Moab

We took a small vacation to Moab.  We left on a Monday and got back on a Wednesday.  It was a quick trip down and back, but we had fun.  This post has loads of pictures, so get ready...

We drove down, got some lunch and went straight to Canyonlands National Park.  As we were driving into the park, it was raining, but it stopped to let us see some of the sights.  We went to the Island in the sky part of it and hiked a little hike to Mesa bridge first. 

The kids were glad to be out of the car.

Mesa bridge

This is under the bridge.  it is just a drop off on the other side.

We had talked to the kids (especially Owen) about not running off, because of the cliffs all over.  They did pretty well.  Owen's wanderlust kicked into high gear a few times, but overall, he did okay.

There was a sign that said "Please keep off the bridge" and people were walking all over on top of it.  Stupid people.  Some tourist lady yelled at them to get off, and they did, albeit very begrudgingly.  Erin got a picture of the sign with the bridge in the background with people walking on it.  She thought it was funny.

"Look at me mom!  I can climb a tree!"

This is the Green River Overlook.  I really thought the Utah canyons and formations were more impressive than the Grand Canyon.  I'm not a big Grand Canyon fan anyway.

I was so lucky and got some super cool clouds to go with my pictures.

Liam has this growing pain thing in his heel and it gets pretty bad every so often.  He was jumping off of rocks and hit it really good and couldn't walk too well.  This is Owen helping his brother back to the van.  

The next place we went was the Grand View Point Overlook.  Liam stayed in the van because his foot was hurting pretty good, so Owen wanted us to take lots of pictures for Liam.

This is one he wanted me to take of "bigfoot's footprint" to show Liam later.

There were storm clouds coming in, so we got big puffy clouds and dark foreboding clouds too.  There is a bird in the picture above.  How cool would it be to be a bird and fly above these cool formations?

You can see the storm coming in this one.  There was lightning and thunder in the distance, but I wasn't lucky enough to get a lightning shot.

Reagan pretending to be scared of the hole in the rock.

Erin wasn't scared at all until I said something about spiders living in there.  She got out pretty quickly after that.

This was their favorite place to climb and play.  I was sad Liam wasn't feeling good.  He would have liked it.

This picture was right after Reagan was mad for not being in the earlier picture.  It took a little bit to get her to smile.  More on grouchy Reagan later.

The kids wanted to get right near the edge and look down, and we wouldn't let them go unless they were with one of us and holding our hand.

Look at that drop.  So cool!  I don't have a big problem with heights, but it would make me dizzy to look down.

You can see Erin, Reagan and I on the ledge waaay over there in this picture.

A nice couple from somewhere foreign sounding had Cameron take their picture and took ours in return.  After this, we went back to Moab and checked into our motel room, had dinner, gave Liam some ibuprofen and went to sleep so we could get up early the next day to hike Delicate Arch.

This is the Wolfe Ranch cabin, a small detour off the Delicate Arch trail.

Mr. Wolfe lived here for 12 years with his two daughters.  It was teeny.  The daughters insisted he put in a wood floor.  Before that, it was just dirt.

Some petroglyphs we saw on our way. 

This is the picture that sparked 1,000 rages from Reagan.  I took the picture and she wasn't in it because she was running up the trail ahead.  When she saw us taking it, she wanted to be in it, but didn't make it in time and Mt. Reagan blew up.  

I told her we could take another one here, up the trail a little bit, and she was having none of it as you can see in this picture.  She cried and cried and we had to stop for a little while to calm her down.  

She did calm down eventually and was pretty pleasant the rest of the way.

Owen and Reagan loved to check out the rocks and would ask me to take pictures of them.

We had to hike up this big rock.  That was the worst part.

If you look closely, you can see the parking lot in about the middle of this picture.

Can't pass up an opportunity to pose in holes.

Delicate Arch

I never knew it was in a bowl-shaped formation. 

Reagan and Owen were our climbers.

Erin and I hiked down into the bowl to get a little closer.  I didn't trust Owen to come with us.  It wasn't too bad, so the rest of the family eventually came over too.

There was a little flower growing on top of the arch.

These two nice girls from Minnesota offered to take our family picture under the arch.  They were super cute girls.

The view opposite the arch.

There's a little hole you can look out as you are hiking back down and this is the view from that.

Here's the hole.  You have to climb up to get to it.

