Road Trips!

Hey, family! Let's go on a road trip!
Car wash first! Then lots of driving!

Let's go on a road trip to Wyoming!
Lunch at Independence Rock? Let's do it.

Uh oh. We didn't make it before Independence Day which is what the landmark was named for. Groups from both the Oregon Trail and pioneers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints tried to make it there before Independence Day so that they wouldn't be caught in the snows later in the season.
Of course we had a van and we were going the opposite direction and I couldn't stop thinking about the video game we grew up with- Oregon Trail. I wasn't worried about anybody in our party getting sick or dying along the way. And our lunch was in the cooler. We didn't have to shoot a buffalo and only be able to carry some of its meat back. Ham from the grocery store is much easier. Man, life is good.

Let's go on a road trip to Montana!
It really is nice to have air-conditioning in our van. Even if we got to the hotel after midnight, it only took us a day to get to our destination from Utah. And our kids are good travelers, although a long day in the van plus too much junk food isn't the best on someone's tummy. Yay for cool air in the room.

Let's go on a road trip to North Dakota!
Never been to North Dakota before? That's okay. Neither have we. Oh, now we have. It's nice that there's a reservoir so close to the border so we had time to take a morning to find some new birds- never seen a brown thrasher before, now I've seen many- and throw rocks in the water. We also saw male and female orchard orioles.

Let's go on a road trip back to Montana...
so Jeremy can finish up his amazing balloon scene. A cowboy snoozing in the desert with landscape and animals around. Love it.

Let's go on a road trip back to Wyoming!
Good thing we went to church in a little branch 2 1/2 hours into the drive. It gave us a chance to dry off after loading the van in a downpour.

After church, we enjoyed the scenery on the drive.

Time to visit cousins! We love you guys. Thanks for letting us crash at your place overnight and play and talk all day.

Let's go on a road trip back to Utah!
Just in time to celebrate National Root Beer Float Day on August 6. Yumm!

Let's go on a road trip to Monticello!
Yeah, we'll stay in Utah this time. Such a short 5-hour drive.

Too bad someone got a bug bite that made his hand puffy and scared Mommy. Thankfully my dad was able to give me some advice over the phone that made me worry less. Also thankfully I was able to get hold of a local bishop who was able to find someone who was working across the street from our motel to come right over to help Jeremy give Jr. Jr. a blessing- also helped me to worry less. He's fine.
The fellow that helped us out even checked with us after church on Sunday to see how our little boy was doing.
The church building we went to was right next to the temple in Monticello.

Let's go on a road trip back to home!
Just in time for the neighborhood ice cream social the night we got back...

and the annual juggler's BBQ the next day.
The boys again enjoyed bouncing on the bounce house, several of us enjoyed some juggling practice (reminds me of my college days), and we all enjoyed food.

Road trips are fun! And exhausting! But we survived. Go, us!

Busy Busy Busy Again

Boy, we've been busy. Summer is ending. School starts soon. We've been getting ready for Jr.'s upcoming birthday. We took our annual trip down to Monticello for Jeremy to do balloons at the San Juan County Fair.

This year we did not go to Arches National Park. Jeremy had a show the evening we were to leave so we didn't get going until really late.
But like before, we drove over to see the Monticello Temple while we were there.

I thought about taking the kids to the city park while we were in Monticello (playground, lots of shade, plenty of room to run around) as it was only a couple blocks from our motel, but everyone was sooooo tired that we took naps instead. Oh well, it's not one that we'd be going to often anyway. "Hey, kids, let's go to a park to play. It's only a five hour drive to get there."

So busy busy busy. Gotta find that balance of being able to blog and get things done.

Arches

Jeremy had a show in Monticello, Utah, this last weekend, so we all headed down for a few days. We got a good start, hoping to leave at 9 or 10am, we actually left at 11. Not too bad with 2 toddlers.

At the rest area on the way, the kids had some cool down time with the misty mates (pump 'em up, turn 'em on, mist away). Jeremy took time to photograph lizards.

On the way to Monticello, we stopped at Arches National Park to see a bunch of rocks. I'd never been there before so I didn't know what to take pictures of so Jeremy turned off at every viewpoint and I jumped out of the car to take pictures. At Balanced Rock we decided to let everyone out, and of course it started raining. Lightning in the distance and thunder rumbling. At least it wasn't too hot for August. It was also quite windy and the kids' hats kept blowing off. At one point, Nichole's hat blew off and almost blew off the trail. I said I would have sent Jeremy off the trail to get it if it had, even though they had signs saying, "Please, stay on the trail."

We went across the street from Balanced Rock to picnic. It was fun to watch the ants with food we accidentally dropped. Man, those pincers on the ants are huge when zoomed in with the camcorder. I know it says don't feed the wildlife, but I didn't mean for the chips to fall.
We drove on looking at more formations until we got to a nice walking/hiking area. Actual arches. In the Windows Section of the Park- North and South Windows and Turret Arch.
As we were walking up to the North Window, some of the people walking down were cheering Jr. on for doing such a good job walking up. Some others saw his baby cougar BYU shirt and showed their approval.

We spent some time at North Window where there was a beautiful arch of a rainbow through and above the rock arch. It was a bit of a dropoff through the arch, so I made the kids sit down by me while Jeremy took pictures of us with the rainbow.

After the windows section, we headed out of the park by way of the Visitor's Center, which was closed by then but the bathrooms and drinking fountains were open. That and they had some animal statues that the kids played with. My hair got totally windblown while we were in the park. It was pretty fun.

Before we got to Monticello, Jeremy mentioned that he'd been thinking about how there was the construction on the road in front of the motel last year, but there wouldn't be this year. So as drove into town, guess what? Construction on the road outside the motel. It made us laugh. Also as we pulled into town, we saw a building not too far away that looked like it had a gold statue on top. I didn't realize there was a little temple in this area. Cool. Saturday before we left we took the kids by it so they could see it and Nichole could sing, "I Love To See The Temple."

Good family trip.