Zion National Park

AJ finished up a semester of school and we decided to head out for a family vacation before the summer semester started up. We loaded up the suburban with our tents and sleeping bags and headed south to Zions National Park. I've lived in UT all but 4 years of my life and I've never taken advantage of beautiful southern Utah. The views were breathtaking. Zions was absolutly beautiful!! We stayed in a campground inside the park and took the shuttle through the canyon to the many trailheads and explored as much as you possibly can with 3 small kids. The kids did great, especially Arlo. He's going to be a mountaineer just like his father. We took 2 kelty packs for Cam and also for Cache if he needed a rest. We are in the process of potty training Cache and he did really well. Except for the time he pooped while on AJ's shoulders. That was hilarious! We went on a lot of different hikes and drove through the 1.1 mile long tunnel. These 2 pictures we took from inside the tunnel. It was pretty amazing.

We spent one day in St. George and took the kids to the Aquatic Center to go swimming. It was 102 degrees there so it felt pretty good to get wet and especially to shower after two days camping. We also went to lunch at Pirate Island were we all got drunk! Really, here's proof:

Here's some pictures of the beautiful scenery at Zions:

Here's some random pictures of the fam:

On Wednesday after hiking a 2 mile trail along the river, we got back to camp pretty tired. I took a nap with Cache and Cam and AJ and Arlo went for a "walk". Well that walk ended up being a 3 hour hike to Angel's Landing. If you've never been to Zions or heard of Angel's landing, it's the most difficult trail that's 5 miles long and ascends almost 1500 feet. The last stretch of the hike is across a skinny steep ridge where there is a chain to hold onto so you don't fall the 1200 feet to your death. From the top of Angel's Landing you have a 360 degree view of Zions canyon. I was pretty upset that AJ took Arlo on this trail, but he said that Arlo did awesome and not once was he ever scared. He also said all the other hikers were very impressed with Arlo and his ability to hike such a strenious trail. Overall AJ and Arlo hiked over 7 miles that day. Here's are the pictures that AJ took while on Angel's Landing.

This is the narrow steep climb up to Angel's Landing

When we stopped to take a rest at the end of Riverside Walk trail there were some friendly squirrels looking for a handout. You can get fined for feeding them so we made sure we didn't but they just wouldn't leave us alone. One even jumped on my lap! I was lucky to get it on video.

This last picture is my favorite. Cam was getting cranky on our way back to our camp site so we pulled him out of his car seat and he rode on dad's lap. (Don't worry we were in the campground and only going 10 miles an hour, and besides, he rode on our laps while in the shuttle around the park.) He thought it was great fun to stick his head out the window.

All in all it was a great trip and the most important thing we did was build memories!