Summer Vacation: Week 2

Tyler had his 8th birthday! We went to see "UP" during the day and that evening he had a friend over over dinner.
The following day we headed to Goblin Valley for our vacation we had to cancel over Spring Break due to bad weather. Changing the dates opened it up for other family members to join us, which the kids were so excited about. We got there in time for lunch and then headed to Little Wild Horse Canyon. When we got there it was pretty windy. We had to walk with our heads down to avoid the sand getting into our eyes.

Part of the way up we passed a women coming down with her two kids that told us if we felt any raindrops to hurry out because the last place you want to be is a slot canyon. Two minutes later, when we were in the skinniest part of the canyon, we felt a drop. Me and several kids back tracked out as quick as we could. Ryan was so fast it took me a bit to catch up with him again and make sure that he was one that headed out. After a while Madisyn came back to tell us that the others had decided to keep going because there was no rain. The kids and I waited a while thinking they would come back soon, but little bladders needed to be emptied so we headed back down to the entrance. We then waited a very long time before the rest came back. In the mean time I had hungry kids, no car keys to get to the food, no camera to take a picture of Tyler's hand after he decided to touch a small cactus and it attacked his hand with numerous cactus needles, and no way to get into the van to get a first aid kit. When we got back to camp we found that our tent had blown over in the wind. Luckily we were able to fix it back to normal.

Our campsite was right in the midst of all of the rocks, so the kids kept themselves quite entertained climbing.


Thursday we woke up, packed our tent up and then headed to Goblin Valley. The temperature was only in the low 70's, but with no relief from the blaring sun it felt a lot hotter then that. The kids had a blast climbing all of the goblins and exploring a small cave.

After lunch we headed to Moab for the next half of our adventure. After setting up camp we headed to Arches National Monument.
We took the short, but very steep scenic hike to see Delicate Arch from a distance.
Friday we got ready for our much anticipated river raft trip. We had quite the group that went.
On the drive up to the river, the guide kept telling us about everything that could go wrong. I admit I was a bit nervous, especially with all of the little kids. It's a good thing I didn't find out until the end that she had only been doing this a few weeks. She did do a great job though. They split us up into two different rafts and then had Devin and Myles in a little Duckie.
The river was a lot of fun with splashing, racing, lunch on the beach and an attempt by Daryl, Ginnie and Kelsie to tip over the Duckie (with no luck). The guides were pretty conservative on the rapids with the little kids, which was probably good because as we hit the first one Ryan was absolutely terrified. After we made it through he realized it wasn't too bad.

Tired and exhausted we headed back home that night, although Ashlyn stayed one more night with Grandma and Grandpa. The next morning the two boys were up extra early since they fell asleep on the drive home, so Daryl took them over to see the hot air balloon festival. Due to inclement weather (which seemed to last all of June) the balloons didn't launch, but they were still able to see them getting blown up.
Later that evening Daryl took the girls, along with our neighbor, over to the carnival, which we could walk to from our house this year. They had fun riding on some of the rides and didn't have to wait in much of a line since it kept raining on and off. At 10 pm I watched the fireworks from the comfort of my bedroom window.

What a week. Now I know why I am so far behind in my weekly accounts this summer.