If you haven't been to Zion's National Park, It is a must. Last summer I was lucky enough to experience the park with a friend. The whole time I kept thinking, I need to bring my kids here! It is absolutely amazing. My sister in law and I wanted to go to Southern Utah while we were in Utah, but it was hard to find time with all the things we had planned while we were there. Finally it was Sunday night and I was leaving on Tuesday. We thought about it, and as crazy as it sounds, decided to take 5 kids for a one night trip. We packed up early the next morning and went straight to Zion's and did some amazing hikes. The first was Emerald Pools. Unfortunately they were doing some construction on this hike so we could only go to the lower pools. We still had a great time. Van always had to be the leader on this hike and would freak out if anyone passed him by. When we were finished the kids were still up for another hike so we headed over to Weeping Rock. It was a short hike but so beautiful to look at. We had an amazing time.

Emerald Pools

Weeping Rock

Our next stop was St George, Utah so we could take the kids to see Aladdin at the Tuachan Theater. I absolutely love this outdoor theater. The red Rocks in the background are breathtaking and they always put on amazing shows. The kids had a great time. Our favorite part was watching the magic carpet fly over the crowd as Jasmine and Aladdin sang "A whole new world"

The kids were exhausted after such a fun filled day. As short as our trip was, it was worth it!

Park City Fun

This summer we were able to go with our friends to Park City Mountain resort. It is tradition to take a trip to Park City and ride the Alpine Slide and Alpine Coaster. Avery, Boston and Van always have so much fun and it was even better this time around because we got to share the experience with friends. As I was riding the coaster with Van his hands went up in the air like a roller coaster champ, crying "Faster! Faster!" He's my little dare devil. What a fun day for us!! 

 Melissa has been one of my best friends since Junior High. We both had our girls 5 weeks apart. We did all kinds of fun things together up until they were toddlers and we both moved outside of Utah. Luckily when we visit Utah, we are lucky to be there at the same time as they are so they have remained friends over the years. I love watching them giggle and have fun together. I only wished we lived closer.

Oh happy Days!

It's always so fun to go back and see everyone I grew up with. It;s amazing that everyone now has kids that are almost the same age I was when I met all these guys. It was so nice to laugh about the past, catch up on what everyone has been doing and look towards the future. I love every single one of these guys and know that no matter how long we don't speak, we always start right back from where we left off. These friends are keepers!!

YUM!

One thing I love about going to Washington is the fresh berries that are everywhere. We decided to go berry picking while we were in Seattle. We had lots of fun picking them at a U-pick farm.  The only problem was we had to search hard because there weren't too many berries left at the farm. We had great fun but wished we had time to pick more. On our way home from berry picking we stopped by the house my husband grew up in. As we slowly drove up the gravel road to his house we noticed there were fresh wild raspberries everywhere on the side of the road. We scurried out of the car and started picking. We picked the same amount of berries that took us an hour to pick at the berry farm in 15 minutes on the side of the road. I couldn't believe how many berries there were with no one to pick them!! Genise and I made 22 tubs of raspberry jam, a raspberry cobbler and we had more berries for just plain eating then we could have hoped for! Yum!