MOAB

When we realized Paul's birthday was right before Memorial Day weekend he said he wanted a weekend to Moab for his birthday. I was skeptical (camping with 2 kids + dirty + never been there before + car drive there and back, etc. made me nervous) but having admitted to that, and admitting to the fact that I tried to keep my expectations very low, we actually had an amazing trip. We had so much fun and I was very pleasantly surprised... I may even camp again!

We drove down Friday afternoon (side note: Paul and I got nasty stomach  bug or food poising, still don't know which and it had us in bad shape or all of thursday night into Friday, so even as we were driving down there we were both wondering if we were really up to this. Luckily we felt a lot better the next day). The kids did great in the car and we got there and met Mike and Jenna at the campsite. We got settled, made a run into town, Jeff and Melissa arrived and we all hung out. Caitlin and Madison were ecstatic to be reunited. It was also my first time to finally meet baby Emily and she is an absolute doll!


Saturday we had breakfast then met up with our other friends Jake and Amy Gregory (they came in from California) and headed out to go jeeping. They have been doing this for awhile, so Jake is the one with the amazing and huge "rig". He showed us all the ropes and was an amazing tour guide and help for the whole day. How do I accurately describe our jeeping experience? Intense, Crazy, Fun all come to mind. He took us to a trial called "Hell's Revenge". We had the full spectrum of jeeping vehicles: Jake's rock climber, our rented Jeep Rubicon, and Jeff's own 4Runner. Each of us went on the same basic trail and modified it as needed. And there were times when I was SURE we needed to modify but Paul just went for it.. over rocks, off ledges, up steep climbs. Strangely I felt super safe and was not worried at all and just able to have a fun time. The kids were absolute champs! The little girls happily sat in the backseat of the 4Runner and watched Tangled and squealed as the road got "oh, so bumpy!" The babies were snuggled safely in their carseats with Jenna and Melissa and Jeff drove like an expert. I'm sure he was dialed into his own little world of jeeping and trailblazing and manliness while surrounded by 6 girls and Rapunzel. In the Jeep that left Paul and I, Mike and Nolan. We put Nolan's car seat to the absolute test and that little boy love every minute. He barely made a peep and just enjoyed he wind blowing through the open sides and the sun shining on us. He represented as the lone little boy and did amazing. This was Nolan at the beginning, middle, and end of our jeeping ride:

Classic. He even falls asleep on Hell's Revenge. That kid cracks me up. We stopped in the middle of the day at a lookout point and then had a picnic. We also took turns going on some harder obstacles in Jake's jeep like "Hell's gate" and Paul went in a wash tub with him called "Hell's hot tub". It's hard to even do it justice from all the pictures. With the wash tub they drove down into in and were literally sunk down in on every side and then (after a few tries) drove back out of it, almost straight up and down. It's crazy to see what can actually be accomplished. That night we headed back to camp and had dinner and we all slept very well that night. Mike and Jenna left after Saturday.










Sunday we got up and had a big breakfast and then went into town for a little bit. Then we went out to Arches National Park and drove to the Gemini Bridges Trail. We had a picnic and then hiked to the bridges. they were these amazing land bridges that have been formed. The rock formations there were amazing. It's crazy to think how things are formed over so much time and what it takes to create these shapes out of rock. It truly is an amazing earth that we live on. After hiking the boys shot their bows for awhile and then we stopped at a gigantic sand dune. They boys climbed all the way up with the girls. It was a hard climb and everyone was VERY sandy. We went back into town and found a place to take $5 showers. Once we were feeling clean and human again, we went to dinner in town and then headed back to camp. We put the kids to bed and stayed up talking around the campfire.

 Monday we broke camp all morning and then went in town and met up with Jake and Amy again. The boys went out to go drive another jeeping trail and apparently went to one of the hardest ones called "Pritchett's" I can only imagine what they encountered and drove up, but everyone came back in one piece and very happy. While they were out doing that all the girls and the kids went swimming in the pool and McDonald's for lunch and played. We all went to dinner and then took off for our drives home. We got in the car at about 7 PM and both kids were asleep within 5 minutes. They didn't stay asleep the whole time but they were good and definitely tired from our adventurous weekend.

I would definitely go to Moab again! The weather was perfect and the kids did great. We had a really good time and made lots of fun memories and tried lots of new things.