I promised Reagan we would take another picture at the ill-fated spot on our way back.  Here is the obligatory picture.  The hike was three miles, round trip and the kids did really well.  They were troopers.  Erin really needed to go to the bathroom on the way back, so we would stop to take a picture or something and she would keep walking and say "No time to stop people, we have a bathroom to find!"

We then went to see Double Arch.

This was my favorite part.  Can you see Owen in this picture?

There he is!  He got tired of waiting for all of us and the rocks were calling to him to climb them.  

This was another fun place to climb and play.  The kids liked this part too.

View opposite Double Arch.

Owen was in heaven.

Reagan was pretending she had gotten buried by rocks.  There was a little hole just big enough for her to squeeze into.

How cute are they?

The kids were done by that point, so we decided to nix the couple of other things we were going to look at and got ice cream cones (and cookies for our Erin who doesn't like ice cream) and took them to Rotary park, a fun little park where you can make music.

This was Owen's favorite part.  He would throw stuff in the stream and have Cameron take pictures of it splashing.

He just got done throwing something in.

He also found a nice big stick to carry around.  This was a little field behind the park with a couple of weird little giraffes in it. 

Reagan thought it was fun to ride them.

Here's Liam throwing Owen's big stick into the stream.

That's all she wrote.   That was our vacation.  The kids did really well driving down and back.  We did have a fight about who was going to sit in the very back on the way home (Erin), but we had no throwing up this time!!

Here is our latest craziness.  We had the most crazy storm during church on Sunday.  Hail and thunder and lightning.  It was loud!  Even inside.  We found out later, the angel Moroni on the temple had been struck by lightning and was damaged.  We went up to see him and got this picture.  Poor Moroni.  He did his job well.

Has it been too long?

I suppose I should be better at this, because I'm probably losing a lot that I am not keeping track of.  Here's what I have for now.

Liam has been learning to dance in the sixth grade.  They go every Friday and learn to waltz, foxtrot, all the traditional dances, and they also learn stuff like the electric slide, boot scoot, etc.  They had a dance at Halloween, one at Christmas and a Valentines dance.  The Valentine one I went to and took pictures.  It was 50's themed.

Here's our greaser. 

This is Liam on the left dancing with one of the girls from our ward.  It was fun to see him have to come out of his comfort zone and dance with all these girls.  The girls had dance cards that the boys would fill out the day before so it was very seamless and fun.

He also was a part of the sixth grade Greek plays.  They put on plays each year as they learn about Greek mythology.  He was Deadalus, creator of the labyrinth.  He was the main character in his play and had to memorize a bunch of lines.  He did awesome!  I was really proud of him.  He got sick the day before and had a sore throat and was coughing, but the day of the play, we plugged him full of medicine and sent him.  He had to preform it seven times that day, the performance for the parents being the last performance.  He projected his voice really well and powered through, even though he didn't feel well. 

We celebrated Cameron's birthday.  It happened to fall on game night, so we had a bunch of my family over and we just played games and ate cake.  He got two cakes as you can see, so everyone could eat some.

Easter came.  How do I not remember it?  We did color eggs.  Cameron's brother and family came to visit.  It was so fun to see them.  We haven't gotten to hang out with them in a long time.  

Liam also had a birthday.  He turned 12 this year.  Kind of a momentous birthday for him.  It feels like we are really on the cusp of change.  He goes into Junior High next year.  Yikes.  I got it into my head that he needed a friend party.  I thought of this a week before his birthday.  I know, crazy me.  We bought invitations and filled them out and he was resistant to it the whole time.  He did not want to have a party and be the center of attention.  I really felt like he needed this though, so we pressed onward.  I made him hand out all the invites.  We were planning on using my nephews projector and watch a movie outside and eat pizza and play games.  The closer we got to his birthday, the worse the weather outlook looked, so we decided to move the party inside the church.  

We ordered pizzas, made popcorn and had cake and were ready to go.  I didn't actually count how many kids showed up, but I am guessing it was around thirty.  They ate pizza and popcorn and watched Princess Bride and played around.  Then they ate cake and opened presents and played Ghost in the Graveyard in the Cultural Hall so we could keep them contained.  I really think Liam had a good time and you could tell it boosted his confidence to see so many kids show up for his birthday.  It was a long night for the parents, Cameron had to vacuum the hallways twice to get all the popcorn up and I swept the kitchen and cultural hall a couple of times too.  We got home around 10:45 and to bed around 11:45.  Fun times. 

