Ally Turns SIX!!

On Monday Ally turned SIX! She has been super excited to turn six. She thinks six is way older than five. She woke up that morning and opened up her presents first thing. Luckily school wasn't cancelled yet, so she could take her birthday treats to her class. They had told us over the weekend that they were going to have school Mon-Wed and then close Thurs-Fri. On Monday afternoon they informed us that school was cancelled starting the next day. She squeaked by, and loved that she got to share treats with her class.

She's been telling me that she wanted a Frozen cake. I'd been telling her that I CANNOT make a Frozen cake. Plus I have mild pneumonia now, so my energy-level for cake making was pretty low. When she got home from school on her birthday I threw out all sorts of other suggestions that she might possibly want on her cake. Flowers. Rainbow. Maybe even just yummy cupcakes? Finally she said, "Mom. I just want a Frozen cake. You can do it. You just make two happy faces, and then put two straight lines of orange for Anna's braids, and one straight line of whipped cream for Elsa's braid." I decided that if her expectations were really THAT LOW, I could probably manage to make something she would find acceptable. 😂

This is what we ended up with. She was thrilled. She said, "Wow! See! I told you that you could do it! And the braids even looks like REAL BRAIDS!". I'm super glad she's six and so easily pleased.

We had our parent-daughter ice cream date on Saturday night, and it was fun. It's nice to have the opportunity to spend quality time with just one kid so the whole focus and conversation can be about them. I'm also glad we did it that night, because over the weekend I got more sick and now I'm supposed to stay in my house and "lay low" for "a while".

Vacation Day #4 - More Arches

Skyler is a very methodical kid, and he loves to study maps. When we were at Arches on Sunday, he studied the map to determine what other hikes there were that we didn't already do. Since we were headed back to Arches on Tuesday, we told him that he could decide what we were going to do that day. He decided that we should go to Devil's Garden because we could go on a hike and see at least 4 arches in one hike. Kylee then looked at the map and freaked out that the hike Skyler wanted to do would be 5.5 miles long if we wanted to see all 4 arches. We decided we would start by going to Landscape Arch (only 1.6 miles round trip), and determine how we felt from there. When we arrived at Landscape Arch Colby was sure this airplane was going to crash into the arch.

After we got to Landscape Arch it was decided that we would go on to Double O, at least a little bit. It's the one that is 4.5 miles round trip (including what we had already hiked), and then there are extra little side trails you can take to Partition Arch and Navajo Arch that make it 5.5 if you do them all. We passed the turn off for the extra arches and Skyler really wanted to do them, but we decided we'd wait until we were on our way back to see how everyone felt.

The kids all did great on the hike. Colby had to be carried for about 1/2 mile again on the way up, but mostly he walked by himself. There were a few spots when you are way up high on a rock ledge and you can actually see the trucks driving on I-70 waaaay out in the distance. Skyler and Ally thought that was the coolest thing ever.

Ally found this rock and climbed up it so I could take her picture.

Colby found this little alley between two rocks and asked me to take his picture under this tree.

Skyler wanted his picture climbing a rock, too.

Some ladies that we passed when we were almost to the end of our hike took our picture in the lower arch.

Years ago when I was young someone showed me the trail to climb up on the very top of the arch. We weren't going to do it this time because it is really high and I was a little nervous about the kiddos. Some people we passed on the trail I think already thought we were crazy to even be bringing all these kids on this hike at all. One guy passed us and then I heard him say to the lady he was with "Holy cow! That little kid can't be more than 4! That's crazy!" Umm, yeah. He's 3. Anyway, but then the three ladies we had arrived with were saying that they'd heard you could get on top, but they went behind the arch and couldn't see how it could be done, so I offered to show them. Then of course all the kids wanted to come. I drew the line at Colby. He stayed down below with dad and the camera. Ally was a stretch, but I let her do it. It is REALLY high. Again, you can see I-70 from up there.

This bird was hanging out near us, and who knew Andy was such a good photographer? He got some good shots of it.

We ate some snacks up at the arch and then headed back down the trail. Skyler through we should take the Primitive Trail back so we could see Dark Angel and Private Arch, but that was is 7+ miles round trip, and if we did that we'd miss Partition Arch and Navajo Arch on our way back, so we decided to go back the way we came. Colby found a stick and carried it the whole way. He said, "Mom, take a picture with me and my stick."

Then the next thing I knew he was standing on one foot! This little path we're on has drop offs on both sides, so I wasn't too pleased with the one-foot pose.

When we got to the turn off for Partition and Navajo Arch, it said "Partition Arch .2 miles, Navajo Arch .3 miles". We thought that meant with an extra .6 mile walk we'd see both. Kylee didn't want to do it, and Colby was getting tired. Ally, surprisingly, DID want to do it with Skyler and I, so Andy, Kylee, and Colby kept heading back to the car while the three of us took the branch to the other arches. It turns out that they are two totally different trail that start in the same place, so one is .6 miles round trip and the other is .4 miles round trip, but they're definitely worth it. 

