I'm back!

We just finished another vacation! We were able to take off an extra two weeks this year because of Zoe. John's work offered all new fathers a two week paternity leave. We didn't think we were eligible because we had Zoe last year and they were offering it to all of the employees starting January 1 of this year, but we got a sweet little letter in the mail that told us that we were eligible and that we could take it any time this year. Sweeeet Zoe time!

Thanks Zoe! We sure do love you!

So how did we spend our two weeks? We took our mini-van, loaded it up with unhealthy snacks and went north. We started in Arizona - we visited places we always said we wanted to see (the Petrified forest being one of them) - it was fabulous!

We continued our journey through the gorgeous parts of Colorado, through the "Four Corners" (not necessarily gorgeous - but we felt like we needed to do it once) and up into Idaho where we met up with some amazing people for a bit of a family reunion. It was so nice to see ALL of my siblings in one place - that hasn't happened since I was pregnant with Annie. We went floating/fishing down a river. We saw Old Faithful and a bunch of moose. We laughed and ate and ate and ate.

After leaving Yellowstone, we detoured a little and went to Craters of the Moon and the Idaho Potato museum (they still give "free taters for out-of-staters!"). We also toured a nuclear facility (nerd alert!) which we learned all about fusion and how they created electricity for the first time with nuclear power, it was pretty fascinating.

We spent the next couple of days with my brother and his family in Bountiful, Utah. We went to Boondocks, a little amusement park thing, and we bowled and played laser tag and video games. We also went to Thanksgiving Point and got rained on.

(I just realized I don't have any pictures of this part of the trip. I need to find them on the laptop and download them. The rest of the trip - I have some documentation.)

We then went to Zion National Park where we lucked upon a great bus tour of the park which happened to have another little eight year old girl who kept our little eight year old girl from getting bored. What a blessing!

This is Annie and Lucy. They are the same age and are both going into the 3rd grade this year. Annie is the tallest in her grade and Lucy was one of the shortest (according to her mother). They got along beautifully during the two hour tour and I asked Lucy's mom if I could take a picture of them together.  I believe their family was from Chicago, but I could be remembering wrong. Cute family. Fun memories!

If every national park had a ranger-led tour like this, I would take it every time. This cute little ranger took us to all the fun spots at Zion and explained a bunch of stuff so that the kids weren't bored and the parents were appreciative. It was fabulous!

We couldn't leave without going to another science museum! This one had a great water table that Zoe loved.

While big sister was doing an art project (at the science center), Zoe was perfecting her army crawl. It won't be long until she's outrunning us. She's really going pretty fast already.

Annie and I experienced a "hurricane." It was really, really windy in there, but we never felt like we were going to fall down. I think it got up to 120 miles per hour. Crazy.

We went to the Nuclear Testing Museum in Las Vegas. I will tell you - I was completely nerded out in that museum. It talked about the underground testing and the politics as well as the ramifications of the testing. It also had old veterans (which I have discovered I have a real soft spot towards) tell about the different experiences they had with the testing. It made me feel rather patriotic. At this museum, they also had an Area 51 "experience" which we decided to partake in.  It was about as cheeseball as Roswell, NM was when we toured it, but we're glad we went.

We then spent the night in Las Vegas, had a "last supper" at a Brazillian barbeque restaurant and  toured Hoover Dam before coming home sweet home. It was a refreshing, happy vacation that we are grateful to be now recovering from.

Happy Happy Zoe.

These were the statues at Hoover dam that you were supposed to touch their toes for good luck. We touched the heck out of them.

 About half way through our trip I discovered that I was living a truly "American" experience. We were going to National Parks, seeing roadside oddities and creating memories about the beautiful land that we live in. Our family prayers on this trip were always thanking our Heavenly Father for the beauty of this land we live in. I am so grateful that we got to see so much of our country on this trip and I can't wait to see more.