The Shelley Family

Well we survived the week. Originally Brent and I planned to stay a few more hours. Brent wanted to take me to the slot canyon he and Josh had gone, but I was beat, so we headed home. On the way we saw that Cove Fort was having a celebration and conveniently it was lunch time and they were serving free hot dogs, chips, and drinks. What a way to end a trip, huh?!? The kids had a lot of fun exploring the fort and the activities they had going on. We went on a horse ride, played pioneer games, saw a beehive, and listened to pioneer stories. The rest of us had fun trying to figure out the stilts. That was entertaining to watch!

Well after we finished our last night of plays, "Macbeth." (Very bloody play, a little overly dramatic for my taste, I think we will skip it the next time it comes around). We headed out to Zion's National Park. Brent and I love Zion's! We try to make it down there at least once a year, sometimes twice. This time we got to take Mistie and Josh with us up Angel's Landing. Fun hike, as always. I have a picture of me 9 years ago sticking my head out the same hole that Mistie and I have our heads out. Walters wiggles was a fun race to the top, I ran most of them. On top we saw the California Condors again, number 99 or 66 depending on which way you read the numbers. Of course, we go for the view! Mom and Dad stayed with the kids at the camp for a little while, then headed out to meet us. We all went to Weeping Rock and the Riverside Walk up the Narrows. It started to rain, thunder, and lightening on us, so we couldn't go up the Narrows like we had planned, but...

On the day we headed in to St. George, Brent, Josh, and Dad headed just 10 miles south of Cedar to this awesome Narrows like canyon. Brent will have to fill in the story, but some of the pictures show the interesting things that happened.

Of course we did tons of this! Particularly the kids. It entertained them while Brent and I were away. We haven't been swimming very much at all this summer and so this was a good chance for them to get it all in! Ayslind was quite the fish and is getting better at her swimming every time she is in the water. Cyan had a life jacket swim suit that worked wonderfully for her. She would play a little in the water, but was nervous to venture to far. Bowyn on the other hand, as long as Grandma was around, and sometimes when no one was there, he would walk right up to the water and walk right off the edge and on in. The little twerp had us scared to death a couple of times. He is not dumb by any means. When he wanted to get comfortable, he would go sit in the nice warm sun chairs and warm up from the cool of the pool. He loved being in the water. One day, I sent the girls swimming and tried to get Bowyn down for a nap, but he had seen the girls leave in their suits and screamed for a h...

So we made it to Cedar City. We got our tent thrown up and then Brent, Ayslind, and I ran to "Pride and Prejudice." Ayslind enjoyed it and we even got a little pampered. Right as the lights went down one of the ushers came and offered Ayslind a couple of pillows so that she could see better. She was very flattered. We enjoyed the play, so much better than the modern one with Kiara Knightly (yuck), but not as well done as the BBC version with Collin Firth. Still entertaining and at least they got the characters right. We enjoyed Mr. Collins being "mmmmorrrrtified." Very fun play. After it ended we headed out to eat dinner. We ate at Sizzler, which normally you can't go wrong, but apparently the Cedar City one hasn't been inspected lately, the salad bar was horrific. After dinner we headed over to the Greenshow. We thought we were done for the day, but my mom was curious about ticket prices so she went to ask about the shows. Long story short, we found out th...

So here is the photos from our hike down by Goblin Valley. It was a beautiful hike and sooooo much fun. It was definitely hot, but it was so fun. The narrows were the best part. When we got to the second narrows it was like walking into an air conditioner . It was so fun. I would love to go back down to it again! Can't wait for the narrows in St. George!

Our second catch up is when we went to Goblin Valley for the weekend, yet again with our friends the Sterzik's (not sure their our friends after what we put them through). We headed down to the valley early Friday and they had to wait until Spencer got off work a little after 7. They had never been down south so they had no idea where to go, so somewhere around 1am we found each other and got their camp set up. We headed to Goblin Valley the next day where we played Marco Polo and had a great hike (see next post).

