Last week our boys had Friday off school and Jordan had it off work so we took a much needed trip. The weather has been so cold, rainy, and crappy so we really needed a break and some nice weather. We left Thursday night after Jordan got off work. My boys didn't fall asleep in the car like I'd hoped Harrison fell asleep the last 20 minutes of the drive so it was a really late night for them. The kids woke up pretty early on Friday morning and we went to Valley of Fire. We'd never been to valley of fire before and we loved it. There were so many fun really short kid friendly hikes and tons of rocks to climb on. It was so beautiful I've never seen so many beautifully colored rock before especially in one place. There were so many arches and cool holes in rocks and little caves. It was a really fun trip and I'd love to go again.
My boys just wanted to rock climb the entire time. They had so much fun just climbing on all of the fun rock formations and into the caves. They loved it. They didn't really want to hike they just wanted to climb around. They spent hours climbing we missed a lot of the hikes there because they spent so much time rock climbing. While the big boys and Jordan rock climbed Harrison and I collected rocks. He was obsessed with all the rocks and completely filled his pockets with them. He called them his special rocks. He was so sweet, fun, and cute. We didn't get a lot of sleep on the trip but the boys were all really good and happy.
Elephant Arch
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| Harrison is obsessed with hippos right now. This rock looks like a hippo so we had to take a picture. He was so scared he kept screaming it was going to eat him. |
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| Elephant arch |
7 Sisters
7 sisters was just a little picnic area where there are 7 huge rock formations. My boys loved it! It was their favorite place. We stopped and I thought we'd only be there for 20 mins wandering around but they spent 2 hours climbing on the rocks and they didn't want to leave. We ate lunch there and then dragged them away.
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| Jackson is such a good climber! It made me nervous! He was so proud of himself every time he climbed on something cool. He always asked me take a picture. |
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| Sweet brother kisses |
Rainbow Vista
Rainbow Vista was beautiful! I loved all the different colors. It wasn't much of a hike just a walk through sand with some amazing colors. My boys liked looking at the cacti and climbing on the rocks. It was beautiful and the pictures don't do it justice at all. You really can't see all the colors in the pictures.
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| Rainbow vista. The pictures of this really didn't do it justice it was so beautiful. There were so many cool colors. My boys mostly just liked to climb. |
The Fire Wave
We hiked the fire wave after rainbow vista. It was really cool. It was just a short .5 mile hike it shouldn't have taken very long but again we got stuck rock climbing and collecting for hours. The boys really liked taking jumping pictures and they thought it was hilarious.
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| My boys were really into taking jumping pictures |
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| He loved collecting and throwing rocks. I told him he could throw rocks at me if he would smile for a picture. He thought it was so funny that we got the rocks in the air. |
The Beehives
The beehives were the last thing we did. It was just a fun little area to climb. Jackson was kind of done by then but we dragged him out and he had a lot of fun. After that we headed back to the hotel.
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| Poor kid was completely beat |
After Valley of Fire we went to dinner then went and swam in the pool. The kids had so much fun at the pool. Jackson and Link played so well together. Harrison just hung out with us in the hot tub because it was FREEZING!!!! They loved every second of it though and we practically had to drag them out of the pool.
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| hanging out watching Phineas and Ferb after the pool. |
The next day we went to Glitter Mountain in Arizona. It was kind of cool. It's a gypsum mine and you can collect anything on the ground just not from the mountain. It was actually really cool because the ground really does glitter. The boys really liked it. Jackson actually liked it the most he had so much fun trying to find the biggest rocks. Harrison was of course in heaven collecting "special rocks". The collected bags full of fun rocks. Harrison is still obsessed with his special rocks and has spent so much time washing them in a bowl of water. We're going to put them in our garden for decoration.
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| Filling his pockets full of special rocks |
We went to Leeds and hiked at the Red Cliffs Recreation area. It was a fun little hike and we got distracted again with rock climbing and fun little trees that looked elephants. The boys were pretty tired by the time we were done so we headed home. It was a really fun little weekend trip and an awesome break from the crappy cold weather we've been having. My boys had so much fun and were so good the entire time they were so tired but they were still so happy and sweet and got a long pretty well.
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| No one would pose for a picture with me. |