Along the trail to Navajo Arch the kiddos found some fun places to hide.

Again, Ally loves to climb.

I can't quite figure out how Navajo Arch came to be. It seems crazy! It's super thick (as you can see from the photo below), and the side I'm standing on to take the photo is actually up against a big cliff. The trail came up from the far side that you see here, and then when you walk under the arch you're in a little alcove canyon. I'm just not sure how enough wind would have blown through here to carve out this super thick arch.

Skyler and Ally always have to pick the most adventurous route. To the left of this photo you can easily just step over this log, but NO, they had to climb over the branch.

Partition Arch was also cool. It created a picture frame for the valley and mountains way off in the distance. Interestingly, the main trail headed back to landscape arch clearly runs in the canyon right below this arch, because we could hear people hiking/talking loud and clear echoing from right below us, but when we shouted "hello! hello!" a bunch, nobody replied. I think they couldn't hear us because we were up at the top outside of the canyon.

When we went through Partition Arch to the other side (carefully of course because the canyon drops off the edge there), we found that there were actually TWO arches side by side. We didn't notice the second one from the side we were originally on.

As we were hiking back down, Skyler again got a second win and decided to jog ahead and see if he could catch up to Andy and the other kids. He took off and I stayed back with Ally to walk at a slower pace. Eventually Ally and I caught up with an older couple who were walking slower than we were, and they asked us, "Was that your brother Tyler who was jogging by a while ago? He was all by himself!" I told them, "Yeah, he was trying to catch up with dad and the other kids." Then they seemed a lot less concerned, since he had one parent ahead and one parent behind. Ally had found this huge sand hill on our way up the trail earlier that morning, so on the way down I let her climb up it and run back down.

Ally and I passed the turn off for Pine Tree and Tunnel Arch, and for a minute I wondered if Skyler would have gone that way because he wanted to see those. Ally was tired, though, so we just kept going. I didn't realize it only would've added about 1/2 mile to the 5.5 miles we'd already hiked. When we got to the end everyone was eating snacks. Skyler said, "I almost took the turn off for Pine Tree and Tunnel, because I just wanted to run down there really quick and see those, but I didn't know if you would know where I was." I told him he could've just WAITED at the turn off for us and we all could've gone together, but apparently that thought didn't occur to him. Crazy kid. 

After this we decided it was time to head out. The kids are all ready to go back someday because Skyler informed them that they missed Sand Dune Arch, Broken Arch, Double Arch, and the other ones we didn't see in Devil's Garden. I'm really glad that they are learning to enjoy hiking so that they can see these amazing things.

Overall, it was soooo nice to get out of the cold and spend some time together as a family. I was sick and was downing cough pills every 5 hours on the dot, but it was still fun.

Trip Hiking Totals, in case anyone was wondering, and because I'm super impressed with these kiddos:

Ally and Skyler tied for the most at 16.9 miles because they did everything.

I did 16.6 miles (no Balanced Rock cuz Colby was asleep)

Kylee did 15.9 miles (no Navajo or Partition)

Andy did 14.9 miles (no Navajo, Partition, or Windows) because...Colby

Colby did about 12.5-13.0 miles because he was sleeping for some and got carried for some. However, on Sunday evening he did go on about a 1.0 mile walk with Andy and I on Main Street in Moab, too, so he could count that!

What I loved was that even after we wore Colby out to the point where he would fall asleep in the car, he would wake up and say "what hike are we doing now?" And each morning he kept asking "Are we going on a hike? Are we almost to our hike?" He LOVED it.

Vacation Day #3 - Canyonlands Needles District

On Monday we headed down to the Southern end of Canyonlands - called the Needles District. It had rained/snowed quite a bit over night, and as we were driving down there we were passing through an area with a couple inches of snow. The sky was super grey, it was FREEZING cold, and the road was still snowy/slushy. I began to fear that we were going to drive 1.5 hours down there just to look out the window and drive 1.5 hours back. But we figured it would be an adventure either way.This area is seriously in the middle of NOWHERE. It felt crazy far. As we were driving out there we kept seeing signs for something called Newspaper Rock. As we passed it (outside the park, just randomly off the side of the road) we saw several cars parked there and I thought I glimpsed a bunch of petroglyphs, so we decided we'd stop there on our way back out to check it out.

When we arrived at the park we stopped at the Visitor's Center to get a map. Again, I had researched ahead of time which hikes were good/fun for kids, so we were all set. Luckily there was no rain or snow happening at that time, and the ground was not too muddy. Our first stop was called Cave Spring. It was only a .6 mile loop and said it included views of an old cowboy camp, some pictographs, and a couple of ladders. My kids LOVE ladders while hiking, so this seemed like a winner. The cowboy camp (below) was under a big overhang of rock, and says it was in use from the late 1800s all the way until 1972, when running cattle was banned inside park boundaries.

