October happenings

 Our kids do online school on Fridays and since Ellie and Sophie have PE they have to do, we try to do some activity all together.  Several weeks ago we went and hiked in the gully by our house with my mom and Jake.  The day was a lot hotter than we were expecting so there was some complaining, but we went and got drinks after so that made things all better.

There are 2 scavenger hunts that someone has put together in the gully and we did both.  They were a lot of fun until Ellie got stung by a wasp.  That put a bit of a damper on things.

There is also this cute hut someone has made.  There are long chairs inside.

At the end of each hunt is a treasure box with small toys/trinkets that the kids got to pick.  

For fall break we decided to head out of town.  This quarter has been really hard on all the kids and we all needed a break where we didn't have to think about school at all.  Wednesday night we drove to St. George and spent the night at Nancy's house.  We woke up early Thursday and drove to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  It was so pretty.  None of us had ever been there so that was really cool.  It wasn't very busy and almost everyone wore a mask so we felt very safe. 

A rare picture of our entire family.

Liam and Maya are afraid of heights so they had a hard time getting near the edge, but Ellie had so fear.

This is underneath the lodge.  There is a small room with openings that you can look out of.

There were several bison along the road.  We had no idea that bison lived in the park so this was a fun surprise.

Ellie having fun at the picnic spot we stopped at for lunch.

We stopped a lot and the kids had fun taking pictures on their phones.  All the kids have phones now so they were all able to take their own pictures.

Thursday we stayed in a cute little one room cabin that was able to accommodate all six of us with 3 beds.  We were tired so we just sent Kyle to get up dinner and ate it in the cabin and then spent the rest of the evening playing games, watching tv and reading.  

On our way back to St. George we stopped at Pipe Springs National Monument.  It is a fort were there was a ranch for cattle that were given to the church as tithing.  It was later sold and just used as a stop for people in that area.  It was really cool and educational.  This is Ellie standing by the pipe spring.

All the kids in the fort.

A room inside the fort.

There were also things to see outside of the fort.  they had animals, a garden, and this area that showed what the Native Americans lived in.  The National Monument is within the Kaibab Piute Reservation.

Saturday was a relaxing day for us.  In the morning Kyle and I took Ellie and Sophie shopping.  Kyle was determined that each of the girls get something.  Ellie found a cute sweater early on at Eddie Bauer but Sophie took a lot longer.  She ended up finding a sweater at Old Navy.  After shopping we picked up lunch and took it back to the house to eat with Maya and Liam.  After lunch we went to the Boiler Park in Washington City not too far from the house.  It is new and a lot of fun.  There is a natural spring a swimming hole that they built the park around.  They also have a lot of pickle ball courts and we were sad we hadn't brought our paddles with us.  Liam and Ellie swam while the rest of us read.  Liam could have stayed there all day if we would have let him.

Sunday we cleaned and packed up to head home.  On our way home we stopped at the Kolob part of Zion's National Park.  We can get in free to any National Park or Monument because Liam has a disability pass due to his type 1 diabete.  We hiked to overlook, which was super crowded so we wore our masks the whole time.  I have never seen Kolob as busy as it was.  Usually there are very few people there but I think because of COVD more people are doing thing outside.

The Monday after our trip I cut about 6 or 7 inches off my hair.  I'm still not sure I like it, but it will grow back.

This morning we woke up to snow, and it has been snowing all morning.  It is not sticking to the roads, but it is sticking to the grass a little.  We are not ready for snow, we have hardly had a fall, but we do need the moisture.