How does your garden grow?

Yay!  Lots of spinach!  Success! 

Dinosaur Museum

After Grandma and Grandpa got off 'work', we met up with them and took the crew to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point.
The kids had a great time!  Josh was a little ADD and all over the place. 

Aquarium

Two of the cousins are staying with us while parents are away playing.  My kids are still in school though so it gets a little boring during the day.  We visited the aquarium today to break up the monotony.

Pictures from the phone :(

DARE graduation

Today was McKinley's 5th grade DARE graduation.  The keynote speaker was a former Miss Utah who delivered a powerful message that I hope all those kids remember.  Keep it up Kinners!

Arches

Halfway mark on the way home was Arches National Park.  We bought the interagency Annual Pass, so we stopped by here since the kids have never been.  We decided to do the iconic Delicate Arch hike.  3.0 miles round trip it says in the brochure.  3 miles round trip my eye!  3 miles each way more like it!  Luckily it was only 80 degrees today, but it was still a tough little hike.

McKinley wanted a solo picture under the arch like one of the teachers at school had.  Unfortunately we were one of many tourists.  So we had to make do and use photoshop after the fact to get  her dream picture.

Sawyer stayed at the viewpoint of the arch, Hayden ventured over tentatively, and Josh was upset again that we wouldn't let him run free around the gaping hole of death.

Just across from the park entrance is this giant sand mountainside that the kids begged to do.  So they did.  I'll need to get my car detailed this week to clean out all the grime from the trip, but we had an exhausting but fun time!

Mesa Verde National Park

Our first tour was Cliff Palace.  It is one of the biggest of the dwellings.  The inhabitants were first labeled as Anasazi, but later updated to Ancient Puebloans to reflect their modern day ancestors.  The people used to live on top of the Mesa, but later moved their dwellings to these alcoves.  They stayed there for a while, (100 years or so) but then moved on.  There was a 20 year drought around that time, so I subscribe to the idea that these conditions forced them to seek other lands.  

You can see the original tree trunks used for part of the structure behind us.

The 2 year old was upset that he couldn't run and jump around the cliff's edges.

The round rooms were dug into the ground, called kivas.  2 or 3 people lived in each kiva.  They used tree trunks to make roofs that are now long gone.

These indentations are the hand and foot holds that the Native Americans used to exit the cliff dwellings and climb up on top of the Mesa.  They used the top of the Mesa for their farming.  

I was very impressed with the desert landscape.  Lucky for us it was sweatshirt weather so I could enjoy it without the 100 degree sun beating down.

A bird has made a nest in another alcove above the cliff dwelling.

After driving around for a while and eating some snacks, our last tour was Long House.  We chose this instead of Balcony house because the ladder climbs were smaller for the little guy.  It was 1 1/2 hours, but Josh was more pleasant on this tour.

They had these food storage areas built even higher in the alcove that they had to once again scale the walls to access.  With my fear of heights, I would have died of starvation here.

The climbing was the best part for this kid.

Cactus flowers.  So pretty!

Our first time real Wild Horses!  Surprisingly, they looked like regular horses.  I thought they would be more Mustang-y like the documentaries on tv.  Cool nonetheless.

Memorial Day Weekend Trip

Kent had to work on Friday, so we left first thing on Saturday morning.  We were only slightly behind our original departure time of 8:00, but not much.  GPS tells us it will take 7 hours to get to our destination.  Before settling in to our hotel we dropped by the Mesa Verde National Park center to get our tour tickets for tomorrow.  We hear they go fast and you can only pick them up in person.  It was nice to get out of the car and walk around a bit.

at the visitor's center

Since we came all this way, we HAVE to stop by the Four Corners Monument on the reservation.  $5 a person over 6 years old for the chance to be in four places at once.   Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado.

We had hotel points to use up and ended up staying in New Mexico about an hour away from the park. 

This is Shiprock in Shiprock, New Mexico.  It was really cool looking with all the storm clouds behind it too.

We made it to our hotel, let the kids swim as a reward for the 7+ hour car ride, and then went to bed to be ready for our full day ahead!