But wait there's more.! The rest of our vacation was fun as well.  First we went to Goblin State park.  Totally fun and worth going off the beaten path for.  The main attraction was that the children were allowed to go wherever they wanted to (we kept a close eye).  They could, and did, climb on whatever formation took their fancy.  They really got to be a part of the landscape.  You could look off to the horizon and imagine that you were a pioneer just discovering this land.  One of the reviews online said that we shouldn't allow this.  I think that children need to touch and experience not just look to truly appreciate.  In the end the love that they develop from being really in nature will pay off with a greater appreciation for the world around them and a determination to be a good steward of them.  I will upload the pics of this once I get ahold of my hubby's camera.  (:

These next pics are of the slot canyon that we hiked.  I only wished we had had a bit more time there.

We all went because the description said it was an easy hike.  I think the canyon itself was, but getting there proved to be a bit more then some of us planned on.  We had to get up to a ledge some 5 ft above us.

The kids loved finding little hidey-holes and insisted that they get their pictures taken each time.

Hanging with family.  Beautiful rocks and beautiful girls.

David and his boys joined us for a few days.  David had a waterproof camera and was the only one to get pictures of the rafting trip.  What could be more fun then going rafting in the same rafts that I used to go in as a girl?  They are, well seasoned, shall we say?  So one of the caps to keep the air in was missing, but no problem dad MacGuyvered it and he always has done.  He found another cap that fit.  Of course this cap didn't screw on, it just popped on, but it kept the air in so we are good, right?

We were having a lot of fun especially on the rapids (nothing to big) and then we got to the last rapid.   In our raft there was My dad and I, Alayna, Mezi and Getu.  When we would go through the rapids they would get off of the edges and into the river, I mean raft.  Only it was hard to tell because we had about half or so of the river in the raft with us despite all of our best attempts at bailing.  So I guess the kids took to sliding and diving in, possibly to make it more like a water park.  Getu slid this time, forgetting that the last time he did that he was yelled at  asked politely not to.  The timing couldn't have been worse.  He slid right over the MacGuyvered plug;  Knocked the plug into the water; The air started shooting out of the raft; We started sinking lower; Everyone Yelled and scrambled madly around flailing and screaming for the plug calmly looked through the water for the plug;  Dad screamed for yelled at asked Getu to put his finger in it; He put his finger on top of it and air rushed as quickly as ever out of the raft and into the air; I screamed, said "A Rock!  paddle";  My dad grabbed a paddle and we quickly steered the raft away from the rock; my dad stuck his finger into the hole, stopping anymore water from escaping;  The girls yelled at asked Getu to move his butt bottom as he was probably sitting on it;  Getu Yelled said that he wasn't and to keep looking;  All of us frantically splashed and searched through the elbow deep murky water to find the plug; Someone found it; Dad put it on;  we looked up and the rapid was ending.  There was take out beach.  Just in time.

Finally made it to delicate arch.

 We tried to convince Noah this was Delicate arch and we could go back.  He was tired enough to be all for that idea, although he was a bit disappointed that we had come so far.  When we said we were joking he thought it was funny and wanted his picture with it.

 Mesa arch in Canyonlands

Beautiful people in front of a beautiful view.  Wheew!  What an exhausting fun vacation!  Next time you should all come with us!

Family History

So on our vacation this year we were able to sneak in a bunch of learning and some pretty awesome family history.  Beyond the family history that we were making by going on vacation.(:  We got to visit with my grandma and the kids that don't remember her got to meet her and will probably remember her for at least 6 months.  On that note I have to admit something.  Part of the reason I consistently want to see or be with family on our family vacations is the genuine desire to be with them.  Family is the most important thing in this life and I miss my parents and brothers and sisters dreadfully after a while of not seeing them.  So, yes, I would rather see them then the Statue of Liberty or Boston, etc.(of course the best thing when possible is to spend time with family in a cool place)  I have an ulterior motive as well though.  I want my kids to know how important it is to put family first and go and see them often so that when they are grown up and married they will (hopefully) keep that attitude and if they happen to move far away for jobs they will come and bring my grand kids often so that I can see them.  And even later, when I am old, if they have to put me in a home they and my grand kids will either come and see me often or feel intensely guilty about not doing it, knowing how important family has always been to me and how I went out of my way to show it.  So, now you know, I am even now preparing my children to be guilt tripped into spending as much time as possible with me.

 We also drove through Spring City, UT on our vacation and saw some of the buildings that my great great grandpa built.  Here are some pics.

 This is the spring city church that he helped to build.  He was a stonemason.

The front with our family.

Getu, James, Alayna, Mezi, Joseph, Evelyn, and Noah in front of the church.

 He also helped to build the Manti Temple.

We went to the pageant, and it was really good.  I would advise anyone who wants to go to go when you have slept more then 4-5 hours a night for the nights before.  Towards the end I had a hard time staying awake, which was especially annoying, because when I was awake I was enjoying it so much!  But then i would wake up again to find that I had missed a bunch.

Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Joseph and I got to go through a session.  This was triply cool because-
1. We love the temple and rarely get to go together
2. My grandpa helped to build it
3. Josephs parents were sealed here ( at the time they lived in New Jersey they were in this temple district!)
4. We have never been to a live session before and here the sessions are live.
5. The architecture was absolutely breathtaking!
OK, so that list got longer and guess it was Quintuply cool?  Hmmmm. In any case we were very grateful for the opportunity.  Thanks Mom and Dad!

Anniversary

For our fifteenth anniversary Joseph and I finally were able to celebrate on this last Wednesday.  We had a ton of fun.  We used three groupons and got a couples massage, ate linner at an Italian restaurant and went to a Kelly Clarkson concert.  I have never been to a concert with someone that i really like before, and it was wonderful to hear her sing in person.  She has such a great voice!

For those of you that have never had linner you really must try it sometime!  It is truly a wonderful thing.  You see, there are two reasons that I don't go to restaurants often.  To be honest the first reason is cost.  Yes, it's nice to be waited upon and to have someone else do the cooking and the clean up, but I still can't use that to justify an expense that we don't need.  The second thing is that restaurant food is fattening, and I always eat too much, because if I'm going to spend the money on a meal out, I'm not going to order something bland, or "diet friendly" after all, this is supposed to be enjoyable.  So our family has found a way to combat both of these issues and go at a less busy time with no waiting to boot.  Linner.  It's similar to brunch, but Lunch and dinner combined instead.  We go to the restaurant around 2:30 so that we can still order off the Lunch menu (in this case the cost was less then half of dinner prices).  Then we eat to our hearts content knowing that the calories we are consuming will count for lunch and dinner, and sure enough, we aren't hungry for any dinner.


Today's lesson was about Faith.  One of the main points was that you build faith by keeping the commandments.  When you follow what the Lord has told us to do you can see by the results that it was right and you can trust Him.  It's like following advice from someone.  You don't know for sure if the person knows what they are talking about until you try it.  In thinking about this I realized that through the years I have developed a strong testimony of the importance of getting married in the temple to the right person at the right time.  It sounds so simple and it's amazing what a difference it has made in my life to do this so called simple thing.  Of all the choices I have ever made in my life the number one best one was made fifteen years ago when I said yes to the love of my life, my companion, my rock and soft place to fall.  Thank you sweetie for asking me.