Vacation

Tuesday we headed out on our first family vacation.  The boys were so excited they climbed into the car and then had to wait for 1/2 hour for us to finish getting ready.

First stop Panguitch lake to go horseback riding.  Unfortunatly the lady we made reservations with forgot about us and wasn't there. Fortunately saving that money allowed us to get a motel the last few nights since Elizabeth was getting so dehydrated.

After a short tour of Panguitch, very short, I mean have you seen how small that place is?  :)  We had pizza for dinner and headed out to this farm that we first lived on when we moved there.  It's that house way back there.

Glen and daddy's manly stance for setting up the tent.

Ok, we kept hearing this buzzing noise and having visions of prehistoric giant bugs and we were all kind of freaking out that first night.  The

 next morning we noticed that a humming bird had built a nest right above our table and that was the buzzing noise.

Starting out on our hike to the petrified forest.

They are holding up the rock.

I swear Elizabeth is in there somewhere.

A "cave."

We didn't make it to the petrified forest, but we did see some petrified wood, learned how it forms and the kids were ecstatic that they had climbed to the top of a mountain.  Climbing to the top of a mountain was one of our goals for our vacation.

We were all pretty hot after our hike so I told the boys they could dip their toes in the water while I fed Elizabeth.  Before too long it turned into swimming fully clothed, but it was sure fun to watch and the kids had a blast in the water.

After the petrified forest we headed to St. George and our first stop the next morning, after a morning hike,  was at Johnson's Farm.  We saw a lot of dinosaur tracks, learned how they are preserved and learned about dinosaurs.

This track was as big as Benjamin.

Both boys have their hands on this track and they are olny covering up one claw.

Behind us are a bunch of little tracks.

After our day in St. George we were super hot so we headed to the lake for a swim.

Benjamin and I were chasing a lizard.

That is the end of the pictures because I lost my camera, but it wasn't the end of vacation.  We went to the St. George Temple, hiked the St. George narrows and did some seriously fun rock scrambling, swam at the motel and watched cartoons during the hottest part of the day, spent a morning at Snow Canyon where we learned about volcanoes and petrified sand dunes, spent a few hours at a splash pad, rode a carousel, and ended all the fun with a trip to Judds candy store where we had the best bread sticks ever, gave the kids $1 to get anything they wanted, split a cup of ice cream and bought chocolate covered bacon soda.  It was epic.  All in all it was the best vacation ever and we learned a few things.  John hates camping, who knew? Elizabeth does not do well at all in the heat, and camping trips need to be 3 days instead of 6.  Also we will probably get a motel instead of a camp ground because I think we all enjoyed it more when we had the motel.  I know, we are wimps.