San Diego

We didn't plan for June to be such a busy month.  The Zion trip was mostly scheduled before Christmas.  We also had a camping trip with friends that she scheduled a year ago.

And the cabin needed some attention, so we had a quick trip there, too. The only catch with that is that we got home from Zion late at night on Wednesday, and we left for San Diego Sunday afternoon.  I hate to complain about having too many fun trips for our family, because it is an awesome problem to have, but it is also a good way to stress out a mom.

We made it, though. I even found time to make travel pillows that the kids requested for the next long car ride.

And then we were off!  We stayed overnight at my brother's house on the way down, which really helped to break up the drive. (And a great chance to see them.)  We got to San Diego in time to hit the beach that evening.

Unfortunately, Tyler had a reminder of Zion with him.  The Doctor didn't narrow it down, but Tyler was allergic to something in Zion.  It might have been poison oak or ivy or something in the water, but the diagnosis was just to let it run its course, either way.  It was everywhere! The biggest clumps were in the spots he got a little sunburned the day we went kayaking with friends, but there were dots and blisters everywhere.

We had gone to a 99 cent store to pick up sunglasses and got a boogie board on a whim.  Once we saw the beach, however, Chris declared it the best waves he had ever seen for boogie boards.  We had to go back and get two more later in the week.

The next morning, Christopher headed to work, and I took the kids to Legoland.  That was their favorite part of the trip the year before, so I figured that would be our big stop this year, too.  I felt terrible about doing that while Christopher was working, though.

Jasmine was still totally in love with her little car.  She was hoping to graduate to the bigger cars, but she needs one more year for that.

We loved taking breaks to just build with Legos.  The racecar area was too crowded to be fun this year, but the kids protested building with Duplos for only a half a second before camping out for a half an hour.

Tyler made a tree house.

Jasmine made a Batmobile.

And Kaitlyn added onto a tower that someone left behind.

Yay!  Emmet! I was glad their shirts still fit from last year.

Whoever designed the line for this ride to wrap around a huge lego play area was a genius.

I remember that at this point in the day, I realized that I was continually pulling the kids away from something they were enjoying so that we could get to everything.  I decided to just let them do what they wanted.  If they were having fun, why was I forcing them to have different fun?

So after telling them to come watch this show, I decided to let them lead.

An hour later, we hadn't moved.  Jasmine had gone a few feet to the splash pad, and Tyler had joined her later.

Kaitlyn had literally set up shop in the Duplo village (recommended age: 2-5) and was building strawberries and grapes to "sell" to all the other kids playing there.  ("There were no yellows to make bananas!")

I eventually realized that I had to amend my goal to let them lead unless I wanted to hear a lot of "but we didn't get to  ____!!"

For this one, I heard "mom, take a picture of me!"

And again the next morning.

Sometimes, she's a ham.

One ride they didn't want to miss was this silly Pirate ship.  It looked like a spinny, nauseating ride to me, but luckily they didn't need an adult to ride it.  They loved being grown up enough to ride by themselves.  I loved keeping my breakfast.

I was out of luck in the "teacup" ride, however.  Jasmine couldn't ride without me, so I came.

Kaitlyn was too old and cool to meet the characters this time.

We did hit the water park, too.

And Tyler still LOVED his pirate, drenching ride.  I am always amazed at how much water they get hit with.  He was SO excited to go!

I felt better about getting to play with Daddy the next day, though.  He's "the fun parent", anyway.

Now with more boogie boards!

Even Jasmine was determined.  She would wait in the shallow areas until the wave got all the way to her, and then do a near belly flop to try and ride it in.

Unless they caught her off guard, and then she just had to run away.

Digging was a good break, though.

And digging will always be Tyler's favorite.

We intended to stay at the beach until lunch and then drive to our next hotel in Las Vegas.  But we were having so much fun that we stayed . . . and stayed.  When we got in the car at 3 pm, we realized two things very quickly.

We were sunburned, since we hadn't reapplied the sunscreen.

And driving past San Diego and Los Angeles at rush hour was a very, very bad plan.

I think we made it to our hotel at 10 or 11 pm.

It was a really nice hotel though!  That room was probably my favorite of all time.  Huge, great fold out couch for the kids, jetted tub and steam shower, and even a washer and dryer in the room.

The pool was great, too.  A sand area with toys, and a lazy river.

We just had to lather on the sunscreen to enjoy any of it.

Originally we were going to head to St, George next, and stop by Kolob Canyon on the way home.  We were just too sunburned at that point.  Driving home early meant we got to go to Daddy's work party, though.

