke up excited to look through their Easter baskets and find all the eggs.

April 16, 2016

The kids all got a blanket too, Olivia's was a mermaid tail blanket.

We were in a hurry to get to church so this is the best shot of Olivia in her Easter dress. The other pictures she's covering her face from the sun so I'll take it.

Someone else took this picture of the junior primary with their Easter lily's they made.

After Sunday dinner at my aunt and uncles we had our annual egg hunt. My grandparents always had a money egg with our names on it growing up with a $2 bill in it and my grandpa still does it for all the great-grandkids.

They all have plenty of candy after they open all of their eggs. Our Easter bunny doesn't give them as much candy knowing that they'll get more jelly beans than they could ever eat later in the day!

When I came home from work on my birthday the kids had set the table and Ashton made signs for me.

April 24, 2017

I even had a pillow on my chair to make it more comfortable.

This is blurry but I figured we needed a picture on my birthday too.

Olivia had been begging me to put her hair in these curl former curlers. They work well but are kind of a pain to put in unless you have 2 people so I don't use them often.

April 26, 2017

Any time we have a trip it makes for a long post but I'm glad to have a record of some of the things we do. The kids love looking through our blog books at pictures of them at different ages and it makes it all worth it, even if I am a year behind...still!