May Vay-Cay

We are currently on our family vacation, thus my being absent from the blogging world of late. It's kind of hard to get internet connection in the middle of Nauvoo, Garden of the Gods, and Arches National Park, ya know?

Anyway, it's been a lot of fun, minus the altitude headaches, the sinus headaches, the constant really-gross-stuff-associated-with-allergies-that-I-won't-name-because-it-really-is-that-gross-and-actually-made-me-consider-a-Neti-Pot-it-was-THAT-BAD, and the weird insomnia. Is it still insomnia if I'm exhausted and my eyes are trying to stay closed because they hurt from tiredness?
Here's a little info dump for you:

At Nauvoo we were crazy enough to do a horse drawn carriage ride (which was not actually a carriage, btw) in 40 something degree weather. Or it was that with wind chill, anyway. They had blankets for us to cuddle up in, which was a life saver, because the ride is almost an hour long and I forgot my jacket back in Cleave Land. I have no pictures of this because I wasn't willing to take my arms out of the blankets long enough to take one.

The kids loved The Family Life Center where they got to make a rope, learn how to make candles, learn how bread was made back in the early 1800's and other fun things.We also went to the school house there, which was also the home of the teacher, a local doctor, and got to tour it. They had slates for the kids to write on and examples of how spelling wasn't always consistent back then.

We also toured Carthage Jail where Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were killed. The upper window is the one Joseph fell out of when he was shot to death. The last time I was there was when I was 15, so quite a while back. In fact, last time I went I saw the old corner stones of the Nauvoo temple and now, there's the rebuilt temple sitting there. We took a walk around it, just barely missing the rain.
After Nauvoo we drove to Colorado Springs and visited Garden of the Gods. It was a short fun thing to do and prepared the kids a bit for Arches, which they thoroughly enjoyed more because they could climb the rocks at Arches.
At Arches we had some pretty cold, windy, and rainy weather--until our last day. But still, we managed to get a lot in.

Native American drawings

Dinosaur hunting (Jeremy and Megan dancing in a dino's footprint)

Corona Arch (I thought we were all going to die doing that hike. I burst into tears the next day when I told Nathan how awful it was for me.)
On the way back from Corona Arch, we found a tiny new arch.The Windows, Landscape Arch, and Devil's Garden, all of which I have pictures of, but this is already a lot of pictures.

Delicate Arch Oh my gosh, I didn't realize it would take that long to get there. The first arch Nathan pointed out to me on that hike I thought was Delicate Arch and all I could think was, "Well, they certainly took liberties on the license plates, because it looks nothing like this." Then he explained to me it was a different arch and I was informed that I had to keep hiking.


Of course we camped while we were there and that was great except that we picked the worst place in the world (seriously, I'm going to make up an award and sent it to them) for camping. Who thought it'd be a good idea to put a campground in the middle of a cottonwood tree area? Who thought it would be a good idea to plant cottonwood trees, period? They are awful trees! I'm still suffering the effects of those blasted trees. This picture of Megan and Jeremy playing in the cottonwood crap doesn't even do it justice. It was everywhere. It still is everywhere in the car. And we learned, certain caterpillars love cottonwoods. We had no less than 10 cocoons on our tent when we struck camp. Every time we left camp we had to check each other for caterpillars. They were EVERYWHERE and Megan, Jeremy, and Emma were constantly yelling, "Look, Mom! A caterpillar!" Each time it was as if they'd never seen one before.

Now we are in SLC with Nathan's parents, getting ready for his little sister's wedding. We made a quick trip to Logan so I could get an eye exam from the eye doctor Nathan used to work with when we lived there and will be going back next week to visit friends and hopefully pick up my new contacts and glasses. I've been stuck wearing my glasses for a week, ugh.

Blogging and checking email may continue to be slow for me, right now I'm stealing someone else's internet (and really, who doesn't protect their internet now a days?) to write this post. But I wanted to let you all know I'm alive, the family is alive, and we'll be back in Cleave Land at the end of the month. If you're in the greater SLC area and would like to get together, let me know! I do check my email about once a day (while pilfering someone else's connection). :)