Fall Break to Bryce Canyon (Warning: many pictures!)

We left on Thursday for our condo in Duck Creek Pond, a little tourist town where the kids have to be bused an hour to school each day. That would not work well for us, but it was absolutely beautiful. The town boasted a grocery store. More like convenience store. We lived on hot dogs, bread, eggs, and cereal I brought from home.

After missing our exit (thanks Peter) followed by some "I told you so" (thanks to me) and some major backseat driving (thank you again Peter) followed by slamming on the breaks to switch drivers (thanks again to me) we finally got to our destination. This is a pattern Peter and I like to follow on many of our trips. The kids do not appreciate it.
Good thing we don't do this often or we wouldn't have lasted this long.

A little later than we had hoped but we arrived at the condo and still managed to get in one quick walk around the lake just as the sun was going down:

We look like a happy couple here don't we?

I made Sarah do a little impromptu photo shoot of me so I knew right off the bat there would be at least one picture of me from this trip!
There ended up being plenty more because I made her take pictures throughout.

The only reason I got this picture of Nathaniel is because he was cracking himself up
after acting like a dork for all the other pictures before it.
Note the bright pink bands on his braces. You may wonder why he chose this color?
Because I was sitting right there in the orthodontist office telling him not to.
That's why.

Peace at last!

The next day we went fishing. Why we keep trying to catch fish as a family I don't know.
When we do break our curse and actually catch one
we don't even particularly like to eat them.
But we did catch six between the six of us and we did cook them up that night like good little fishermen. Tally: 2 Nathaniel 2 Peter 1 Rebecca 1 April
Poor Sarah and John--I don't think they caught any.

:(

But they still had fun.

Rebecca's hair is getting so long!

Here I am, fishing without a license. I was the only one without one. Very bad.
Mostly though I just stuck to setting up poles.

"No pictures mom. I'm fishing."

While Nathaniel and Peter vegetated in front of their tech devices back at the condo I took the kids to this "ice cave." After some pretty hairy dirt roads we get to this:

This picture doesn't do justice to the fact that it was just this drop into the ground. My kids affectionately refered to it as the butt hole of the earth. Nice.
And by the way, where do they hear these things?

That night Peter built a raging fire and Sarah got this picture
with Nathaniel's arm around me. WOW!

Saturday we went to Bryce Canyon on our way home. We did the famous Queen's Garden and Wall Street combo. Fabulous hike. Just beautiful!

John spent our entire trip with his rear looking like this. He couldn't help sliding down the red rock behind the condo. In Bryce he wailed through the first 1/3 or so of the hike that he was going to fall and thus had to slide/crawl down the very slow downhill inclines. He cried that he had to pee, that he didn't feel good, that his eye was burning, and on and on and on.
It was not going well.
None of the other tourist hikers wanted him so I thought of the most brilliant thing. I gave him an Excedrin. Never tried that before, but desperate times and all . . .
It worked like a charm. Whole new kid suddenly full of energy and rarin' up the trail.

We came to this place with all of these stacked rocks where people walking down the trail had just added and added over time. They were even in the trees!
Course John added his:

Nathaniel, needless to say, was a holy pain in my butt to take pictures of.

This is a classic shot right here:

Oh, the threats that were heard through the canyon that day ran the gamut.

John on the other hand, was doing great ramped up on caffeine:

How cute is that?

Peter and I would like to come here together, alone, ie: without the kids.
I'm not holding my breath.

On the way home we stopped in Nephi at the One Man Band Diner to get dinner where I was drinking my water and gleeked a little stream in Nathaniel's direction. He promptly dumps his entire Sprite on me and I spent the rest of the trip home in the car all sticky.
Maybe someday I'll get credit for not losing it.
I'll let you know.

Verdict: Overall great place to visit. For kids we liked it better than the Grand Canyon. So much safer and more manageable. I don't spend the entire time in a panic. (Heights and I are not friendly I guess.) We have lived here almost 5 years and this is our first visit!
But we'll be back for sure.