For spring break we went on a four-part trip to the southwest: from Vegas to Zion to Bryce to Arches. It felt like cheating, having four vacations in one…but our family motto is “Cheat to win,” so I won’t say anything if you won’t.
The extravaganza began with Easter weekend at my sister’s house in Vegas. Instead of going to church to see all the baptisms, we just did them ourselves.
There weren’t any crosses to carry lying around, so we improvised that, too.
On Easter morning the kids dyed pancakes, since Jesus dyed for us.
(God doesn’t read blogs anymore, does he? If so, let me beg forgiveness!)
Don and I felt that the Mrs. Butterworths bottle doesn’t seem exactly PC, but the more syrup we used, the less offensive she became.
After breakfast, we went outside for pictures. Here are the cousins, all smiling at once.
My sister insisted she wasn’t doing anything behind my back to get the kids to smile, but she forgot about the selfie button.
Sisters!
No snarky comment for this next one, just a nice family picture:
See? No snark! Sometimes I have to prove I can do it.
After that, it was off to the national parks. There’s a lot to blog about, so I’ll split it up over a few posts. Here are the cliff notes (pun intended).
Each bend of the road opened up to another spectacular wave of cliffs, either rising dramatically above us or plunging drastically below us. Each viewpoint was spectacular and unique, and I captured them all in a bazillion photos that look more or less the same.
Well, there was that one rock that stood out from the rest…
But let’s keep our maturity intact and move on.
I was a bit anxious about this trip because it would involve a lot of hiking. Hiking has not been a pleasurable activity for my family. As soon as we set foot on a trail, someone needs a snack, someone has to pee, someone’s shoe is untied, someone found a stick, someone needs another snack, someone wants everyone to know how much they hate hiking…and that’s just Kevin. Imagine how the boys are!
Only it wasn’t like that this time. We were able to hike. To really hike! To take big, strong strides, to feel the burn in our quads, to breathe heavily, to work up a good sweat.
At least, that’s how it was for me and Kevin. Way up ahead of us, casually strolling along with their hands in their pockets, were our boys, somehow going twice as fast as us, talking and laughing like they weren’t out of breath at all.
They literally left us in their dust.
It’s hard to remember that just last year, we called the boys the Cabbage, the Goat, and the Wolf, like from that one brain teaser. We had to be careful who we put in the boat at the same time. Now we can put them all in the boat and not worry about anyone eating anyone else. The only thing we have to worry about is the boat leaving me and Kevin stranded on the shore.
We’re not too worried though. They still need us for some things, like teaching them how to do a power walk instead of looking like a bunch of bouncy-stepped goons with strings for arms. We keep giving them advice. “Walk like your thighs are so muscular they can’t quite touch,” or “Walk like someone might have insulted your mom and you’re on your way to find out,” or “More shoulders!” or “Less gorilla!” They usually end up looking like they wet their pants or dislocated their knees, but I did manage to get one shot where everything is going right.
Just don’t click on the video.
All right, that’s enough for today. Tomorrow, onto Zion—or, as Rocco calls it, Zeeon!
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