We had a pretty eventful spring break. It started with my bright idea to spend our spring break in Colorado with Jandi and family (she's always begging me to come)! So I thought, why not now? It worked out beautifully so that McKay could drive there and back and in between fly in/out of Denver for work. It just so happened that on our way he had some business in Wyoming. I have heard from a FEW people that there are really beautiful places in Wyoming. But I can assure you I didn't see any of those!! In fact our short 2 night stay will go down in history as the worst part of any trip EVER! Just think of me alone in a hotel room, top floor (angry people below us), 4 kids, no car, no napping, no swimming! The only thing to see out the window was a train track surrounded by lovely sagebrush, a trashy burger king with no play area and across the busy highway, a McDonalds WITH a play area that I couldn't get to because I HAD NO CAR!! The only bright light to our stay was the wonderful and friendly staff at our hotel! Bless them. Because of the afore mentioned negatives, I have therefore nicknamed Wyoming "Wy-the-H#**-would-anyone-live-there-oming"! So let's move on...
On our way out of Wyoming, we took a detour to Martins Cove. For those that can't tell from our first picture, It's a spot where all pioneers coming west crossed through, but is mostly known for the mormon pioneers in the Martin handcart company. They faced horrible tragedies while they tried to wait out winter and wind in the shelter of two mountains that formed a cove.They were blessed with miraculous rescues from those pioneers who had already made it to Utah and then gathered as much food/clothing/etc to bring back to the stranded travelers. Of course, many died, but most made it to the Salt Lake Valley because of the sacrifice of those rescuers. We figured while we're close to it, we should enlighten our minds and especially our children's to the plight of those that came before us!
It was a windy day...
They had kid handcarts and adult sized handcarts, so we all had to try!
Interesting that Emmie is the one pulling Rhyan and not Morgan! Stinker!
It's all smiles until you've been pushing and pulling for hundreds of miles....
We had the best tour guide that took just our family on a ride in a razor side-by-side 4-wheeler auto thingy and told us cool stories and showed us the overlook of Martins cove. He was great...wish I could remember his name!
Next we drove to Colorado, our second state in our three state tour. We stayed a few days with the Oxnam family (shout out to them for putting up with us and showing us the sites)! As per usual Andrea, I didn't seem to think about taking a lot of pictures. The following are from the Denver Childrens Museum and is very much like our Discovery Center...pretty cool. The kids loved it. They got to play make believe, paint pictures, blow bubbles, make anything you want out of recycled materials, including wood. they also built jets out of paper and launched them over and over and over again! :)
Our only proof that we ACTUALLY visited Jandi..... her son Kyler and Drew baby!
This is how Drew felt about the hotel cribs...
After a lovely stay in Colorado, we drove southwest and visited Moab, our third and final state on our three state tour. We've been there before, but we went on a couple different arch hikes this time. If Easter wasn't the next day, we would've loved to stay longer! A nice stranger offered to take our picture before we made our first trek! And it's sure nice to have A family picture on a family vacation!!
Our first of two hikes was to see the the Delicate Arch. It's the longest in the park. There was a lot of uphill hiking...
And some rock collecting...
And LOTS more hiking...
And then this....pure beauty! The famous arch is just as amazing up close as you think it would be!
Some more beauty... :)
On our way down, we meandered a little and the girls found perfect little coves made just their size!
The girls were climbing fools! they wanted to climb everything and thanks to the grippy red dirt, what Moab and Arches National Park is made of, they had no slippage.
Wide view, same climb.
Stopped to take a potty break and this was just irresistible to McKay, Morgs, and Emms.
At the top in the crease. They made it!
Coming down is never as much fun.
The second arch we went to was the very kid friendly Sand Dune Arch. Our kids could've stayed there all day! This was the trail leading to it...
The arch is sort of hidden between huge rocks which makes it feel even more magical to kids.
I know what you're thinking, and yes, I was finding red sand in all sorts of places for days!!
Insert cute boy here:
Emmie playing hid and seek.
I love this picture! Morgan told Emmie to act tough, but she must've forgot and just looked cute instead!
