F

F is for "Fort Zion". 

Which is on the way to Zion National Park in a town called Virgin.  It's really just a cute little trading post.  They have a small store with jewelry, food to eat, and a little petting zoo.  You pay $1 to see the animals and you can buy a bundle of carrots for $1 as well.  The kids thought it was kind of fun to feed the animals the carrots.  It didn't take very long to go there and it was a perfect way to spend an afternoon.

R

"R" is for Rosenbruch Wildlife Museum

Last Saturday my parents were here for a visit and we decided to continue on with our A-Zion now that the holidays are over.  So we went to this fun museum.

This museum is full of all sorts of "dead" animals but there are so many and they are just beautiful to look at. The founder of the museum was basically a guide and he would take people on all these amazing hunts and he himself would hunt.  This is his collection.

It's a little bit of a controversy at our house, I'm okay with killing animals for sport (insert the I'm from Utah joke here) but MaKady is an animal lover and she really had a hard time.  She just doesn't understand why anyone would kill an animal unless it was for food, even then she had a hard time.  (She is going to be a Veterinarian).  There is one display that I thought was particularly disturbing, it's an entire family of skunk.  From the momma down to all the tiny babies.  ?  Seriously ?  Not sure about that one, but like I said, fascinating to look at.

They do have a great kids room that we spent a lot of time in.  And right next to that an entire room filled with insects.  Creepy, but so cool. 

It was really great overall and I think even MaKady thought it was cool once she could get past the fact that someone actually hunted and killed all these animals.  There are some beautiful displays.  If you get a chance to see it, I hope you enjoy it.

I

I is for "Ivins City Park"

Last Saturday we decided we needed to get out of the house so we packed the kids up and drove out to Ivins to let them play for a while.  They loved it because there was nobody else there and they had the whole place to themselves.  Then we went to Dell Taco for lunch.  Fun, simple day.

Z

Z is for "Zions National Park".

Ok I know we skipped right to the end of our alphabet, but the season is ending for Zions and we wanted to get up there before they shut the shuttle down for the winter.

We picked a nice cool day and took the kids.  They loved hiking around and riding on the shuttle.

The hardest part was the stroller.  We took it for the babies thinking the shuttle was wheel chair and stroller friendly, but it is not.  So every time we got on the shuttle we had to pull the babies out and fold up the stroller.  Ugg...   But it was nice to have the stroller on the trails.

The little boys did pretty well.  We didn't plan on spending too long out there, so I only packed a few snacks and the kids ate them up pretty quickly so by the last trail the kids were tired and hungry.  Kollin got stung by a bee, and Lucas had me carry him the whole entire last trail.  3 miles :(  My hips hurt for 3 days after.  But we still had a great time.

T

T is for "Tuacahn" 

This year we saw The Little Mermaid.  It was so fantastic.  It is by far the best show I have seen at Tuacahn.  Amazing.  I can't wait until next year. (P.S. I have to say that my hubby is so awesome.  He stayed home and babysat the twins and Lucas so us girls could have a night out.)

S

S is for Springdale Orchards.

A couple of weeks ago we took the most beautiful drive out to Springdale to pick apples in the orchard.  They have a cute little store and orchard out there.  You take a bag, pick your apples then go in the store and have it weighed.  You just pay by the lb.  And of course you have to have their amazing Gelato.  The kids loved that part.

We had a ton of apples when we got home so we dried some, made apple butter with some, and apple sauce with the rest.  Next time we will have to get even more apples.