Zion- Riverside Walk/Temple of Sinawava

We went on this hike last year, but we did it when most of the adults were gone doing The Subway, so we went again so everyone could do this hike. It is one of the easiest to do with the kids, and also is the start of The Narrows, so it was very busy. In fact, that weekend broke attendance records at Zion so it was really busy. We walked to the end of the trail to where The Narrows trail starts, and stopped at the water crossing. Not doing that with little kids.

Unloading the kids.

Micah fell asleep.

We let the kids play in the river at the end of the trail before we headed back. Julia did much better with
hiking this year. I tried to get her excited over the past few months, telling when we went on walks at home that we were getting ready for all the hiking we were going to do at Zion with Tyler.

These two had a blast together, hanging out and doing whatever they wanted to do for most of the trip.

David Wheat family.

My parents and brother Michael also came and spent a night. My Dad sat next to Micah while he slept.

And then when we were almost ready to leave Micah woke up.

Julia was done taking pictures, and Camden stayed at the campground with my Mom, so it was just Micah in our family picture. Well, actually, I wanted a picture with just Robert and I, but Micah was still waking up and didn't want to leave us.

Here's my picture with just the two of us. But, you can see the top of Micah's head because we just set him down on the rock. I decided not to crop him out ;).

Julia's Tap Recital

One of Julia's friends from preschool does tap dance lessons with a lady who does small classes in her basement studio. We were thinking of signing Julia up for some kind of extracurricular activity, so we did the tap dance with her friend. We like it because it is small, low key, and not very expensive, but she still can have fun learning a new skill once a week. She has been doing that for a few months and a couple weeks ago they had a small recital at their studio.

Getting ready to go

Julia lives for the performance, some of the other kids were a bit shy about being in the limelight, but Julia does her best when people are watching.

They are all looking over at their teacher on the side =).

Another Dance

The happy performer

Zion- Canyon Overlook Trail

This was actually the last hike we did, on the last evening we were there. Almost everyone else had left and since it was so hot that day (in the 90s) we didn't go anywhere but into to town to get ice cream during the day. It was much nicer to sit around in the shade than go hiking in the hot sun! But as the sun was setting Robert and I took our kids for a drive through the long Zion- Mt. Carmel Tunnel and stopped at the other side of the tunnel to do the Canyon Overlook Trail. The description seemed tame enough, a .5 mile trail to a canyon overlook, steep drop offs, but mostly covered by fences.

In hindsight the keyword there was mostly. There were some steep drop offs covered by fences, but there were also some parts that were a bit nerve wrecking with small kids. I don't think I would recommend this hike to anyone with kids under 12, they just aren't responsible enough to take it slow and watch their steps and one misstep on some of the spots could lead to serious harm. After we started though, we figured it was short enough that I would just hold Julia's hand the whole and take it slow. And Julia was very well behaved and listened really well. She didn't take one step without holding my hand.

The view we were looking at

Camden and Micah were no problem in their carriers.

This is actually less scary than it looks, there is sand at the bottom of the picture that you can just barely see.

It was a beautiful hike, just slow going for us.

And suddenly you come over a hill and you're there!

Definitely a great view. You can see the road winding up to the tunnel.

Julia Get's Staples: Warning- Head Wound Images

 Warning- Graphic Head Wound Images at the end.  The second one especially makes me queasy still. You have been warned.

We had our first incident of stitches in our household yesterday, or in this case, staples. Yesterday morning after Julia and Micah had finished their breakfast they hurried over to the window at the front of the house to watch the garbage man go by while I stayed in the kitchen feeding Camden his breakfast. A few minutes later I heard a crash followed by the telltale wail of a child who has just fallen. It was Julia and she was crying loud enough that I could tell this fall really hurt. So I went over to the front room and picked her up and sat her on my lap to comfort her. She told me that she was standing on the big exercise ball trying to balance on it when she fell and hit her head on the window sill.

