Father's Day

We had a great Father's Day. I hope Dave felt so too. This is a picture of Natalie and Lindsay just before Dave started to open his presents Sunday morning.
This is Lindsay's present to Dave: a very nicely colored Spongebob Square Pants. That is by far Lindsay's favorite show. It makes me cringe to think that my kids watch it so much, but it is Dave's favorite cartoon, and I gave up a while ago trying to keep the kids from watching it. Natalie made an adorable picture of our family.
This is Dave opening Jaron's gift of homemade ice-cream sandwiches made with macadamia nut cookies and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.
This is the gift Brayden and I spent countless hours on. We are very happy with the results. This is a street with buildings, and everything in this picture is of our life together. We tried to go mostly in chronological order from left to right. Every word and picture has meaning to us.
Here is a close-up of Lindsay's gift.

This is Natalie's gift.
We were waiting several minutes for Bryce so we could open presents. He finally came downstairs with a paper that he had quickly written "Happy Father's Day" on. I asked him where his real gift was, and he started crying that he couldn't find it. He was very distraught for a while. I felt so bad. He said he wanted Dad to open his presents, and he would look for the gift he made later. Brayden went up to help him look after Dave had opened all the other presents, and they found it. Here is Bryce's real gift.
Here is a close-up view of the gift Brayden and I made.
I hope you had a great Father's Day, Dave. I love you so much! You are a wonderful Dad!

Last Day in Moab

The time really does fly. We are finally on our last day, and we have to leave around noon so we can drive home and pick up Missy by 5 p.m. We were going to hike Delicate Arch, and then decided we needed to wait an additional year for Lindsay to get a little better at hiking. We decided to head to the Sand Dune Arch so we could enjoy it without the blowing sand and rain.
Broken Arch is right next to Sand Dune Arch, but we have never hiked it before because we usually head to Sand Dune Arch after a big hike to relax. So, we decided since we were fresh, we would hike to Broken Arch. This is Brayden and Bryce along the trail.
This is me and the kids in Broken Arch.
Jaron buried by the kids.
The adults really relaxing this time.

This is me and Lindsay over by Broken Arch.

Jaron and Brayden spent most of their time there digging large holes.
The whole gang hanging out.
We had a blast in Moab and can't wait until our adventure next year!

River Hike in Moab

Well, the day of our river hike was finally here. This usually seems to be one of the highlights of our trip. My favorite part of this hike is walking upstream with everyone. Several mentioned they didn't want to hike in the water as far this time, but it is definitely my favorite part. Here is a small group of us making our way upstream to our water hole and waterslide retreat.
This is me and Lindsay. We had the hardest time hiking upstream this year because there were so many beaver dams. We probably had to go around 5 or 6 of them on our way to the water hole.
When I arrived at the water hole, Jaron was already there showing off a couple of snakes he had caught. He was very excited Sara Arnold gave him $10 for catching the snakes and letting them handle and take a bunch of pictures with them.
Here is the view of where we stop each year to hang out and enjoy the water. The water hole has been dammed up more than usual by someone, so there wasn't much of a water slide this year.
Brayden spent the entire time we were there jumping in, getting out and running back up to jump in again.
Here is Natalie jumping in to Dave.

Lidnsay's turn.
Here is Bryce under the little waterfall.
Lindsay tagged along with Saunder the entire way back. Saunder was very sweet to carry Lindsay a lot of the way on her back.
We ended the day at the camp swimming pool. This is a picture of Natalie minutes before she fell asleep. The kids are always exhausted after a full day of swimming.

3rd Day in Moab

This day started out very rainy and cold. We thought we wouldn't be able to do much hiking, but we ventured into Arches hoping the weather would be nice enough to climb at the Windows Arches and Double Arch. It rained the entire drive there, but stopped as soon as we arrived at our destination. The kids loved climbing. This is Brayden out on some ledge.

This is a picture of the kids climbing at Double Arch.
We decided to head back to camp to rest for a couple hours before heading out on our Corona Arch Hike. By the time we started this hike, the weather was perfect. This is towards the beginning of the hike.
When we arrived at the arch, there were several people repelling from the top of the arch. Dave and Brian Ricks wanted to climb on top of the arch, and possibly repel down. They made their way up a little ways, and decided it was a bit too dangerous to risk. I was relieved when they came back.

This is the one of the sections that has cables and foot holds to help you get up and down. Lindsay spent nearly the entire hike with our next door neighbor, Saunder. She loved being with her, and Saunder was so good with her!
We were able to enjoy s'mores without any rain!
Another wonderful day!

2nd Day in Moab

Our 2nd day in Moab started out a little dreary and overcast. We headed into Arches National Park and hiked to Pine Tree Arch, Landscape Arch, Wall Arch, and Sand Dune Arch. This is Brayden, Jerry, and Paden along the hike.
This is Jaron, Lindsay, and Brayden in front of Landscape.
This is Lindsay posing in front of Pine Tree.
By the time we started hiking, it had gotten pretty chilly and was starting to rain lightly. Lindsay couldn't keep herself from playing in the sand. Even along the trail, she had to constantly bend down to pick up sand and drag her hand through it. Here she is playing in the damp sand.

This is looking down from Wall Arch.

After hiking, we headed to a picnic area for lunch. The kids continued their climbing and exploring. This is Brayden in the "bowl."

After lunch, we headed to the Sand Dune Arch. This is one of our favorites because the kids have a blast playing in the sand, and the adults can relax and talk. We only lasted at the arch less than 20 minutes because the wind picked up and sand was blowing everywhere and we were freezing!
We headed back to camp, and shortly after the rain really started coming down and didn't stop until mid day the next day. Here is the group trying to roast s'mores in the rain.

1st Day in Moab

We decided to start our vacation in Moab on a new hike we haven't tried before called Morning Bridge. It was just our family and the Gockens. The Ricks' and Arnolds' didn't arrive until later. It was very hot outside, and Lindsay didn't make it very far on her own. Luckily, Jaron offered to carry her a lot of the way on his shoulders. What a good big brother!
After about 1 mile of hiking, everyone was hot and tired and kept asking to get in the stream we were hiking next to. The kids had a blast in the water. Lindsay perked right up from her exhaustion, and Natalie looked so much better. She was so red over her entire body before she got wet. This is Jaron pretending to eat a crawdad. The kids spent 90% of their time in the water catching crawdads. Those crawdads were everywhere and we had to be careful where we walked so we wouldn't step on them. The kids had and absolute blast!
This is Jerry and Brayden on the Morning Bridge hike.This is where we entered the stream. We walked a bit down stream before we just sat around and let the kids play. The girls had so much fun lying on their tummies enjoying the water!

This is the beautiful area we decided to stop and enjoy the water for a while.
Moab is all about getting a little messy along the way. We took pictures to have proof.
After hiking Morning Bridge, and going to a lot of the gift shops in town, we headed to the swimming pool in our campground. The kids swam until closing, and we all hit the sack exhausted from our first day of vacation.