President's day weekend part 1 -

For President's day weekend this year - we had four days off.  - Monday for president's day and then Tuesday was a staff development day.  It was a busy, fun weekend.  I had been wanting to do some fun stuff with the kids and the weather was finally nice enough to do so.  Saturday We had an important Birthday party to go to..  Cousin Ethan's !  First, we went to see a movie - and now I can't remember the name.  it was about the borrowers.  Arietty's world or something like that.  It was a cute movie and the kids really enjoyed it too! I always liked the littles growing up, so it wasn't hard to like.  After the movie we headed over to Marc and Michelles for cake, ice cream, and presents.  :)  Jeff stayed home this whole time and was working on a leaky sink...He is so awesome, especially sincewe've been having soooo many home repairs lately. 

This first picture is of Ethan's cake - I thought it was pretty awesome! Very Creative!

Singing to the birthday boy!

waiting for cake! It was lots of fun visiting too!  Even Uncle Sam made it! :) 

So for the actual President's day on Monday, I had been really wanting to go hiking, so I rounded up the kiddos, made some lunches and snacks, packed a backpack and headed out.  A friend of mine told me about a fun hike up at Red Rock, so we thought we'd try there.  It was really fun.  The kids and I were a little dissappointed that daddy had to work, but we had fun anyway!  Our first stop was at the visitors center.  It was fun checking out all the interesting things about the desert and desert animals.

Ribbit, ribbit.

Fun rocks!

The view from the visitors center- love the red rocks! :)

"take my picture mom!"

Checking out the big lizards - don't remember what they are called.

Checking out the cool microscopes...love the huge eye holes...that's my kind of microscope.

Outside was even cooler than the inside, lots of fun information and things to play with.

look at those birds mom, they are cool.

The air and wind looked like slide to climb up and down to the kids.

whee!

And I love my little jackrabbits!

Aren't they cute?!

Say cheese!

I'm all ears!

R - for Rachel

A - for Andrew

Check out those cuties! I have such cute kids!

I'm feeling a little 'turtley'

After the visitors center we headed out to the trails... they have quite a few and we decided we definately want to come back and hike a few more.  This day we did two.  The first was the discovery trail.. and the funner of the two - it was a lot of climbing and the kids loved that - even Bryant had a great time and walked most of it himself...to quote him 'I do it my self mom, I want to walk.!'  - okay dokey buddy! We had lot's of fun and I loved that Andrew's attitude changed from 'mom, I don't want to go...to mom, this is the best president's day ever! :) '  Score! Just getting them out of the house is sometimes the hardest part.

love the smiles! What cute kids.  have I mentioned I love these kiddos.

'mom, take my picture, I'm on a big rock!'

the view

look, mom...we all fit under this rock...take our picture! :)

This is at the top of the first hike their is a small trickling waterfall.  It was a bit chilly up there if you notice you can see the icicles on the tree.  Rachel behind it! It was fun to climb on all those rocks.  We climbed to the top of some and then stopped for lunch. 

After the first trail, we stopped and checked out the view on these nice benches and then went on a second hike...called fire ecology.  Apparently they did some controlled burning and you could see where it had started to grow back. It was quite interesting..

 

 

Here we are at the end of our day, tired and thirsty, but had a fabulous time.  I love this picture of Rach and Eric.  Rachel had fallen and skinned her ankle on the way back to the car and Eric was quite the gentleman helping her walk.  I love to see these little kindnesses between siblings. :)

Stay tuned for part 2