10 Things we did this week

After our latest vacation Mike and I have decided the purpose of family trips is to teach us Christ-like patience and love, with each other and with our girls. Actually, there was only one moment where we had to stop speaking in strained tones and start laughing about the difficulty of traveling in a small vehicle with two little girls and lots of stuff.

We've had a long, fun week, and it all started when
1. Mike and I went skiing at Snowbasin!
Mike took me on a couple un-groomed runs. I only swore once, okay, maybe twice, when a tree got in my way and I felt the mountain was a little too steep. (But I swore quietly to myself.)
After that we spent Tuesday
2. Having a preschool Easter party, where the kids were delighted and oh, so cute.

After that we 3. packed up the car and headed to Bryce Canyon National Park for a couple days of fun. At the park we 4. Snowshoed on a trail we made up, because we could

and 5. Mud hiked for two hours on a trail I swore was a loop, but really wasn't (I confused Sunrise and Sunset points). Hannah got really really upset the last 10 minutes (that felt like an hour) of the hike, and we had to walk past a lot people who probably thought I was the meanest mom ever.

After she calmed down we 6. drove to St. George to spend the night with Mike's grandparents.
On the way there 7. we went through the Zion tunnel,
which is this amazing engineering feat. Kenzie was not impressed, wanting to only "turn the light on" so she could finish watching her movie. (If you want to watch one of the stupidest movies ever, try "Ant Bully.") Mike's grandparents were so nice and it was fun to spend some time with them in their "snowbird" house. After some catching up with them, and a good nights sleep, we 8. drove back to Zion (only 40 minutes away), to eat lunch and hike around a little bit.
The shuttles weren't running yet, so we got to drive around and try to find a parking spot. The weather was awesome (Kenzie kept talking very loudly about everyone wearing tank tops, because for some reason she loves tank tops and is totally obsessed with wearing them), but we knew we had a long drive home, so we
9. only hiked one little bitty hike up to the Weeping rock,
where Hannah had a massive diaper blowout. Some poor person saw us heading back to our car and thought they could have our parking spot, but they didn't realize they would have to wait as we used at least 20 wipes and had to change her clothes entirely. They waited patiently though and were rewarded with our parking spot after only 10 minutes of watching diapers and soiled clothes come from our car. Since Mike had homework to do we headed for home, 10. stopping in Beaver for a delicious ice cream cone and some squeaky cheese ( we highly recommend stopping if you ever go through Beaver).
We arrived home not too late that night and had a good trip. Mckenzie was extra fun to have on the trip. She rode around on Mike's back and told herself stories and looked at books while we drove. It was truly fun and not a trip through whine country. Hannah did pretty well too, considering she had a little cold and is just kind of too small to be excited about large rock formations.
Mike and I love Zion. Love it. Bryce is pretty cool too, and I have wanted to snowshoe there for a couple years now, so I got my wish and lots of exercise. Our new backpack (a Deuter kid carrier) for carrying Hannah is awesome!