Funny, I wasn't planning on posting anything here, but here I am.
There's not a good way to catch up from the past year + I neglected writing here, and I'm not sure I will, but if you're out there, hello.
Had a beautiful time with my family this week, a good thing for us as the girl heads off to college next week.
*sniff*
A few weeks ago we took a really quick trip to see Dinosaur National Monument. We visited the Utah side of it, and had a wonderful time! The quarry with the wall of dinosaur bones was amazing, and some of the petroglyphs were simply stunning. We had a marvelous time searching for fossils in the wild, hiking, and exploring - and did I mention the amazing Fall leaves?
On our trip to Bryce, we stayed in the nearby town of Panguitch. It is tiny. A small farming community, it is innundated with tourists for much of the year. All the motels are older and dated, but we still had to make reservations months in advance. Very few stores or restaurants were open, but it was fun to walk around. We popped into the thrift store (mostly because it was open!) and the nice ladies working there were telling us how in the early days of Panguitch, there was a brick factory, and workers were paid partially in bricks to build their homes! I found that fascinating.
At any rate, for a town with not much going on, there was sure a lot to look at.
We've been itching to visit this place 'for real' for two years. Loved it. Beautiful and inspiring.
So glad we went!
The only hitch we ran up against was discovering a major fear of heights in the Redhead. He did enjoy himself, but there were definitely some hard parts. When asked if he wanted to go back he said no (sad). When asked if he'd like to go back to Zion, though, he quickly said 'yep!'. So at least there's that.
Just got back from the best family camping trip. The kids are at perfect ages, the weather was awesome. No bugs. Tie-dye, bandannas, and holes in the knees of jeans. Yummy, simple food. HIKING. Card games. Painting. Relaxing. 100 new favorite photos.
More, please.
Lastyear, my 'birthday weekend' was... miserable. Surprise house problems ending in NO kitchen, and other stressful stuff also happening meant that my birthday was... tearful.
This year, it worked out that we could do something awesome.
So SO glad we did.
MUCH better than last year.
No comparison, really!
I love this place.
We went camping last week. It was a short trip, but a good one. It felt like so much work to get all packed up and out the door, but it was worth it once we got there.
None of us slept much, but we all had fun. We had the campground to ourselves since it got so cold at night (below freezing!). The stars were gorgeous. The only bad thing about camping is having to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Or take a kid to the bathroom. That continues to scare me silly.
It's going to be Lego week here on the olde blog. Because Lego = awesome.
First up: random awesomeness at Legoland.
Life size x-wing. Nuff said.
So we forgot our beach toys.
Doh! But of all the things we could have forgotten... that wasn't too bad. The girl and I hit a nearby supermarket, just sure they'd have some (I'm always surprised how much of our supermarket is NOT food!)... and they didn't. The best we found were some cheapo halloween buckets.
So yeah, we were the ones with the Halloween buckets in mid-September. Tourists!
Paired with some little plastic toddler bowls (and lids!) to dig with, they worked just fine.
The buckets were strong enough for hauling water - the
handles on two eventually broke - but not till like our last day.
Luckily, the one thing we brought were these little plastic knights (army guy style).
Genius, my friends. The redhead LOVED playing with these in the sand!
I think I saw the army guy idea in Family Fun (at one of the many waiting rooms I've been sitting in lately - ugh), and turns out we had a dollar store pack of knights hiding in the basement for some reason.
Yeah, I'm so glad we remembered to pack these!
And it was delightful.
More soon.
