2019's Fourth Summer Trip - Bear Lake

We returned from Jackson Hole on Saturday night, went to church on Sunday, and then went to Bear Lake on Monday. It was a quick turnaround.

We had blocked out the days on our calendar that we planned to go to Bear Lake. Eric and I had driven by, but we'd never been there. We knew lots of people go there for vacations and family reunions, so Eric asked a good friend what we should do. The good friend asked when we'd be there. Eric told him our dates and he said that's when his family and half a dozen other families (some we knew, some we didn't) would be there. They all stayed at a big KOA in their RVs and campers. We are not an RV family, but we figured we'd join the party and sleep in our tent at the KOA. (I don't generally recommend camping at a KOA, because what's the point of camping in a place surrounded by people? But, this time, we wanted to be by all our friends.)

On the way up we stopped at Ricks Spring, which was neat.

We stopped at Tony Grove to go fishing, which was a bust. It's a beautiful spot, though, and it would be a good place to camp.

One night we went to dinner with friends. Other nights we just gathered around various propane-fueled fires for roasting marshmallows and staying up too late chatting.

This KOA is rather large. It features a playground, mini golf, and other fun activities for kids. The girls were particular fans of riding around in the "train" in the evenings.

We went with lots of friends to the Minnetonka Caves, which was very cool. I love caves.

Before the tour started, our tour guide asked if there were any questions. The only people who had questions were our three children. (We were in a group of about 30-40 people.) At one point when he asked again if there were any questions Trixie asked, "Why is there so many rocks in here?" He told her that people brought the rocks in and left them. Also when the guide asked if there were any history buffs in the group, Eric and I were the only ones to raise our hands.

After the cave we stopped on the side of the road to go canoeing on the lake for a little bit. We sure do fill up a canoe!

After dinner that night we rented one of those horrible surries. They are insanely hard to pedal! They need some gears. The boys didn't want to come, and they missed out. (But we didn't miss them since they wouldn't have been tall enough to reach the pedals, and we would have had a lot more weight to haul.) We rode down and got shakes, and then went back up to camp.

The last day we went to the north beach and played in the sand, swam, and canoed some more. Everybody got at least a little bit sunburned.

We stopped for shakes one more time. (It was the third time for the parents and girls, the second time for the boys since they missed the surry ride.)

Then we stopped on the way to hike the Timber Pine Loop Trail. It was really hot when we weren't in the shade, but the information signs along the way made it really educational (at least for me). It was so interesting to learn about how the plants "migrate" into a new area - which plants come first, which follow, and what animals come along with them.

This tree is like two thousand years old. (There weren't signs telling us not to climb it.)

Trixie got tired of being in the carrier and insisted on walking on her own. Each time, she'd take of running and fleefully laughing only to face-plant on the trail. Then she'd insist on walking/running some more. It's hard to be little.

2019's Third Summer Trip - Jackson Hole

At the end of June my brother's kids attended a couple of sports camps at BYU. My sister-in-law came to get them at the end of their camps and took Ike and Felix back to Jackson Hole with her.

The boys had a blast with their uncle, aunt, and two cousins. They went on lots of hikes and were generally spoiled.

They did the touristy things like Moulton Barn and the shootout (or shoe-out, as one of them kept mistakenly calling it. They didn't know what a shoot-out was, so apparently they were kind of concerned when some cowboys started "shooting" at each other).

They saw a moose, but Uncle John wouldn't let them pet it because, "Wyoming is not a petting zoo."

They did some hikes and some swimming, and Felix did a lot of whining about those hikes: 

Felix, also, apparently, was quite the food critic. This was his face after eating a jalapeno at a Mexican restaurant:

As a parent, I am very concerned about my kids being picky eaters. I know not all parents value a kid who can eat, but I definitely do. So I really don't cater to picky eaters. You eat what we're having for dinner, or you probably don't get to eat. I'm not a short order chef, and you need to learn to eat a variety of foods. I also don't believe in "kid foods" and basically only buy them when Eric is out of town and I need my meal prep to be as easy as possible. (The first time I bought chicken nuggets, Ike was 6.)

With that background established, here were a few things that Felix, the apparent food snob, said to his food-providers:

• When served pasta with sauce from a jar: You should make homemade pasta sauce. That's what my mom does. (Please note that this is a lie. I do not do that.)
• When served Mexican food with shredded cheese as a garnish: Is this cheese the kind that you grated at home? Or was it already grated before you bought it? (Answer, it was purchased already shredded.) Felix then shared his opinion (which he got from me) that cheese is best if shredded freshly so it doesn't have the weird powder on it. (He has since that time informed me that he didn't even notice the weird powder.)
• Catering to his non-pre-shredded preferences, there was an evening where they were grating cheese at home, and Felix insisted on being the one to VERY SLOWLY grate the cheese, all while whining and complaining about how long it was taking for dinner to be cooked and how starving he was.
• When served a ham sandwich with American cheese: AMERICAN CHEESE? YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. I HATE AMERICAN CHEESE.

