Life is Good :)

Well Rich had a long weekend and you know we will up and take a vacation if given the time! One of our favorite places ever was calling our names :) We headed to Zions. The weekend was full of beautiful family togetherness! It was peaceful, and slow, and relaxing. I love it when the whole family is taken away from everything and there is nothing else to do but enjoy each other. There were so many times when Rich and I looked at each other, smiled, and realized how blessed we were to have these sweet babies in our lives. Here's a bit of what we spent our time doing... This is Meili before she's about to sink like a rock... She's an animal and she loves to swim 'all by myselffff!' In turn, she requires 1 on 1 hands on attention, good think Kai knows how to swim!We went apple picking again like last year and the kids just love it! Kai had a huge bag full, but still wanted to keep picking. He was an expert ladder climber and Meili just loved reaching to the bottom of the tree and yanking on any free apple. She is so happy when she does things by herself :)
After picking Meili was sleepy, she loves rubs, she says (actually, demands) "rub us" She refers to herself as, "us"... Her many personalities I suppose :)We did 3 hikes, emerald pools trail, riverside walk, and weeping rock. Kai hiked all of them. He was such a big hiker! Emerald pools was about 1 1/2 miles total and he hoofed the whole thing. He complained only slightly, but as long as we kept talking about wildlife and how he was being a wilderness explorer, he was just fine. He held 2 frogs on that hike and we saw so many deer that we were withing feet from it was ridiculous! We got to the end of the river walk and the kids played for about a half an hour in the water and mud, then it started downpouring! We tried to wait it out, but after 30 min of waiting I put Meili in the backpack and ran a mile out with her in the pooring rain, while Rich ran Kai out on his shoulders. It was pretty crazy, we were soaked, and had our own little MAN vs WILD moment :) It was invigorating, I was huffing and puffing and Meili kept asking me, 'you ok mom?' Meili... so happy to be playing in the mud...Sliding down the big rock :)Hunkering down waiting for the rain to subside, the trees didn't cut it, we had to relocate to under a big rock overhang, before the mad dash out!Pretty sure my kids have one of the coolest Dads EVER! How many men do you know that can catch minows with their bare hands? 4 of them to be exact :) Oh, and not to mention, lizards as well. What the boy wants, the boy gets. Kai seriously spent his time in the water 'fishing' for minows. Meili, spent some more time in the mud...Our last night there, we got to stay in our favorite place, Desert Pearl, This was our riverside view. It was complete with plenty of lizards to catch as well :)Sorry! I just realized what a huge post this was! It was so much fun we didn't want to come back to reality. Oh, and no living creatures were hurt during this vacation :)