What a treat we got after school was out for the summer. Our dear friends, the Carters came to UT for a visit. We were so excited to have them over. We had so much fun, but our only complaint is that they were not here long enough. Our adventure began with just hanging out in SLC and the surrounding areas for a couple of days. We went to Liberty Park with the children to play in the water features and go on the rides. We had so much fun, we forgot to take pictures of our adventure. Well, there is a photo of them enjoying their delicious snow cones.
It was a good thing the Carters came that week because just the previous week had been quite cooler. While they were visiting, we had fabulous weather.
Our adventure continued the following day with a trip to the mountains...Little Cottonwood Canyon. This was supposed to be a leisure hike through Silver Lake, where we could see snow and if we walked away from the trail we would even be able to play with the snow. I thought we were also going to enjoy some beautiful fields of wild flowers blooming along the marsh. However, Spring had not arrived to the top of the mountain and there was a lot of snow.
This hike is normally a leisure hike and it would have been a leisure hike, if half of the trail was not covered in snow. Nevertheless, the children had so much fun playing in the snow. And this hike which is normally a 30-45 minute hike turned into a 2 hour hike. I brought my double stroller, which had to be carried in most of the snowy trail. By the end of our adventurous and unforgettable hike, Kevin was so tired he just laid on the ground...he was also a little bit sick.
That's one of the beauties of living in UT, on day (Wednesday) you can play in the water and enjoy a warm day. But on the following day (Thursday) you can also be in the mountains playing in the snow. On That Thursday night, Chris arrived to UT and on the following day, we drove to Southern UT to explore Arches National Park. We are so glad the Carters enjoy the outdoors as much as we do. As soon as we arrived to Arches we took a quick drive to a short trail in Arches. We were glad the Carters liked the view. It was almost surreal to them. Then, we went to the Visitor Center, watched an educational video on hiking in Arches (we all had to watch the video, including the little ones), and after going through a rigorous verbal test, we obtained permits to hike the amazing Fiery Furnace. After arriving to Moab we settled in our hotel room, and after a good night's rest, we got up early and headed back to Arches where our adventure continued with a hike through the Fiery Furnace. We were glad another ranger led group had gone before us, so we could follow their trail and find all of the cool stuff we had hiked through the year before. It was just amazing. I love hiking through the Fiery Furnace. We even found Surprise Arch.
Not long after we had finished our hike, it rained. And rained hard. It also hailed. We waited for the rain/hail to stop and headed to the Devil's Garden. The children enjoyed picking up the dime size pieces of ice. We took the Carter's to see the different arches, including Landscape Arch, where Arden had a meltdown. This was a funny meltdown because he was so sad that one day, Landscape arch was going to fall. I know it sounds mean on my behalf, but it was just kind of funny. The guys and the 4 older kids headed on to another trail to see other arches. Abbey and I stayed behind and enjoyed some much needed time together without the children interrupting our conversations.
Abbey is such an amazing person and I just love her. She is such a good mom and a good person that she inspires me to want to be a better mother to my children. We had such a great time catching up.
After an eventful day, we headed back to the hotel room, where I think we went for a swim. The following morning we headed to Canyonlands National Park and drove to the Island In the Sky mesa. We even had a chance to hear some of the ranger talks. After Canyonlands, we headed back home, just in time for the Carters to unload their car, pack up the rest of their stuff and head to the airport to catch their plane back home.