Liam also had the opportunity to receive the priesthood.  He met with the bishop and primary president; had some good interviews and was presented in Sacrament for sustaining.  Grandma and Grandpa Manwaring and Grandma April came to see him ordained, which was neat for him.  He earned his Faith in God award too, which I was proud of him for doing because he memorized all the Articles of Faith.  I didn't think we would do it, but he buckled down and did it.  

He passed the sacrament for the first time this last Sunday and was pretty nervous, but when he came to sit down afterward, he said "That was awesome Mom!"  What a good kid I have!  I tell him all the time he was the one who made me a mom, and he gets to have all the mistakes made on him first, which makes him so brave to have volunteered to come down to us first.  He also gets to do everything first, whether it be fun things or scary things, and I think that makes him pretty a courageous guy!  Love him lots!

'Bout Time For An Update

I figured it was time for an update.  It is a good thing I take pictures, otherwise, I'd forget everything. We had Thanksgiving and then did some things for Christmas.  We missed seeing the lights at temple square this year, but we did try to do one or two things as a family each week.  We had the kids go shopping for each other and we made doughnuts and delivered them to neighbors.  It was the first time we had done doughnuts with all the kids.  It was fun.  Erin and Owen were the runners, taking the donuts to and from the oil and the frosting and Liam and Reagan were the frosters.  I cut the doughnuts out and Cameron cooked them.  I think we all had fun and we have a new tradition.  We decorated cookies too.  Each year I try and get something different to decorate.  This year I found Ninjabread cookies.  We made our own cookies and the packet came with ninja cookie cutters.  We've used them a couple more times with our sugar cookie recipe.  They are fun.

The Ninjabread warriors

Reagan would frost one and eat it while she frosted another cookie.  She couldn't save one for later.

Liam had his second sixth grade dance.  It was his Christmas dance.  They actually have their last one tomorrow for Valentines day.  He has to dress up like someone in the 50's.  I have liked sixth grade because they have been teaching them how to dance and manners and the like.  It all culminates in a field trip at the end of the year to La Caille, a fancy shmancy restaurant the kids get to dress up and go to.  They practice pulling out chairs for the girls and table etiquette, stuff like that.  

Owen had a Christmas program about Christmas around the world.  His part was about Germany (I think?)

Then they acted out 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.  He memorized the whole thing.  He was so excited to be a reindeer.  He was Vixen.

It was a new program for me.  I hadn't seen it before, which was a nice change from seeing the same play over each year.

Grandma April had her traditional Christmas tea party with the close by grand kids. They always have a good time there.

We had our family Christmas party and ate waffles and acted out the nativity.  They are all getting big enough to follow along pretty well.

This is Liam collapsed on the floor on Christmas morning.  We got a new TV and he was so excited.  He looks like he is crying, but he wasn't.  Just laughing really hard.  

This boy had a birthday.  He turned eight years old.  I don't quite know how that happened, but it did.

He wanted a train cake with dinosaurs all around it, so I just made a train cake with dinosaurs on it.

Eight years old means deciding to be baptized.  It was fun to have family come out (even though the baptism was at 5:30 at night!!)  We had ice cream sandwiches and cookies before at the church and Owen being Owen fell down and got his church shirt elbows to arms muddy.  Luckily, we had a spare shirt to change into afterward.  Then we did the baptism, then a lot of the family went out to eat afterward.  We did not, because our kids didn't want to eat where they were going, so we got McDonalds.  All but Liam, who went with the family for Mexican food.  Cameron baptized Owen and while Owen's legs did flip up, they did not come out of the water and he only had to do it once.  

Cameron said Owen was so excited afterward, he couldn't get him to get himself dried off and dressed.  They took about 30 minutes to get into the room to do the confirmation.  Our bishop said it was the longest he'd ever had to wait.  He was good about it, but we found out he even mentioned how long it took in the ward council meeting the next day.  The bishop had Grandpa Manwaring bear his testimony, then I bore mine and the bishop bore his. I just wanted to remember the bishop looked at Owen and told him by being baptized, he had agreed to follow Heavenly Father's commandments which include serving a mission.  He testified right to Owen that there are people who are being prepared just for him to teach, because he is the one who will be able to reach them.  I thought it was a pretty neat sentiment and wanted to remember it.  Grandpa talked about making right choices and loving each other as family, and I can't remember what I talked about.  I feel like I rambled a little.  It was a nice day.  Owen even talked about feeling the Holy Ghost after, which, if you know Owen, is a big thing for him.  We are so glad Owen is in our family.  Never a dull day with him!!  Love you Owen!!