St. George/Zion National Park

Thanks to Mark and his parents, we enjoyed two fun filled days in St. George and Zion National Park this week.  Mark's parents were down in St. George for a work conference.  We went and stayed in the same hotel one night so that we could see them and then they did a little babysitting for us!  Thank you so much Daniel and Alice!  This was a much needed little vacation!

Thursday morning we left from home early and drove to the hotel.  We grabbed some lunch and headed to Zion with the kids for the bus ride and a little hike.  We hiked up to Emerald Pools, because I sadly forgot to pack the backpack for Timmy, and we could only do a really tame hike for him to walk.  We all enjoyed it, but Brian kept saying it was just like walking on the sidewalk and he kept asking were all the rocks were for him to climb on.  Luckily there were a few good places to climb around on the way or he would have been very disappointed.

 Brian held Alice's hand the whole time he was hiking.  He sure loves Nai Nai.

 

 The highlight of the hike was finding this little tunnel just big enough for the kids to climb through over and over and over again.

Timmy particularly liked the waterfall and asked to go through it many times.

 Some of the wildlife we saw included squirrels, deer, beetles, and birds.

After the hike we went back to St. George for some dinner and a little bit of swimming.

On Friday morning, Daniel and Alice watched Brian and Timmy for us.  They took them to a super fun park where Timmy wanted to swing and swing and swing.

After the park, they went swimming.  The boys said their favorite part about the trip was the swimming time. They loved the water.

Meanwhile, Mark and I headed back up to Zion's to do a quick slot canyon called Keyhole.  It is short and sweet, just what we needed for a quick morning adventure without the kids.  Mark has done I think all or almost all of the slot canyons in Zion and he has done some of them numerous times.  For years I have been wanting to go with him and this was my chance.  I LOVED it!

 Pictures just do not do the canyon justice at all.  We did two rappels and scrambled down the other drops.

 The water was freezing, but the wet suits helped immensely   There is one narrow section that we had to swim quite a ways through the frigid water.  Burrrr!

I am so grateful for Mark and his parents for helping to provide such a fun experience for me.  It was so needed and will never be forgotten!