Basically the whole first park of the hike was running along this rock under a big overhang. The kids thought it was really cool that the sand we were walking on was dry when everything else was soaking wet from all the rain/snow the night before.

There were several areas where the rock above us was really black because of all the campfires used by the cowboys and the Native Americas over the past centuries. The photo above is of some Native American hand prints left behind on the wall, and the photo below is a cave painting.

The name comes from this puddle. It is located under the overhang of the rock, and is apparently the only place in this entire area that has consistent water year-round. I would love to know where it comes from!

Climbing up the ladders to get up on top of the cliff we had just walked under.

As we were walking on top of the cliff to complete the loop some blue sky started appearing!

Our next stop was Pothole Point Trail. This one was only .6 miles again, and said that sometimes the potholes are full of water. Because of the recent rain and snow they definitely were. This made it fun for the kiddos because they had to find a path around all the water-filled holes without getting their feet wet. There was water EVERYWHERE. I'm pretty sure at some point every single person (except me!) in our family accidentally stepped in a puddle.

One thing I learned about hiking with Colby: you just can't be in a rush. When you tell him to "follow the cairns" he takes it literally. He had to walk to every single one, touch it or point to it, tell me "I found a Karen!" and then keep going.

About half way through this hike the blue sky caught up to us, and it was so nice! The temperature was actually not bad (I think it was only low-40s, but with jackets and exertion it was warm enough).

I tried to take a photo of our family with the self-timer on my camera again, but it tipped and didn't quite work out.

Andy stayed up with the faster kiddos and I hung back with the little ones who wanted to climb on EVERYTHING. I was just pleased Colby still wanted to hike on the third day when he'd already walked several miles on his tiny legs!

Skyler found this bench to sit on while he waited for us to catch up.

The scenery down there was AMAZING. Photos never do it justice, which is really sad.

After Pothole Point we ate lunch in the parking lot, peed in some bushes because there are no restrooms in this end of the park except at the Visitor's Center, and moved on to our last hike - Slickrock Trail. I told the kids this one was "a little longer" than the previous ones. It was actually a 2.4 mile loop, but I knew if I told them that after they'd already done 1.2 miles that day they would say no. When we got out of the car I tried to rush them past the trail head sign so they wouldn't see the length printed on it. Kylee understood what I was trying to do and pushed past me to look at it. She screeched "WHAT?!?"...to which I quickly told her "Don't you dare say a word. Let's go." To her credit, she didn't tell the other kids. We started off and Kylee and Skyler went way ahead. There were little overlooks along the way that you could stop and see the view at, and when we got to Overlook 3 or 4 (can't remember), we decided to try to take a photo of the four of us that were there. Again, the camera tipped over after I set it up, and I almost killed myself trying to jump over to the rock where Andy the kids were during the 10 seconds my timer gives me, so we didn't try again!

Colby loved looking for the "Karens" again to see where we should go next.

When we sat down to rest for a minute this bird hopped pretty close. I think he was hoping we had some food for him.

I finally got my camera set in a decent spot for a photo, and I managed to get into a good spot with my 10 seconds...and Andy blinked! He had 10 seconds to prepare for the shot and at the exact moment it took the photo he BLINKED. Someday we'll get a good one! Towards the end of this trail Colby decided he needed to be carried, so Andy carried him for the last .5 miles or so. Ally thought her legs were getting pretty tired and wished aloud once that dad could give her a piggy back, but she didn't complain and did a great job.

We spent basically the whole day in the park and during that time we saw exactly one other person hiking, and passed about 4-5 cars on the road. I'm not sure if this end of the park is just not very popular or if the weather scared people away, or some combination of the two, but it was really peaceful to be way out here without anyone around!

On the way out we stopped at Newspaper Rock. It was seriously just 20 feet off the side of the road, and is so cool! These petroglyphs cover a span of over 2000 years, starting in the BC time period. They have dated some of the main groups of carvings to various Native American groups including the Anasazi (AD 1 to 1300), Fremont (AD 700 to 1300), and Navajo (AD 1500 onwards). They're not sure if these are meant to tell a story, or if they're just marks left by the various groups passing through, or if it's a history. Either way, it was really cool to see so many in one place, and so well-preserved.

As we were heading back to town Colby fell asleep. Apparently we just kept wearing that kid out!

When we got back to town we stopped at the Moab Brewery for dinner, then headed over to McDonalds for some sundaes, only to find out their ice cream machine was broken. The nice lady there suggested we run to Burger King (next door) instead. I don't think I ever realized that Burger King did sundaes, but they were yummy.