Zions National Park

Back in September our family was able to travel down to St. George to spend the weekend with our wonderful friends the Jurgens and the Kerics. For our big Saturday activity we decided to go to Zions National Park. It had been exactly 10 years since I had been to Zions, (the last time being with my pre-mission boyfriend Erin) so going with Adam and our 3 adorable boys was quite surreal. Where does the time go?

Unfortunately I started coming down with the symptoms of a nasty cold Friday morning, so by Saturday it was in its full wrath! I felt absolutely miserable, but the thought of staying home in the condo all day by myself when I knew I could be hiking in the canyons of Zions sounded even more miserable. So I ventured to my mountains and never looked back.

The day was absolutely perfect. The sun was out, there was a nice cool breeze at times, and we were with fantastic company. We started out with a peanut and butter picnic lunch just outside the canyon, and then we jumped on a shuttle bus to explore the rest of the canyon.

Eating outside the Lodge at the entrance to Zions (Kimber & Eric)

Ah cute. Joey, Missy & Will

Getting ready to take the bus up Zions! Joey is SO excited! 🙂
Or Angry I can’t tell which in this picture!

Our little gang!

Some pictures of Zions taken on the bus

Hey I know this guy!

I love this picture of the boys! (Branson LOVED riding on the bus!)

Aren’t these mountains incredible?

Once we got to our destination (the hike that take you to the Narrows) we loaded the kids into back packs, filled our water bottles and headed up a beautiful path right next to a stream.

The newlyweds! We sure love them!

Oh look Branson picked me some beautiful illegal National Forest flowers! What a sweetie! (Quick, hide them from the Forest Service workers!)

Gotta love Joey!

My job was to carry the little one

While the Kerics and Adam took turns walking or carrying this one!

I loved the trees!

Riding on Daddy!

Taking a little breather!

Joey pointing out the fish in the pond below

Brans had to get some rock climbing in while hiking!

And Adam held up a few boulders for us all to pass under! Go babe!

Cool picture of the mountain weeping. Our bus driver said that the water we see coming out of these rocks has taken 1400 years to get to us! Pretty cool stuff.

Joey and cute William

The river on the way up was breathtaking

Once we got to the entrance to the narrows we all took a little dip in the river to cool off!

Joey and Missy had to rein-act their make out session that they had the last time they were at Zions together! Even in front of the children! Hey, its tradition! What can ya do? 🙂

My absolute favorite part of our little stop near the narrows was seeing the cute little chipmunk/squirrels that were SO INCREDIBLY friendly! I had brought a bag of cranberries in my pack that they were ruthless about getting into, so I just took them out and gave them a few so they wouldn’t ruin my pack in the process. They would eat right out of my hand, and even came and sat on my lap at one point when I was eating them myself and got on my shoulder. I was absolutely loving it until my dear husband and friends informed me that it was against the law to feed any animals. Whoops. 🙂 It was fun while it lasted!

The cuties even let Kimber and I pet them!

Group Picture!

Helping Brans Rock climb

Sweet William!

Throwing big rocks to splash Eric and playing in the water with Harry-bob.
I must have gotten him pretty good in this shot!

I love this picture of the Jurgens!

Harry loved finding rocks in the water

So it appears that once again our polar plungers of Bear Lake took on the freezing temperatures of the river by dunking themselves in! I still don’t get it! But I love them anyway! 🙂

And of course a water fight ensued!

My hot hunk of a husband!

The boys had fun watching the squirrels too!

This picture of Missy totally cracked us all up! If you remember from the picture earlier Missy and Kimber went and dunked themselves all the way into the river. However, when Missy got out of the river for some reason the area of her pants from her knees to her ankles was still completely dry! So funny! Not sure how that is even possible, but here is the evidence!

I think they still like each other!

So remember how I started out carrying Dawson at the beginning of the hike? Well my darling wonderful husband towards the end of our travels ended up carrying both Dawson and Harrybob, and then the other boys got a little ride action in as well! It was pretty funny! My husband the Super Hero! Sure do love him!

To finish up our Zions adventures we stopped at a little Pizza place Joey and Missy suggested and had a pizza feast! It was a wonderful end to a wonderful hike!