Zion Part One!

It's been 2 1/2 years since my last blog post, so that means Zion must be pretty great if it's pulling me out of a VERY long blogging hiatus. Truth be told, I just have WAY too many pictures that I love from the trip to share via Instagram, so this is much easier. So, without further ado, here are some highlights from the first half of our trip to Zion (because I even have too many photos to do the whole trip in one part).

We stayed at Zion Ponderosa Ranch during our trip, which is just outside the East entrance of Zion. It was a super fun place to stay with all kinds of activities including miniature golf, a pool, a zipline and rock wall, a playground, tons of open space, and Jeep tours. The kids would have been happy just staying there the whole time and never even going into the park. The parents vetoed that idea, but we did spend more time than we expected to just hanging out there. The one downside of the place is that the East entrance is a bit of a drive from the main part of the park. I'd still stay there again in a heartbeat and recommend it to anyone with kids!

My sister's family and my parents joined us for this trip, so the kids ended up riding out most of the way in my sister's RV so they could be with their cousins. When we got there, we discovered that Junia had turned her face into a canvas while driving. After arriving, Silas quickly jumped on his bike and spotted deer everywhere.

We stayed in a glamping tent at the ranch and loved it! Here's a couple pictures to give show what they're like.

We obviously kept it super clean.

On our first full day, we headed down into Zion to take the shuttle up the scenic route to the Zion Lodge for lunch. There is a giant grassy area there that is perfect to rest and eat surrounded by the giant Zion cliffs.

After lunch, we went on our first of many hikes to the Emerald Pools. Now here is where the picture overload starts. You've been warned.

Nick's sister and her husband joined us for a day to hike with us! Here we had made it to the lower pool.

Now off to the Middle Pool!

We stopped for a quick rest here and then were off to our final destination, the Upper Pool!

There was not a lot of water, and it didn't look like so many of the pictures I'd seen of this hike. BUT, we were not disappointed! The views were amazing, and it's truly incredible to see it all in person. 

The hike back down...

Part two coming soon (if I don't lose steam....blogging takes longer than I remember 😝.)

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Lake Almanor

It has been one week since we got home from our two week summer road trip. The fun we had and the memories we made together have motivated me to get back into blogging about the fun adventures we are having together as a family of four. Here's to sticking to it!
Our trip was broken up into 3 parts, and since it was so long, and I take an obnoxious amount of pictures, I'll break the blog posts up into 3 parts as well. Part one was spending 4 nights at Lake Almanor with Nick's family. Somehow during the planning of this trip, I forgot that I have children, and brought 6 books to read. How many got read? Well, I have one child who wants to spend all day everyday in the water but doesn't know how to swim and another child who shovels sand into her mouth all the livelong day, so not a one. BUT....I'm not complaining. Because this trip could not have been more fun.

On one of our days, we did a little hike/ride around the lake and found a beach all to ourselves. We had views of the snow covered Mt. Lassen as we swam in the lake, which was actually warm enough for me to get into (so rare!). Silas couldn't get enough of the water, and spent his day doing as many running jumps into the water as possible.

Junia enjoyed lounging on the beach, but she loved being in the inner tube on the water more.

This moment may have changed that for her...

We walked down to the playground and community beach area one night with no plans to swim. Silas had plans of his own and ended up in the lake in his underwear.

On our last day, we went on a hike in the Caribou Wilderness. Junia snoozed most of the time, and Silas got to walk across logs and soak his feet in the creek. 

At one point, the men hiked ahead to see how much further we should go while Silas took a little water/creek break. They left all the backpacks and gear with us, but after waiting for them for quite a while, we women and children decided to head out after them. Which meant we were carrying all the backpacks (and a baby) on our own. Obviously, we had to take these pictures as evidence of our awesomeness.

We started our trip off right, but this was just the beginning. Can't wait to share the rest!

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