Steamboat Springs

We love going to Steamboat with grandma and grandpa, but it was especially fun this time in the fall.  The colors were so pretty!  It even snowed on us.

We made spooky gingerbread houses.  Auntie Lou worked at a candy factory and brought her awesome candy designs to add to the houses.

We even made a spooky pumpkin!

Evy and Nate were little billy goats on the hike in the snow.  Evy didn't want to stop.  It was so beautiful with all the fresh snow on the trees. Evy and Nate also loved having a snowball fight with grandpa.

We can't wait to hang out with family again!

Red Rocks in Moab

Throughout our marriage, I have known that we are never going to live in Utah permanently.  It's just not in the picture for us.  However, while we were on this trip Brad asked me, "What would you think about living in Utah?"  That's how much fun we had on this trip to Moab.  We loved seeing both Arches and Canyonlands.  Utah really does have so much natural beauty to offer in its National Parks.

We arrived in Arches a little later in the day than we had hoped.  We did make it to Delicate Arch in the evening.  There were so many cameras set up taking pictures at sunset (and quite impressive cameras at that.)  This group of photographers was so big, that none of the tourists dared to go up to the arch.  Some tried, but the group of photographers started booing until they moved away.  We stayed late into the night for star pictures.  Plus, you can't beat stargazing at the Milky Way.

We spent our second day in Canyonlands.  It was amazing to see just how powerful erosion can be on a landscape over millions of years.  From where we were the river was 2,000 ft below us!

Canyonlands was beautiful, but I think we would have enjoyed it so much more if it wasn't for the bugs.  Mosquitos weren't the problem, though there were a few of the kind that really hurt when they bite you.  Thousands of little gnats would swarm around your face, land all over you, and go into your nose when you breathed.  They were horrible!

We left Canyonlands early because of the bugs and headed to Arches.  Such a good decision.  We were treated with the most beautiful sunset of our entire trip in front of the red rock.

We learned our lesson and stayed away from Canyonlands.  Instead we spent our last day in Arches.

Anyone recognize this?  This arch was filmed in the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  It's called Double Arch.

Landscape Arch.  The most spectacular arch of our whole trip.  At one section it is only 6 ft wide and is 290 ft long!

We had a wonderful trip.  Hopefully one day we can come visit Utah again and see all the National Parks it has to offer.  We had such an enjoyable time hiking and taking too many photos!

Zion National Park

Going into summer, we knew we were going to be busy.  The DAT, dental applications, going to Nicaragua, working, attending school, and being put in as Elder's Quorum President doesn't leave much time for much else.  However, we looked at Brad's schedule and found one weekend when he didn't have a test and I could take time off work to go on a little vacation.  We went down to southern Utah to Zion National Park.  We just spent 2 days there, but it was relaxing, gorgeous, and much needed.

Brad and I went on a hike and found a nice little spot to sit and eat our dinner.  We ended up getting surrounded by squirrels.  We had five of them coming within inches of us, trying to get our food.  They kept fighting each other and we were afraid of getting attacked.  They had pictures up everywhere of someone who had been attacked by squirrels and we were not excited at the prospect of being the next billboard.

Sunset at Zion

The next day, we hiked up to the Emerald Pools.  The waterfalls were much cooler than the puddles, I mean pools.

Waterfalls

It was much too hot after that to do any more hiking so we went on a drive on the Mount Carmel Highway.  

Dr. Seuss Rock

It looks a little like this:

And we met this guy on the side of the road.

We also went on a great drive up to Kolob Reservoir.

We didn't go down with many expectations.  Brad had never been to Zion National Park and the last time I went down and actually saw the park was when I was 8.  But for a quick trip with lots to do, photo opportunities galore, and long, peaceful drives, Zion National Park was great.  Arches next?

Snow Hiking

We went on a little hike up Slate Canyon in the snow.  It was really fun and Brad got to take a bunch of photos.  None of them turned out really great though.  Sorry.

We found this tree on our hike.  Never noticed it before and it looks like it's been there awhile.  But kind of funny.  I don't know if I would have liked Brad breaking the law to propose to me.

While we hiking down we saw two hawk circling.  It was quite pretty to see them flying around.