The kids were really glad we made it to that.  They loved the food, snow cones, games, and most especially, the tattoos.

Daddy just loves the flow rider the most.

We were still on the wrong time zone, and dragged the kids home at 10:30 that night!  The next week, I was just happy to have nothing scheduled at all.  Time to just wake up lazily and read books with the kids.

Zion

The first year we had a camping trailer, we found out that many of the places we wanted to go booked out months in advance.  Some, the day they open, 4 or 6 months out.  So the next year, Christopher asked me to book a camping trip for each month.  Only we got closer to summer, tore out the kitchen and found out that 2 of the 4 camping trips were in direct conflict with things we could not miss.

So this time, when he saw a campsite in Zion National Park that he wanted, he really went for it.  He booked before Christmas so that we could come in June, and booked the full two weeks you are allowed to book.  The fee to change it later was worth not missing out on it.  In the end, we shaved a little off the beginning and the end and had a full week in our spot.

And what a spot it was!  It was only a couple of minutes to walk to the visitor's center, it was right on the river, and just two campsites away from an amphitheater where they have nightly ranger talks.

The river had this great rock that blocked the flow.  Nice and calm for my crew to wade and swim in.  The water was very, very cold when you got in, but after a day of hiking in the high 90s, cold water was great.

There was a lot of debate about if this little guy would come along or not.  Dogs are allowed in the campground, but not in the National Park itself.  That meant he could come, but he would be left in the trailer a lot.  The electric hookup meant that the air conditioning was on for him, but I just worried that if he barked too much or the AC went out and we were gone for hours he might not do well.  Thankfully, he was great.  I think he enjoyed being along for the adventure, even if he spent more time alone in the trailer than we wanted him to.

We loved scootering around every evening.  All of the campgrounds were really lovely.

And this was our view from inside while eating breakfast each morning.  We loved having a new dinette to eat at, and what a view, as well!

The last time I took the kids to Zion, I was meeting my parents there while Chris worked.

That trip was a really busy one, and we had so many adventures that I didn't have the best memories of the place.  We were all glad we went, but it was exhausting.  Christopher had only been there with scout groups.

This time we had older kids, both parents, and a week to explore the place at whatever pace suited us.  Much better.  I was worried about the heat, but we just tried to hike in the morning and take a break in the afternoon heat.

We hiked up to the upper emerald pools.

The pools were neat, but I was most impressed by the sheer cliffs.  The walls of the canyon are like that throughout the park, which is why the Indian name for the place meant "Straight Up Land".

The kids played in the sand for at least an hour.

We also walked up to see weeping rock.

And the kids once again spent at least an hour playing in the creek at the bottom.

We also did the Riverside walk, which obviously involved playing in the river.  There is a theme here.

Kaitlyn took over the camera so she could get pictures of Daddy skipping rocks.

We also spent a lot of time at Ranger programs.  Last time, the kids were only mildly interested in the Junior Ranger booklets they got.  This time, they carried them everywhere and went to 7 Ranger programs.  Kaitlyn love the evening talks so much that she would beg to go early and save us a front row seat.

I had no idea last time, but they have an entire (air conditioned) building just for little kids.  Puzzles and coloring pages, hand puppets and lots of displays for them to learn from, and Ranger talks just for kids.  They kept begging to go back there.

It really was so well done.  And the kids finished their entire packet to get sworn in as Junior Rangers!

Jasmine did, technically, raise her right hand.  But only Kaitlyn repeated after the Ranger when they promised to take good care of the land.

There were a couple of mornings where Chris woke up early to conquer a bigger hike that Jasmine (and probably I) couldn't quite do.

Tyler went with him for Angel's Landing, and loved it.  He saw nothing scary about the 6 foot wide path with sheer cliffs on either side.  In fact, one kind gentleman saw him and offered out his hand to help him along . . . and Tyler promptly gave him a high five and kept on walking.

The next morning, Chris did an even longer hike all by himself.

I know this post has a lot of pictures, but I'm not even through all of them yet.  The kids loved riding the shuttle, even asking to just ride the shuttle with no destination in mind.

We had ice cream at the lodge and ran around the lawn for a while.

We brought our kayaks down, and spent one day at Sand Hollow Reservoir with some friends.

We went into town for ice cream and cornhole one night, too.

And we hiked up to the Watchman with a ranger right before we packed up to go home.

It was an awesome, busy trip!

And if all of that wasn't enough, we stopped on the way home to have dinner by Yuba Lake.  Might as well make use of the kayaks one more time!

The weather was super windy, but we made it work.