Yes it is true, the last post, though these are all for my sake, not yours so stop reading if you are annoyed! Anyways being in Yellowstone for a short amount of time means that you look for animals mainly because you are driving alot! We were not disappointed. We turned the corner from our camp and headed to Old Faithful and saw a guy sprint toward his car. A big papa Grizzly up on hind legs growling and swatting the air. We got there in time to drive between the bear and the guy if needed. It was not. As soon as the bear saw our car he backed down. He did go up on his hind legs a couple more times, but we couldn't click the camera fast enough. Heart pounding, that was fun. We had bison across the river from our tent, and lots of elk. Springtime meant lots of babies and they were fun. Already mentioned the ground squirrels, more bison, more elk. Driving away from Mammoth, I felt satisfied with our animal spotting though a little dissappointed we were going into bear country and th...

Well next we went to Mammoth Hot Springs. Brent and I have never been there in the Spring and it was definetly more impressive. The water ways were full and overflowing like in the pictures. They even had professional photographers there taking pictures, probably for next years map. Ayslind was the main photographer for our family, thus the cut off heads. Bowyn was asleep when we got there so I dropped Brent and the girls at the top and met them at the bottom. Bowyn woke up just in time to walk up and meet them at the main overflow. We then went down and ate our lunch with the bison and elk in the area. Then it was time to head on home.

Well it just isn't Yellowstone without Old Faithful. We went and made it just in time to watch and go back to the car. Then we drove back up to Mid-geyser basin and walked around the "colorful water" as the kids put it. Very pretty and the girls were being cute walking on the boardwalk. Cyana had to make a pit stop and we walked past some bison dung and she could not figure out why in the world it had to go on the way where the people walk.

Okay, I had to divide up the last day because we crammed so much into it. We made it Yellowstone and camped in Madison campground. We had bison and elk as neighbors that night. During the night it froze a hard freeze so we got to really try out our camping equiptment. Ayslind was the only one who complained, but she was fine after sleeping between two warm adults. We got up and had a big breakfast. We started to break camp and the kids started to explore. Cyana and Bowyn started to chase the ground squirrels. They got pretty entertaining so we videoed them chasing them. Bowyn was hillarious when he tried to mimic the sounds they made. Cyana just said that she wanted to capture one. They could have played there all day, but we had to move on.

So as soon as we woke up, we broke camp and headed to church. I was glad we had driven past the temple the day before because there was a church right next to it. After church as we were driving our last time across the bridge, we stopped and videoed the jumpers. They are insane, though Ayslind said that she didn't think it would be that big of a deal as long as she had a parachute. Ah youth and their innocence, right? Well then we headed on our drive to Craters of the Moon National park. It really did feel like a different planet, or rather moon. It is crazy to think that a volcanoe is so close to home, I know there are some in Utah, but this one was HUGE. We explored some of the caves and walked a few of the trails. Cyana didn't like being in the cave so much, to be hones neither did I. It might be attributed to the fact we were walking in pitch black with 6 inches to a foot of solid ice beneath our feet and jagged sharp volcanic rock all around. I was nervous about falling. ...

Well after a good night sleep, not to chilly, we jumped into the day. I started off by running with some cows that were our neighbors. Then we drank our hot chocolate and headed to Shoshone Falls just up the road. On the way we drove past the new Twin Falls temple. The Shoshone falls are 50 feet higher than the Niagra Falls in New York, so it was something to see. We drove past the site where Evil Canevile trided to jump the falls, but failed. We drove over the casim of the Snake river and watched the jumpers. We took lots of fun pictures from the overlook. The falls were awesome. We didn't have time to do any hikes, so we headed right for the cemetary to meet the rest of the family. We visited my mom's family graves then took a road tour down memory lane. We drove to through the area my mom grew up and past my grandpa's old house. It happens to be for sale and it was unlocked. We took the liberty to walk through. The funny thing was that a lot of the stuff was the same ...

So we were so excited that we were getting away from Utah. Last year we did not get vacation in at all because we were constantly waiting for our house and saving money. So this year when the opportunity to leave the state came up, I jumped, then I asked if my family wanted to go. Luckily they were all okay with it. We left for Idaho on Friday. We made a stop in Logan to get our Gosner fix, then continued on to Twin Falls KOA to camp. We couldn't see Ayslind because she was burried in the back. Cyana slept in whatever position she could find. Bowyn, oh what a boy, was happy the whole trip and nope he did not sleep a wink the entire ride there. Yes he did sleep wonderful that night in the tent with no trouble at all. VERY impressive traveler I would say.