Are we there yet?

That very quickly became the tagline for our recent trip to the Grand Canyon and to Zion National Park. That was uttered every 5 minutes from boy #3. Answering it was extremely difficult due to the fact that he has no concept of time. So we could answer 5 minutes or 5 hours and all he knew was that he wasn't happy with where we were at.

Despite this repeated sentence and a case of diarrhea our UEA weekend turned out great. The weather was gorgeous and the crowds skimpy. We were lucky to book a cabin at the north rim a few weeks ago so we started our trip there.

Did I not mention the diarrhea? Here it is. Every time I pack for a trip I usually come home with loads of diapers left. So this time I decided to pack less of them. Of course Chase decided that this trip would be the one where he had diarrhea and by the second day we were blowing through them. We were about ready to break down and buy a 10 pack at the gas station for $18.99. Luckily it passed and we came home with 3 to spare. Back to north rim.



This was probably my favorite hike - Point Imperial Trail. Fabulous views at the end. Owen liked this hike the best because we got to eat chips at the end.



The downside was that we over estimated how far Owen would be willing to walk by about a mile. We wised up after this one. Taylor, Bennett and Chase were troopers and hiked happily along.



Our next hike, Widforss Trail, was turning about to be just as gorgeous but we decided to turn around early. The area has had some fires lately so there was a lot of dead logs laying around that the boys loved digging at. Scott and I both agreed this was a trail we would like to finish one of these days without the little ones.



The best part of Widforss Trail was the actual trail. We were literally walking on a bed of pine needles the entire time and the smell was heavenly. If I could have bottled up that scent, I would have.




After our hike up to the upper emerald pool in Zion, the boys attempted to make their own sedimentary rock, following Bennett's instructions. He must have had a lesson about rocks lately in school because he understood that the sand needed pressure and time. When we told him it would need about a million years, he was a little disappointed that it wasn't going to change while he was watching.



If you look closely at the water coming off of the rock right in the middle of the pix you can see there is a rainbow. Taylor spotted that.



"Thanks Dad for hauling me around for 3 days!"