So, you know, on the one hand I've got this kid who ate bites of onion and garlic and ginger as a two-year-old while I prepped dinner. And it was awesome and magical. And on the other hand, now he is six and has really strong opinions about the quality of his food and the ingredients that go in. I guess I've created a monster.

On July 3, Eric and I drove up with the girls to spend a couple of days in Jackson Hole and to pick the boys up. John and I ran a 10K on the 4th. I had been training for it, but I hadn't quite run the full 6.2 miles until the very day of the race. I ran the whole thing, minus about 20 feet at the turnaround point. One lady ran in front of me and then would walk for a while. Then when I'd catch up to her again, she'd take off again until I caught up with her again.

After the race we went to the town's parade, which was fine. My family gave me an endlessly hard time about the fact that it was Trixie and Felicia's first parade. But y'all, I hate parades. I obviously live in the wrong state.

Then Eric convinced John to watch our kids "for an hour" while we went and canoed the Snake River. It was longer than an hour. The water was high and fast, which we knew before we got there. When we pulled up to unload our canoe, Teton County Search and Rescue told us to be on the lookout for a body (not a missing man, but a missing body, very reassuring). We took on some big rapids and also took on a lot of water. Our boat was very full and very precarious as we navigated through an endless run of whirlpools. Eric is basically a canoeing pro, which is the only reason we did not tip. Eventually we found a place where we could pull the boat ashore and dump it out. It was then that Eric realized his phone was inside his Ziplock bag, but the bag was not zipped up. Ask me about the other time Eric ruined a phone on a trip to Jackson. (I'm going to assume you asked - he left his phone on top of the car, and we drove off with it on the roof of the car and then eventually found it smashed on the highway. This is why Eric cannot have nice phones.)

That night we watched fireworks until they were over, and then the rain started pouring, and we had a bit of a walk to get back to Nicole's parents' house. But nobody melted.

The next day we went to Bear World. Y'all, I have an unreasonable love for that place. I can't really explain it, I just love it. It's super touristy and cheesy, and I do not care. You get to see bears and other animals pretty close, and there are little roller coasters and kiddie rides that are perfect for my size of family.

The train is kind of pointless, but Felicia liked it:

The little roller coaster is the best, and Trixie was even big enough to ride it. It was definitely my favorite.

While we rode the roller coaster over and over, Felicia rode the little cars over and over. She loved them, despite her neutral face.

Eric also really liked them:

(Why didn't Eric ride with Felicia? Because then they would have exceeded the weight limit. You can imagine how amused I was to get off our ride and see my husband riding in a little kid car all by himself.)

Along with my unreasonable love of Bear World, I have an unreasonable love of these little photo boards. On my work computer I have a collection of my favorite photos that are used as my desktop background, and about 10 of them are photos of people whom I've forced to put their heads in the head-holes of various photo boards. Anyway, here are our four bears in 2019. Obviously we can't have any more kids since we've maxed out the head-holes of the photo board at Bear World.

And for the sake of memories, here they were in 2016:

We've done more things this summer, and I totally lost track of time. It wasn't until writing this post that I realized I'd never written about Felicia's birthday, which was over a month ago.

2019's Second Summer Trip - Capitol Reef National Park

School let out on Thursday, and we went on a trip immediately. Ike got home about 11, and then Eric got home about 12:10. We exited the garage at 12:20, which is one of the most on-time departures in our history of road tripping.

We drove straight to our campsite just outside of Capitol Reef National Park. (Our original plan was to go to Bryce Canyon on Thursday, then drive to Capitol Reef on Friday afternoon, but it's still freezing in Bryce Canyon, and many trails are still closed, so we opted to spend the whole time in Capitol Reef.) We rarely camp at reserved sites, and we always cross our fingers that we'll find a good place. We got a real winner this time. We set up our tent as thunder and lightning (but no rain) raged overhead. We had experienced sleet and hail as we came over a pass into the area of Capitol Reef and were a little nervous about what the weather would hold for us. We crossed our fingers that our tent wouldn't get flooded while we headed over to the park. (And it worked!)

After a brief visit to the visitors' center, we went on an easy hike in the Grand Wash. It's through a slot canyon along a streambed and is nice, flat, and easy. There was still a lot of whining, despite the ease of the trail. The boys took turns running ahead of us, hiding in the brush, and then jumping out to "ambush" the family.

I took another selfie where I looked better, but I loved Trixie behind me being a ham in this one, so enjoy it.

The rocks throughout the park have holes in them, of varying sizes. The kids loved the chance to climb into holes that were big enough and accessible.

On Friday we drove along the scenic drive and then hiked Capitol Gorge to The Tanks. They are these little ponds of water trapped up in the canyon. This hike starts really flat, through a canyon on a streambed, similar to the prior day's hike. There was SO MUCH WHINING while we did that section. Then, there was climbing over rough terrain, sometimes without incredibly clear trail markers. We really had to keep our eyes peeled for the cairns (stacked rocks) to show us which way to go.

The tanks were pretty cool, mostly because they had such huge tadpoles.

Ike caught a few and even got some for his siblings to hold. Trixie was a little bit in love with hers and even pet it a few times before tossing it back in the pond.

