a little crazy

Sometimes I have ideas, and after I think "was this a crazy idea?"


Most of the time the answer is yes, but last weekend when I decided to load up 7 kids and just me as the only adult to head to Zions for the day, it really wasnt as crazy as I thought it may be ;-)


In fact, I think my kids like each other better when there are other people around! Im serious! When I take just my kids places, they usually fight, bicker, complain to me etc etc etc. But when I add more kids in the mix they act like they love each other (I know crazy, huh?)

So I loaded up my bus and took off to Zions and had a glorious time!

We started by heading directly to the Visitors Center to catch the shuttle, it was crazy busy two weeks prior when I went with Joel, so I was very happy to see we could park right up close. I unloaded the stroller, camera, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 kids, snacks, backpack, water bottles I packed for all 8 of us, and headed to the shuttle drop off.

I was excited to see that no one was waiting! Perfect we could easily get on and sit together as soon as the shuttle got there.

We waited.

took some of these pictures.




waited.


Read a little sign that said "In November the shuttle only runs on Saturday and Sunday" (it was a Friday)

....so we walked back to the car.

...loaded back up the stroller, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 kids, the backpack, snacks, water bottles and everything else, and headed down the canyon.

I seriously had no idea that you could ever drive down the canyon anymore!

Our first stop was weeping rock, we hiked up. It was beautiful and the kids loved it.





Then we played by the stream, and I realized that wearing a white shirt with kids while playing in a muddy stream was a bad idea. In fact that shirt is now purple, because by the time we got home it was so stained up, I figured I may as well just dye it!

We then headed up to the narrows and hiked the river walk hike. Only one kids brought a jacket this time, and I brought a blanket for Parlee in the stroller...

We stopped to get (Millions of) pictures of kids jumping in the air by the river



Kyler whacked a lot of hikers with his stick he found.



I told the kids to take a 'cool' trail by the river that would meet up with the paved trail in a bit, while Parlee and I took the real paved trial....umm, the neat-o trial I told the kids to take, obviously ended and the kids decided to hike through a marsh to get back to me...bad idea!






We hiked on, until we found this awesome slide rock, where the kids slid down many times. We did sacrifice one girls jeans and her underwear to the cause. She slid down so many times, she ripped a whole in her jeans and underwear!!! We then tied a jacket around her waist and figured we better be done sliding. Then we had to slide down one last time so some lady who was hiking could take a picture of these silly kids.

It was now cold...and we were kinda wet and muddy, so we headed back to the car, which was surprisingly far away. We had hiked about 2 miles in!





As we were heading out of Zions we saw deer grazing (do they graze?) everywhere. So naturally we stopped in the middle of the road to take pictures each time we saw more deer...naturally.



All in all a great time!