As I was holding her and she was starting to calm down I felt something wet in her hair. "Uh-oh, this might be blood," I thought, hoping it wasn't. But sure enough, the back of her head had a good amount of blood. It was kind of hard to see where the cut was because of all the blood and hair, so I told Julia I needed to set her up on the counter to get a better look. I set her up on the counter and moved the hair away to see a very wide cut on the back of her head. Wide enough that it made me queasy, and blood doesn't usually bother me too much.

I have never had stitches and don't really know much about getting them, but this cut looked wide enough to warrant some extra attention. Serendipitously, last night at our Relief Society activity a few of the ladies were having a conversation about stitches. One of the neighbor boys had just gotten stitches a couple days ago and his mom was telling us how glad she was that her pediatrician had gotten them in before closing, even though it was past 4:00 pm when she called.

I don't think it would have occurred to me to go to the pediatrician if I hadn't heard this conversation. I would have been stressed out trying to figure out there the nearest urgent care or ER was. But because of this conversation the night before I now knew the pediatrician could probably sew her up. And it was already stressful enough trying to take care of Julia while the baby was crying because he wanted out of his high chair and Micah was crying because he wanted me to help him put on a bike helmet he had randomly found in the corner. (Micah barely picked up on the fact that Julia was hurt, but he was happy to hear we were going to the doctor. His response, "doctor? sucker? " because he knows they give out suckers at the doctor's office.)

The office staff gave us an appointment for an hour from then, then transferred us to the on call nurse to make sure we could wait an hour or if we should just come in right away. The on call nurse said she would be fine to wait for an hour as long as her head was not bleeding any more. And it wasn't, even by the time I found the cut it was almost done bleeding. So Julia got to watch TV with an ice pack on her head while I got everyone ready to go.

At the doctor's office the nurse cleaned off the cut and I got my first look at the cut all cleaned up. It was bigger than I was thinking. I had thought it just looked bigger than it probably really was before getting cleaned off because the blood would make it look bigger, but it really was good size. The doctor came in and told me he would be doing staples because he wouldn't have to shave a patch of hair like he would have to do with stitches. He also said he wasn't going to numb her because it would be just as painful to inject her in that spot as it would be to do the staples.

Julia did really good. Even I was a little nervous, but she held still and quiet as they did the first staple, then whimpered when they did the second, then started to cry a little when they did the third and was full out crying after the fourth staple. Luckily four was the last one and she got to sit up and get a hug from me and she calmed down quickly.

Afterward we went and got ice cream and played at the play place at Artic Circle. She has been having fun showing off her staples to everyone and says it doesn't hurt any more.

Here are the pictures:

 The nurse cleaning her up.

Cleaned up and waiting for the doctor to come in.

What a brave girl! She was happy she got a ring as a prize afterwards.

The staples, after her bath so no more blood in her hair.

Wheat Family Reunion in Zion National Park

Robert's family (his parents, siblings, and an uncle and family) had a Wheat family reunion at Zion National Park over Memorial Day. We went there last year for our reunion as well, but we felt like we still had a lot of things we did not get to do, so we decided to go to the same place again this year. 

These pictures are all about us at the campsite, there will be more posts about our hikes and bike rides. We reserved our campsites six months in advance, minutes after they became available for reservation.

It is always fun to see the cousins playing together, Nathan and Micah are four months apart.

We just let the kids roam free at the campsite and they got plenty dirty!

Jen brought all the stuff for the kids to do tie-dye. The love their shirts that they "colored."

While camping, even at a national park, there should be plenty of relaxing.

 I kind of missed this, but I think what was going on was Tyler was doing a bike parade ?

Dave and Jen's turn to make dinner. Jen sliced her finger open, hence the big bandage around her finger.

So handsome with a baby.

They were all sitting eating their dinner, but Nate got up before I could take a picture.

S'more selfie

The view behind our campsite. It was the best campsite in the campground, with no neighbors behind us, just  a beautiful mountain.

Stay tuned for the hikes and bikes posts.