Ike managed to fall into one of the tanks, which was very reminiscent of the time he fell in a pond in 2013 when we were hiking in Zion National Park. I will always remember, from the picture on the left, "I wet. A mess." This time we took his clothes off, wrung them out, and then had him put them back on. The trail wasn't crowded at all, so we could get away with our 8-year-old being partly naked on this trail

The mounds of rock behind us supposedly look like the domes at the tops of capitol buildings, which is where part of the name of Capitol Reef comes from.

After our hike we stopped for lunch. This was the only picture I really got of my girls in their matching t-shirts. At some of our previous national park visits, there have been Asians amazed with our blond children, and they ask us (generally with their hands) if they can take pictures of our kids. This park had virtually no Asians, but some Spaniards did circle our picnic table taking multiple pictures of our family. I should have asked them what their deal was. Were they impressed by the blondies? Or by the sheer quantity of children? Really, I should have said, in Spanish, "If you think this is a lot of kids, you should see my husband's brothers' families." But mostly I was dealing with, "Who wants mustard? Who wants Miracle Whip? Who needs an apple?"

We've been to about one gazillion national parks, but this is the first time we did the Junior Park Ranger program. Felix finished his first.

After that (plus a class about geology) we went to Hickman Bridge. It's only .9 miles each way, but it's fairly steep. I was taking Trixie to the bathroom at the beginning, and I came back to the van to learn that Eric sent Ike along the trail with Felicia. We didn't figure they'd get too far without us, especially because Felicia is so little (not yet 2). Eric needed to use the bathroom, but I headed up the trail with Felix and Trixie. I even carried Felix part of the way because the Ergo has a weight limit of 45 pounds.

Because the boys were wearing matching shirts, it was easy for other hikers to recognize that they belonged together, even though they were split up. People coming down the hill kept telling me my other two were doing a great job.

I was amazed at how far they got without grownups! Once we all were united again, I put Felicia in the Ergo again. Around this time Trixie started really struggling. Meanwhile, Ike was taking off and getting too far ahead. Eric offered to hold Trixie's hand, and she refused. A man passed us, and Eric said, "Do you want to hold his hand?" And Trixie very strongly refused. That man laughed and passed us right up. I then went to catch up with Ike and tell him to slow down. That same man was just in front of him, and I told Ike, "You are not allowed to pass that man." I then slowed down to hike with the rest of my family and heard Eric again entreating Trixie to hold his hand. Then, jokingly say, "Well, do you want to hold her hand?" referring to some perfect stranger hiking nearby. And that was an affirmative answer.

It turns out the man whose hand Trixie refused to hold was this lady's husband. We had a great chat with the couple. (He's Australian, and she's Canadian, and they're taking the year off from their regular lives to travel.)

Hickman Bridge itself was totally worth the hike.

Felicia was so tired that we moved her from Eric's hiking backpack to mine, and she slept through the whole thing. And we foolishly forgot that the Ergo (my preferred carrier) has a thing to cover up heads, so we just used the tied bandana to keep the sun off her little face.

This was the last we saw of Ike on this hike, because he took the "stay behind that man" very literally and followed him down the trail. We found him waiting for us at the bottom.

The Kohab Canyon hike is a little over 3 miles one way. Our initial plan was to hike it from one side to the other, then have me (or Eric) run back to the van, and then drive around and pick up the family. But in the actual canyon, we decided we'd seen what we needed to see, especially with the end of the hiking coming so close to Hickman Bridge, which we'd just done the day before. When the trail began descending toward the end, we turned around and hiked out the same place we'd come in. That ended up being the best option anyway, because it was close to the ice cream place.

I would have loved to have done Cassidy Arch, but it's over 4 miles, and we knew it would be too hard for the kiddos. One day we'll do it.

Our camp site was pretty awesome. We camped on BLM land a few miles outside of the park. We found a big enough flat spot for our tent, and the kids loved climbing the hills around our site (and also sliding down the hills on their bums. So we've got some horrible red stains on a few pairs of pants.)

Saturday was our last day. We prepped the kids on Friday night telling them we would be doing our longest hike the next day. It started very close to a little gift shop in the park, and we told the kids if they could be good on the hike, we'd buy them ice cream after the hike. That was some serious motivation for them.

Kohab Canyon starts off as a steep hike up several switchbacks. We started at 8 AM, so the switchbacks were still in the shade.

Trixie loved the switchbacks. Anything uphill, and especially up rocks, was super fun for her.

Kohab Canyon itself is gorgeous! Along the way there were lots of little slot canyons to explore/cram ourselves into.

And when it was done, we had our ice cream.

Then back to the visitors' center for the other two kids to earn their Junior Ranger badges.

On our way out, we hiked two small trails, Goosenecks and Sunset. Felicia actually did most of these two hikes on her own.

And then somehow I got tricked into carrying Trixie on the way down from the last hike.

It was a great weekend. I can't wait to go back to Capitol Reef park! The lack of crowds was practically magical. We'd love to go back and explore some other areas of the park (besides just the Fruita district), and we'd love to go when some of the fruit is in season so we can pick some!