Coloring Eggs

 this year Brooke got to take the young men to the Temple for Baptisms for the dead, so the kids and I colored eggs without him.  The kids loved it, especially Solayna.  She just kept saying "WOW" 

Dance Hall Rock

We stopped by Dance Hall Rock on the way home.  It was so much fun, and safe.  The kids LOVED it, and we will be going to this area during the summer.  It was gorgeous and a blast.  No wonder the saints loved to have dances there.  It would echo as the kids ran across it, and believe me they ran across it a lot.

I kept telling Solayna we were going to go to dance hall rock, so when we got there she started dancing.

My handsome man studying the geography of it all and what made the striations in the rocks.  He was completely complexed by it.

The kids loved sliding down this rock.  They did it for quite sometime, even though it hurt their rears.  They got going pretty fast as they would lift up their legs and slide.

Onto the next adventure there.  They started jumping over this huge puddle, and loved being able to jump it.

I got Solayna's hair into 4 braids at the top.  I thought it looked so cute, and I'm sure it will be a summer hairdo.

 

As we were leaving I noticed the kids all had holes in their pants from sliding down the rock.  Luckily they were holy jeans anyway, and the kids had a blast making those holes.

 

 Kind of a scary picture, but I had to put a picture of Brooke and I in.

The gang walking back to the truck, with a gorgeous sunset.

 

Our old truck started doing some major funky things on the way there, I was scared we weren't going to make it home.  In fact we stopped once and debated turning around, but we were close to the hole in the rock, so we just kept going.  Luckily we made it home.  I'm trying to convince Brooke that this truck is to old and we need a new one, but he's a hard one to  convince when it comes to spending money.

We had a ton of fun going down to the hole in the rock, and I'm so glad I have such a great family to spend time with.

Hiking to the top of Hole in the rock.

 After hiking back up the hole in the rock we decided to hike up above the hole to see the view. 

 I think this is my favorite picture of all.  I think we are going to head down here for some serious family pictures.

 There was another ledge on the other side of this one, that dropped about a mile down to the lake.  Brooke said he was about 10 feet away from the edge and was sick to his stomach so we stayed back on this little ledge.

Hole in the Rock

We decided since we are in the play, "Hole in the Rock" that we needed to go down to the "hole in the rock"  For those of you who don't know this story the LDS saints back in the late 1800s were called on a mission to settle the San Juan Valley.  They looked for different routes, but this was the Short cut.  It was only supposed to take them 6 weeks, but it ended up taking them 3 months.  They had to blast a hole in this mountain for their wagons to fit through, and then they crossed Lake Powell on a ferry.  Only through their faith, and obedience did they make it.   It's truly a miracle that they were able to make it down this hole.

 We thought we were getting so close, but if you look at the bottom of this picture you can see a boat.  It was TINY, so we only went down about halfway.  It was still absolutely unfathomable that they were able to get their wagons down this hole.

 Brooke carried Solayna down the whole way.  I don't know how he did it with her on his hip, but he's a mountain goat even more so than my boys.

 I took these pictures of the kids with Brooke and wouldn't you know Shianne was screwing off in every picture.  She makes me laugh.

 Look at those crossed eyes.  that's my girl.  Such a cute picture of everyone else, but my crossed eye girl.

 The hike back up was so intense Brooke had to pull Shianne up on a couple of spots.

 The boys loved it.  They are truly hikers.  I don't know how they got up some spots but they did, they were always was ahead of Shianne and I.

 Shianne is SCARED of heights so this hike was quite hard for her.  She did fantastic though, she just went slow.

I believe these are wagon ruts that the saints left behind.  what an amazing miracle for them to be able to get their wagons down through this 'hole'  I think of the faith, courage, obedience and unselfishness they had and realize I have a lot to learn.