Same Place, Different Trip

Did I mention that I am moving? Okay not really but I kind of felt like I moved for March and April. As soon as Easter was over I packed back up and headed to... St. George. It was spring break so I followed my sister down on Monday through the wind and rain with just me and the three girls. We spent a great week with my oldest sister and her kids. A little bit later in the week another one of my sisters came down and my parents as well. It was a really relaxing week where we did a little bit of everything.

We revisited Crystal Island and Addie was just as thrilled this time as the first.

We also took another dirt road from Crystal Island to a place called Little Black Mountain. There were some petroglyphs but they weren't as good as the last petroglyph hike we went on. The drive was really fun though and it was in the middle of NOWHERE. The rest of the trip was swimming, shopping, eating, and playing and it was wonderful.

On Friday Nick drove down with his sister and parents and I met up with them at the Hudson house. Nick and Sara started their vacation nice and relaxing.


This is Nick's finishing time for the 10K. It was his best yet.

Sara did her first 5K and did awesome as well.

Nick took 5th place overall and the girls were just a little bit excited to see him run fast.


The rest of trip was full of swimming,

sunning,


exploring new and exciting places (like the dump),



climbing rocks,

contemplating the impossible,


and eating really good cupcakes.

Bunny Fluffy Bunny

I am really behind right now, but I still wanted to get my pictures up. We had a great Easter and conference weekend. Saturday night we dyed Easter eggs with all the cousins. I don't have any pictures of that activity which is a shame because it is my favorite holiday tradition ever. On Sunday we:

1) Found baskets
2) Had Nick's family over for brunch

3) Wrestled with Poppy

4) Went to my families for dinner, had a big Easter egg hunt, played games, and let the kids stay up way too late.
Lizzie did pretty well at finding the eggs.

And Addie was quite proud of herself for finding the "harder" eggs. Suddenly I have "Eye of the Tiger" playing in my head. Weird.

It was a wonderful Easter. We got to spend time with a lot of our families and the girls really truly enjoyed it. They don't always enjoy the things we think they will or should so having one actually work out was definitely a bonus.

Scout Cave

The final installment of "Different Things to do in St. George" is another hike. A new one though. We decided to try out the hike to Scout Cave. It is right outside of Snow Canyon. We hike to Johnson's Canyon all the time which is the same trail head. We have always wondered what Scout Cave was and this time we found out. It was a cool hike, harder then expected, and definitely not something to do in the hotter weather as you were hiking out in the middle of the desert most of the time.

This is the extent of the cave. It is more like a big grotto (yep, I just wanted to say grotto) than a cave but it is cool. Not deep but really tall.


Lizzie does not like caves at all, as is very evident in the picture below.


As you can see in this picture, the cave is very remote. The funny thing is that you can't actually walk through the neighborhood in the background, you do a three mile hike to circumnavigate the defenses. They have fences, gates, a special forces team, and a sniper or two. The people that built that neighborhood went on to make the Green Zone in Baghdad. It totally makes sense though, you know how dangerous those hiking families can be.



And finally here are a couple pictures of cute kids in a cool cave.




I think that is all from our trip. As you can see we did a bunch of new stuff as well as a lot of the normal things. Hopefully you can tell from the last hundred posts or so though that it was a great trip. (As you can probably tell this is Nick)

St. George Continued, Still...

Besides hiking on our trip we did a little of this:


We bought an ostrich egg from the ostrich farm that is near Zions. We scrambled it, cooked it, and fed ten people. There were leftovers.

We flew kites. Addie absolutely loved this and flew her kite for a long time. I was bored and done and she was still staring up at her kite in the sky. Luckily it was a very windy day and we had to do minimal work to keep it up there. We bought cheapo kites that day and Addie's princess kite was the only one that lasted through the stronger winds.

The girls enjoyed playing at their favorite (it is really just Nick's favorite) park down in St. George.
We also took my sister and brother-in-law on the bear claw poppy trail for some biking. I haven't been mountain biking since I had Rachel and some of the drops left my heart beating a little faster then normal. (Editor's note (I, Nick, am the editor) the drops Natalie hit that left her heart beating fast were bigger than any of the other ones she has ever done. In other words, she is tough.)

Gotta love the self portrait it always makes noses and chins stunning.

That One Hike in that One Canyon

Now if you don't know where it is from that title I can't help you...

To continue the "We are going to find new stuff to do in St. George" trip my brother-in-law, Sean, and I took off the next morning and took the kids hiking up a canyon near the Bear Claw Poppy (more on that later) and Zen trails. I have always seen this thing but have never hiked it. I had no idea what I was missing.

It is filled with much "cave" finding,



cave exploring,







dirt sliding,







and lizard chasing. There aren't any pictures of the lizard chasing because it was just that, lizard chasing, not lizard catching. Had there been lizard catching there would have been mucho pictures. As it is you will just have to trust me.

As a summary the trail is awesome. not too long and kind of out of the direct sun with all sorts of caves and ledges to explore. Everything was at a level that the girls to do it more or less by themselves and there was definitely not an opportunity to get bored. Especially with all of the lizard chasing.

Come to Zion come to Zion

We were supposed to meet my sister and her family in Moab a couple of weeks ago for their spring break but it end up being 50 and windy. Camping with a four month old in a tent when it goes down into the 30s at night isn't fun (I've done it before and it wasn't the best experience, health-wise, both physical and mental.) So we moved the location to St. George. We spent the first day exploring Zions and it was just as beautiful as ever. As you can see.

I don't care how many times you have seen this view, it is always, always amazing.


This view is pretty good too.

We hiked up to Emerald Pools and then continued to the upper falls. There was a lot of water and the girls had a great time hiking. It makes me so happy that they love to go and that we don't hear a word of complaint from Addie on a three mile hike. She just skips up the trail. The only problem is keeping her off the higher rocks and within eyesight.



Combine the great weather, great hike, and great company with a picnic lunch at the Zion's Lodge and tag on the big grassy area in front of it and you have a pretty good day.

Real Food

We tried giving Rachel her first taste of real food if you can call rice cereal real food. And

She absolutely hated it.