Capitol Reef Continued.

Early Sunday morning Jason and I took a small hike on a trail that overlooked the green area of Capitol Reef. It was a beautiful sunny day!

Jason Checking out the view from above our campground

We fed the kids breakfast before church and headed out. Its hard to want to go to church when you can shower before it starts, however the place was PACKED! It looked like stake conference there but it was just all the campers loyally attending their meetings.
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After sacrament was over we headed back to our campsite for some lunch before we hiked down Sulphur creek. We stopped a the visitor center and asked the rangers if the weather was going to be ok that day. He said it looked just fine, showed Jason the radar and what the weather pattern was doing. He said "Go for it! Lots of people have been hiking there today" so we said "Great!"

We had a BIG lunch before we left and packed up all the extra hot dogs that we cooked in some foil in case the kids got hungry along the hike. We also packed 3 camel backs full of water. The kids each had a backpack with water and snacks for the hike. In Jason's we also put a whistle, flashlight, lighter and the rain ponchos. (there was no cell service for 11 miles around us, so no phones)

 

 

This was the start of the creek, see there is no water? It was pretty dry for the first part of the hiking.

There was these really cool cuts in the rocks along the creek, we climbed and played on them as we went. Keep in mind the clothes you see are the only clothes we took with us.

 

As we walked we started to come to the water, it was not very deep, maybe to our ankles? There was however MUD! This is actually mud that Addi and the girls are standing in. It was almost like quick sand! They had fun playing in it and rubbing it on their faces.

 

Addi liked playing in the holes in the rocks!

The kids lined up for this photo and as you can see the water is not that deep

 

So we finally got to the first waterfall, and was so cool as you can see the water is a little deeper. We played here for a while. The water was not super cold but it took a second to get used to.

Jason was still up on top of the waterfall, we used a strap to help lower the kids down when it was required to climb down some rocks.

Crouching tiger hidden dragon Lexi!!!

Lizzie trying to block the water (Jason said when he came with his BYU kids there was hardly any water running, that was in June)

 

Jason jumping through the water!

 

 

Capitol Reef Adventure........not really.



Jason and I realized this summer how much we love camping, we camped on our coastal trip and thought we need to do that more often. We decided to go to Capitol Reef National Park for our labor day weekend. Jason had been the summer before with a group of BYU students and they open air painted and had lots of fun.

We headed out Saturday morning early because we knew alot of people would be going camping and we wanted to be sure to get a campsite.

Located in south-central Utah in the heart of red rock country, Capitol Reef National Park is a hidden treasure filled with cliffs, canyons, domes and bridges in the Water pocket Fold, a geologic monocline (a wrinkle on the earth) extending almost 100 miles. 

 Mormon pioneers and others arrived in the 1800s, settling in what is now the Fruita Rural Historic District. They planted and nurtured orchards of apples, pears, and peaches. (ok done with the history lesson)

This is just part of the park. See the road? It is about 11 miles to the closest town and there is no cell service whatsoever inside the park. It really is a beautiful place and we enjoyed marveling and what our Father in Heaven created. Whats really neat is that all of this used to be under the ocean!

We set up camp and then went exploring! Our camp host was fun, He was a BYU fan.



We tried to take some cool artsy photos but our kids cant seem to jump all at the same time, so this is what we got.

Jason was showing the kids where the BYU students sat a drew last summer

I tried to take a panoramic shot of the view, this really doesn't do the park justice.

They had programs for the kids and so we took them around so they could earn their Jr explorer badge and a few others
These are the petroglyphs around the park, Indians settled here before the pioneers.
Can you see the carvings in the rocks?

The pioneers planted orchards and as long as you were within the park you could eat as much of the fruit as you wanted, you could also pick some to take with you if you were just driving thru and they only charged $1 a pound. We took some to eat later in the day. They were so very good!

Here is Lizzie enjoying the fruits of her labor (the sign says U-pick fruit)

 This was taken Sunday morning, Jason and I hiked a trail to get a good panoramic of the green valley, it was a gorgeous morning.

 

 

Jason enjoying the view!

 

I will share about our Sunday adventure in my next post.

I hope you are all ready!



 

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A brief Pause to say Yahoo!!!

We want to take a brief moment to say how excited were are for Hanna and the choice she made to be baptized this last Sunday August 26, 2010. She will be confirmed a member of the church and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost this fast Sunday. Yahoo!!!!

We love you Hanna and are so proud of you!

 

 

Hanna and her Grandfather

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love this one!!!!!

 

 

Hanna with her Grandma and Grandpa

 

We Love You Hanna!

Portland and Powells Books!

Day 2 of our coastal trip!

Ok so our next stop was Portland and Powell's books! As you can see from the picture it is huge!! They gave us a map when we walked in and you would have totally gotten lost without it! We spent about 2 hours here and all the kids got to get a book to read for the duration of the trip. It was a great place to find books, but boy was it crowded! 

 Before we made it to Portland and Powell's we stopped at Little Stone Henge along the way, cant remember the name of the town.... Anyways it was pretty cool. It was VERY hot outside so we didn't hang here for to long.

 This was the view from Stone Henge and it was clear enough to see Mount Hood!

 Jason got a really cool shot of the windmills that were literally everywhere! I love looking at these windmills! Funny enough every time we have driven through the gorge it has been super windy and this time it was just to hot.

 We stopped off at the Multanomah falls right before we got into Portland, it was very busy and there was even a wedding taking place. Its such a beautiful waterfall and it helped cool us off for a little while.

 This was the next morning after we got to the coast and our campsite, because we spent so much time at Powell's Books we missed the tours for the Tillamook cheese factory.. Bummer! But the kids were ok with it when they saw the ocean for the first time that night. Jason was kind enough to set up camp while I walked the kids down to the water.

 As you can see they forgot all about cheese!

 We woke up early the next morning and packed up our tents but stayed to hang out on the beach for a while. The tide was out and we were able to see alot of the sea life (more of those pics later). Lizzie jumped into mine and Jason's picture at the last minute but left when she saw us kiss! Ha Ha!

We love the ocean and brings back memories of our marriage, 17 years and we still like each other! :)

More beach pictures to come!

Oregon trip Day 1

 Day one of our trip to the coast was great! We left as early as we could and drove toward Boise. We stopped in Twin Falls to see the Shoshone Falls which is considered the "Little Niagara" of the west. Along the way we saw some wildlife as seen above, I could not get him to turn around....

                                    Here is the Niagara of the west! It was pretty cool!

 That night we camped just into Oregon close to the Idaho border. The camp ground was one that we stayed at before and it was just like we remembered except we didn't have any kids with us the last time Jason and I stayed there during our 5 year anniversary.

Not alot to see this day because we were driving and it was getting dark when we finally got to the campsite. We had fun and were very excited to go on our vacation. Next stop Portland and Powell's books!