Southern Utah with the Niederhauser's

Carson's Natalie kind of spearheaded this camping trip. The vote was to go to Southern Utah. The date was picked for the 3rd week in June. It was going to be our first tent camping trip with 3 kids. I was actually really looking forward to trying it out. We hadn't camped in a tent for awhile because we had the van and I was excited to get back to my roots. Haha. We mostly all caravanned down. Mason and Carrie couldn't leave as early so they met us at the KOA after dinner. We stopped in Fillmore at the Costa Vida - or go to stopping point for most southern Utah trips :)  The kids did great in the car the first half. The second half was a little more rocky. Oh well - we all survived.

Tanner and I both had a lot more skepticism when we pulled into the KOA. I was a little worried about southern Utah in the middle of June but we camped not in the mountains, but in Cannonville at a KOA with hardly any big trees. We kind of had the crappiest camp site - no shade and up on a hill a bit away from everyone. It was HOT hot hot and kind of miserable that way. Luckily the KOA did have a pool and it was a great way to escape the heat. We swam every day. And went about as soon as we got our tent set up.

Carson and Nat had their camper trailer and a pretty nice shady spot so we hung out down there a lot. It was a fun place to congregate and that's where we ate all our meals. Lots of kids playing in the dirt and running around. They didn't seem to mind the location at all. Pool, dirt, cousins and a playground that was only visited in the later evening cause it was so dang hot.

I loved this - he went up to the dinner table where all the food was and got himself his own serving of just salad. Haha. He ate a few bites. But it was still cute. And happy. I can't believe he's getting big enough to start kind of taking care of himself. It's both amazing and heart breaking all at the same time.

Cutest picture award. Or at least one of them :)

P-nat is the coolest Aunt.

More dirt playing in the morning before we made our way to Bryce Canyon.

She let Mason hold and love on her for a bit. Impressive. 

We decided to do the Queen's garden/Navajo loop. The most popular trail in the park - and for good reason. It is beautiful and it's a perfect difficulty and length for all kids.

Harvey was NOT a fan of getting this picture taken. He for some reason was TERRIFIED of getting close to the edge - even though we weren't that close - it was too close for him. So we forced him to get the picture and then started going down the trail. The trail is really wide but it does drop down kind of steep I guess. He was FREAKING out about going on the trail. Taking tiny little steps, pulling on Tanner and or myself and whining and crying. There was a lot of "take me back!" and "NEVER bring me here AGAIN!". Ugh. It was painful. 

See the fear?

Once we got down a little further he started doing better. He told Tanner that he needed to let go of him because he wasn't even scared anymore. So then all was well for a short time until everyone started falling. He tripped and got a MILD scrape and lost his mind for awhile. Greta was being an AWESOME hiker and so happy until she took a pretty good digger and then she flipped out. By the time both of them were calmed down Lottie had reached her max point of tired and started screaming and couldn't be consoled. I stopped for a bit to feed her and try to get her to fall asleep. There was still a lot of screaming so we just went with it and she screamed in the bjorn for a bit but finally did fall asleep just as we were heading up wall street. She slept for a little bit once we got to the top too, so that was nice.

A brief moment of not screaming. 

Finally

Pic from Nat, I was a bit behind them.

We stopped for ice cream after just outside the entrance and everyone was happy. And then Harvey got a toy that he (sort of??) earned for completing the hike. (he was supposed to stop whining multiple times and didn't but he did actually do really good at the end and the most steep part so...I guess it counts).

It was so fun to me to be in the tent with the whole family. I LOVE that springbar. I have SOOO many memories of springbar camping with my family and it was just happy being there with my own family. The bad things were it stayed pretty warm all night (I brought really warm sleeping stuff for the kids, oops), and the kids never went to bed before 10, even if I started trying to get them to sleep at 8 or whenever. I guess the excitement of the tent was just too much. Oh - and they did wake up a little earlier than would have been ideal, too...but that's ok. 

They were being so silly this night. Giggling and laughing and doing steam roller. This will be a super happy memory of mine forever. Everything good.

Good morning! They actually drank cold milk on this trip. They were prepped before that there was not going to be a way to warm it up. Too bad it didn't last after we got home. The first night in the tent Harvey put his arm on Tanner's arm and said, "dad, this is the life". And one morning when we all woke up, Harvey said to Greta..."did you have a good sleep!?"

A lot of the crew took bikes down to do a mtn bike ride. We didn't because only Tanner has one and it wouldn't have been super convenient with our kids. We didn't want to sit around and wait for everyone and had read about a cool slot canyon pretty close to where we were camping so we decided to go check it out that morning. Willis Creek. It. Was. Heaven. Oh my heck. The best part of the trip I think. It was so cool. Still plenty warm but there was a small creek running the entire length of the hike. There wasn't anything technical or steep. It was PERFECT for our kids and they almost hiked the whole way. Tanner carried Greta here and there. But they LOVED splashing in the water and playing and climbing over rocks and sticking their hands in the mud. There was very little whining and it just FELT so good to be out with them on this little adventure of our own. We had one minor meltdown towards the end of it (meltdowns were probably easier to come by because of lack of sleep). We found a dead lizard and Harvey squished it and poked it and then we made him leave it there. He freaked out because we wouldn't let him take the dead lizard home. Funny, ridiculous and annoying all at once.

I don't think all these pictures are exactly in order but this was a happy little break spot. Just really pretty, cool, snacks and the kids just ran around and jumped in the water. Oh, and Harvey had his first pooping in the wilderness experience. Nailed it.

Trying to show Greta a living lizard.

Cooling off in the creek. Then it was kind of cold on his chest and he was mad at me for telling him to do that. Ha.

We met everyone back at the campground for lunch and then some swimming. Super fun and Greta got in WAY more than she ever has. She warmed right up to Carrie. She was jumping to her over and over. Do dat a-den!!! I was pretty impressed.

Sooooo exhausted. The only naps the girls got were short ones here and there in the car.

After dinner and everything, everyone else wanted to check out the hike we did. We were happy to do it again. It was beautiful weather and really cool to see at dusk. Everyone loved it. It was getting pretty dark by the time we turned around so we all hiked out with glowsticks and headlamps. Such a fun adventure. The kids liked hearing the crickets and making shadow puppets on the rock walls.

Playing on the bed while we worked on getting stuff packed up on our last day. Sad. The first thing Harvey asked when he woke up Saturday morning was "do we have one more night?" and then he cried when I told him we didn't. That's exactly how it should end. They had SO much fun playing with cousins. Despite some of the challenging parts of sleep deprived kids and heat, etc...we had a wonderful time. It's so fun to do these things with them, even though it is exhausting and so much work. I am so happy to have these memories with them and all these pictures to look back on - and especially for them to look back on!