Zion: Campground and Riverside Hike at the Temple of Sinawava

On day three of our Wheat family reunion half of the group hiked the Subway, which is a strenuous, permit only 9.5 mile hike that requires rappelling and swimming through water. Obviously, the kids did not go on that one. Also, being five months pregnant I felt it best not to do it either. So Robert will likely be posting about that hike in the near future...(?)

First, at the campground, Julia and Tyler had a lot of fun just playing together. Luckily even in a National Park Campground we had plenty of space at our site for them to run around between the three campsites we were staying in. They enjoyed bug catching, getting wet with water squiters Mom Wheat brought them, playing in the dirt and rocks, and who knows what else.

Twice when we came back after hiking our cheap shade structure had blown over. After this time the poles were all bent up so we just tossed it.

So on day three the kids, Mom Wheat, and Jess and Lauren and I all on went another small hike at the Temple of Sinawava, which is the entrance another popular hike, The Narrows. Only we just did a mile on the paved easy part of the trail. 

 Julia was not nearly as enthusiastic on this hike. She just wanted to sit.

 Tyler was a good hiker, but he also had fun with all these branches on the ground where he stopped to rest.

 Mom carried Micah and Jess had Nathan in the backpacks.

More playing back at the campground.

Micah was wiped out after all that playing.

Zion: Emerald Pools Hike

One of the first days of our Wheat family reunion in Zion National Park we all went on the Emerald Pools hike. We chose it because it was short and easy so the four year olds would be able to hike it as well. Last time we went hiking with Julia back in California she complained that she was tired the entire way. Just before we got to the actual trail this time she told me she was tired of walking already. That was before we were even on the trail...

So she started out a little rough but we kept distracting her by asking her to find nature things for her junior ranger badge. Then she got it into her head that she really wanted to beat her cousin Tyler to the end. After that there was no stopping her. Really. We made it to the first pool in no time (there is also a second and third pool), which is where we had planned to turn around. But when she saw people were still walking past the first waterfall and pool she had to keep going too.

 Julia is up there in the pink hat holding Aunt Jen's hand. Who else can you spot?

 Some of the group headed back after the first pool like planned, but Julia wanted to keep going.The rest of us continued up to the second little pool, which was basically up around the mountain to the top of the little waterfall from the first pool. Meanwhile, Micah had fallen asleep.

  Family picture at the top after Micah had waken up.

The view without us or the chain.

I had to convince Julia that was the end of the trail so she would turn back at that point. I wasn't sure if her enthusiasm for hiking would continue all the way back to the beginning of the trail. And it didn't. Soon after we passed the first pool on the way back we once again had to distract her and encourage her to keep walking when she kept saying she was too tired to walk anymore.

As we were walking back it started to rain so Robert's dad and I took Micah and Julia and ran back to the shuttles, while Robert stopped to take pictures by the river. Robert found someone he knows while he was taking pictures under the bridge (it's his sister Lauren and brother-in-law Jess). 

Today

A fairly normal day for us today after a busy weekend with family in town for a wedding. The first day back to the normal stuff always seems to be harder though.

Julia claimed this box we got from Costco last week as hers to use as a car. She wanted to paint it, so today I finally let her use her finger paints to paint the box. She made a bit of a mess, but had fun and the paints are easy to wash off.

I learned two things about Micah today. The first is that he dislikes avocados plain. But if you mash it up, add some lime and salt and hand him a veggie chip to dip with he will eat a whole avocado worth of guacamole.

The second is never put him down for a nap in only a t-shirt and diaper. Because if he happens to poop during said nap his diaper is easy to get off and it will be a complete disaster. Enough said.

Beach Day

On Thursday we were going out to West L.A. to go to a bridal shower, so we decided to make a day of it and spend the afternoon at the beach. It was fairly cool as far as beach weather goes, but when the sun was shining it was still warm enough to splash around in the water.

Later in the afternoon the clouds rolled in and the kids enjoyed playing in the sand mostly.

Daniel, Amanda, and Hannah joined us and Amanda taught Julia how to find sand crabs. They are like the amphibious form of roly polys/potato bugs/pill bugs so Julia loved them and how they tickled her hand when she held them.

Micah was a little unsure of the water and sand at first. This was the first time he has been to the beach and actually been awake (we went when he was a month old and he slept the entire time) so it was a whole new experience for him.

After a while though he absoultely loved it. He likes playing in the sand of course, but he also discovered the joy of having the waves rush up onto your legs. He really liked bending over and picking up fistfuls of sand each time a wave would subside, and then throwing it into the water when the waves came back.

Julia Makes Homemade Tortillas with Grandma Sandberg

Some still photos:

Grandma Whitehurst's Surprise Birthday

For Robert's Grandma's 75th birthday this year her daughters threw her a surprise birthday party. We hadn't seen her since Julia was a baby and have been meaning to make the trip up to Sacramento to visit so of course we made plans to be there. While we were college students in Provo she lived in Provo as well so we go over to her house almost every weekend and play games (Settlers was our favorite) after we got married and we've missed her! We could only stay for a day, but it was well worth it to see Grandma's reaction when she walked into a dark church gym after being told she was there to watch one of her little great grandkids kick around a soccer ball, only to turn on the lights and see us all there! Her birthday was actually a couple weeks earlier so it really caught her off guard. 

Grandma with her "little" brother Jim and his wife Joan.

Grandma loves to play games so the "center pieces" of the tables were games and we all got to choose a table with a game we enjoy and play games.

There were even games for the little ones.

I mostly just got pictures of the game playing part of the party but we also did have some yummy dinner (it's the Whitehurst family after all, every one one of those women are fantastic cooks) and cake or cookies. I also loved seeing the Shutterfly photo book that they put together of all of Grandma's kids, grandkids, and great grandkids and the slideshow of the same pictures plus more. We never did get to play a game with the birthday girl, so we'll have to plan another trip up to Sacramento to play some games with her. Now that we've done it once over a weekend Sacramento doesn't seem like so far away from L.A. (and it's a lot closer than Virginia!)

Wheat Family GIF's

Last month we had a Wheat family reunion with all Robert's siblings and parents at Zion National Park in Utah. It was a lot of fun which of course means we have a lot of pictures to sort through now. So maybe I'll get around to that soon and post more...but for today while Julia was at preschool I was looking at the family pictures that we took. I decided to just upload a bunch for the rest of the family to see on Google+ and decide which they like best. Google recently started doing this thing where if you have multiple pictures of about the same thing it will automatically turn it into a GIF. So since I had a whole bunch of us posing it automatically made them into GIF's, which I found incredibly amusing. Here they are:

It all seems very Harry Potterish to me and that is exactly where I feel like the new found popularity of the GIF came from.