Visitors and & Camping....finally!

So back when I was growing up, I used to babysit for the this cute little chubby baby girl that was named Natalie...beautiful name I know=) Her mom, LaRene, also owns the nursery in Salt Lake, Millcreek Gardens, that I later worked at and developed my love of all things green. I was lucky enough to get a visit from these wonderful friends last weekend and show them around my favorite places here. That cute little chubby baby girl, is now a beautiful bride to be and LaRene hasn't aged a bit, as she was schooling us on the mountain bike trail.

It was so fun to visit and play and even fit in a little yard work=)

This hike was made more entertaining by climbing through the drainage pipe=)


I also got to chaperone Maren's field trip to a local pumpkin farm this week. This was Maren's favorite part...all the kids loved these cute baby bunnies...I felt bad for the them. But they were so cute!

The boys enjoyed the hayride and picking out their own pumpkins.

Spencer's preschool is going to the same farm Halloween day...hope I can handle it!

Ever since we moved here the kid have been begging to go camping. Particularly Spencer and Maren. It has taken us a while to get it together. We finally had a trip planned for a few weeks ago and then it rained all weekend...so we cancelled. But the stars aligned, and we made a go of it this weekend and we were lucky to find a campsite open in Arches N.P.

The kids were terrific hikers, and in all I think we hiked to 8 different arches. (We saw a few more from the window of our car as well.) I felt so bad that I hadn't noticed that Spencer's hiking boots were getting too small. He was a trooper and would make it most of the way without complaining.This first one we got to is called landscape arch, and about 20 years ago a huge chunk fell out from under it. This is as close as you can get now. It is so huge.

The next one, pine tree arch, was on the same hike and Amanda had fun climbing up the side of it. The other kids had headed back with Dave, as they were done.

I forgot my camera for the hike the next morning, but we saw a few more arches and even climbed on top of a few. The kids had a blast playing in the sand dunes under sand dune arch.

And for our last hoorah, before driving home we went to see delicate arch. We had just planned to view this from the viewing area off the parking lot, so we didn't bother to put shoes back on Jacob. But when we got closer we saw there was a short hike to a much closer viewing area. So as you can so we hiked on...

and Jacob insisted on hiking the whole way up in his bare feet.
It ended up being about a half mile.
Grinning the whole way!
Playing under a rock tunnel at the top,with Maren, and still grinning=)

Amanda took this gorgeous shot for me...we decided next time we will hike up to the arch itself.
We saw enough to make us excited for another trip...spring break 2012? I think so!