When in Moab...

It's hard to believe it's been just over two months since our last real family vacation. I am just posting about it because I just uploaded all of the pictures from my camera.

We got a little cabin-feverish and decided to head down to Moab for the weekend after S's birthday. (We, along with the rest of Salt Lake valley, it seems!) It turned out to be Bean's last ride in her baby-seat. She graduated to the big girl seat after we got home.



We headed over to Dead Horse Point right away. The weather was beautiful and the sun was bright so we put some sunglasses and a sunhat on Bean and slathered her with baby sunscreen. Poor girl has my fair skin.



Rather than buy a hiking pack for Bean, we opted to try out my old (think, 26 years old) pack that I used to ride around in.



Dead Horse point was not how I had remembered it, but it was still pretty nonetheless.



You know the photos you take where one person stretches their not-long-enough-arm out to capture a group moment?

...Attempt at family photo #1: Half of Bean is in the shot.



Attempt at Family Photo #2: S is half-missing and Mom's got a double chin but Bean-o looks adorable!



We then headed out to Canyonlands National Park which is, like, the only national park in Utah that I had never been to. We only made it to the Island in the Sky portion, but it was so beautiful! There were few short hikes that we took Bean on. The first was up to Mesa Arch and the second was Grand View Point overlooking the Needles (which technically S and I each did solo so Bean could take her nap.)

Here are Bean and I at Mesa Arch. Just beyond the arch is a sheer drop off so we kept Bean far away and I cringed as S played around a bit. I was brave enough to take a quick peek. My knees turned to jelly.

There was a guy there (I assume a professional/semi-professional photographer) taking pictures of his family and the surroundings. He offered to take this picture of us as a whole family. So, attempt # 3: Success!

We went to dinner at this FABULOUS restaurant called "Zax." The wait was a little long but the food was really great. And other than an emergency diaper change, Bean did great...despite her very long day.

When we finally got checked in to our hotel that night, we gave Bean a bath and let her play around on the bed in just her diaper. It must have felt really good to cool down a little bit because she was content as could be.

The next morning we headed out to Arches National Park. We decided to do Delicate Arch around Bean's naptime and ended up with a very cranky girl. We hadn't even made it up to the arch before she was all-out bawling. S ended up carrying her in the rest of the way.

S hurry and ran out to get a close up of the arch (something I swear they never used to allow people to do...but there were people climbing all over it that day. It kind of ruined it for me.) He is just to the left of it in this picture.

Bean had a meltdown when we tried to put her back in the pack. I would have felt worse about disrupting the moment for all of the other onlookers but, like I said...the moment was already kind of ruined anyway :) Anyway, I wish this picture had audio with it!

S finally decided to carry our 20-something-pound darling out the whole way in his arms. She fell fast asleep so it was dead weight, too. He is such a good dad.

We drove around the rest of the park with Bean still sound asleep. We opted to not make anymore stops and headed back to the hotel where Bean and I took excellent naps.

We left the next day. I drove the whole way while Bean and S slept. He rode in back next to her so I had fun peeking in on them every once in awhile. I have a great family.

And it was a great mini-vacation.