The Beach

We just got back from a trip for a couple of days to the beach.  My good friend, Sharon, goes down to the beach every year for a week, and she invited us for part of the time.  Her boys are the same age as Michael and they all love to play together.

Adam was in Florida, with his best friend, so we only had the three youngest.  Michael with Shane and Logan.

 Ellie and I.  Ellie kept wanting to go out deep in the water, but Nate always wanted to go too, so we didn't get to go out as deep and she wanted.

 Nate enjoyed playing in the sand and at the edge of the ocean.

 Ellie liked sitting under the shade.  She didn't want to be too wet, or too hot.

 Really, just a diva in training.

 We collected hermit crabs that we found in the water.  Then the kids would play with them, and see if they could get them to fight each other.

 At night we would go out after dark and run around on the beach with flashlights, finding the sand crabs and catching them.  After we had a bucket full of them, we would all stand in a circle and dump the crabs, then see who moved first.  Here are all the kids (including several of Sharon's nieces) Logan, Sara, Lulu, Ellie, Ally, Shane.Michael and Nate.

We had a blast.  I have never had as much fun at the beach before, we will have to do it again, hopefully we get invited back!

Some of the other fun things to do with Grammie and Grandpa

Everyone loves going to Grammie and Grandpa's house because there are so many fun things to do.  When we first got there, Grandpa made everyone homemade ice cream.

 The kids especially enjoyed that.

 The kids spent a whole day playing a game of Monopoly.  I watched them for a few minutes and I am not sure what rules they were playing by, but they got through the whole game.  They started it up again the next day, but after about 20 minutes someone did something that made someone else mad and the game got shoved around and all messed up.  That seems like how it more often than not goes.

 Grammie also did crafts with the kids several days.  This day they were making butterflies on the plastic cut out from milk jugs.  Then they could hang the butterflies in the window and have the light shine through.

 They also painted rocks, made a TON of perler bead projects, and paper teddy bears. Here they are with all their loot.

Now what to do with all the loot now we are home....

Grandpa Frost and Grandma Lucy

On our way back from the cabin, we got to stop and see Joe's dad.  The kids really enjoyed spending some time with them.  As we were going there, Ellie asked why Grandpa Frost had a different last name than Grandma Lucy.  We had to stop and explain we call her Grandma Lucy to differentiate between the other two grandmas! 

4-wheelers at the cabin

One of the things the kids love the best at the cabin is riding 4-wheelers.  This year, Grandpa and Grammie let the oldest three drive (with them on it of course).   That was a big hit, but the kids only drove 10 miles an hour, so that was a little slow for the rest of us.

 There are so many trails that we can drive on when we are at the cabin.  This one that we went on went through a part of the forest that had been burned a couple of years ago.

 After a particularly dusty drive, I look like the chimney sweep from Mary Poppins.

 Michael barely fared much better- check out the ring around his lips.  He always gets the most chapped lips while we are visiting the cabin- a combination I think of the arid weather and his constant licking them. 

  Once Joe came, we drove a little faster. 

 There are groves of birch trees there that are so pretty.

 One day, while we were driving, one of the 4-wheelers started overheating.  It had to be pulled back to the cabin, luckily, it was all downhill.

 The view from the top of the mountain.  I think that is Yankee Lake you can see in the distance.

There are sheepherders that use the mountain too, so a couple of times we rode through the middle of the sheep herd.

 This was by far the kids favorite part of the ride.  I think if they could have skipped the nature part of the ride in favor of just getting ice cream, they may have done so.

The kids are getting so big, and there are only 2 four wheelers and a razor....one of these years we are all going to have to take turns!

Zion

 One of the days that we were at the cabin, we went and visited Zion National Park.  It is only an hour - hour and a half drive from the cabin to Zion. The park has a bus that takes you to see the main sights.  We
stopped at weeping rock and hiked up to look at the rock. 

 I remember going to Zion as a teenager- and I really enjoyed hiking. Zion has huge sandstone cliffs that surround the Virgin River. As you walk upstream, there is an area of the river that is full of narrows- where the river is between two towering walls of mountain with very little space in between. The mountains are a beautiful red color. I had wanted to take the kids to walk in the narrows, but there is a mile long river walk before the narrows and we didn't make it to the end of that before the kids were too whiny to continue. They did get to play in the river, however.  It was pretty hot outside, but the water was refreshingly cool.

When we stopped and watched the kids play, there was a couple of squirrels that were SO tame that they came right up to us and climbed over our stuff hoping for a handout.  I was looking at my phone and felt something and looked down and one was sniffing my toes....

It was pretty hard to get them to leave us alone- here you see how close they came:

Zion is such a pretty place.  Maybe when the kids get a little bigger they will hike more of it with me.