Spring Break 09

We are home! Did you know that is over 1000 miles to Moab, UT?? ;)~~

We did not make as many stops this year, but if you ask my kiddos...they'd say that was a-ok! We stayed out first night in Tucumcari, NM. We were lucky to make it that far because about a hour south of Amarillo it went from non stop rain to a blizzard...FOR REAL! There were snow plows and the whole 9 yards on the road! But almost as soon as we crossed into the Mountain time zone...the snow just disappeared!

We got up and headed out the next morning to Durango, CO. I think it was like 5-6 hours. We unpacked at the hotel and took the kids swimming...and you'd thought it was the best treat ever...until the NEXT day :) We headed up the mountain to Purgatory to take the kids skiing for the first time. They all did AWESOME! None of them were scared for even a second!! I knew Matt wouldn't be, but Brayden and Nat surprised the heck out of me!! I've only ever "skied" one other time and it definitely showed! I started down the slope with Brayden and ended up taking the skis off and walked down....I just hate that out of control feeling!! Jim really wanted to take the big kids down some slopes, but his knee still wasn't ready for it :( The kids had a GR8 day and were bummed to leave. That night we had the special treat of getting to have dinner with Audra, Cody (her hubby), and a good friend of theirs. We had a great time and some good beers (which says a LOT about the beers cause I rarely think beer tastes good). Talked about high school days and who's where now. It was great!

We hit the stores downtown the next morning and then piled in the truck for our trek to Moab. We got in about 4:30. We detached the Jeep from the truck and putted around town and then headed to Zax pizza (I love this place!). The next day we headed to the Arches National Park for some hiking and Jeep trails. Let me tell you...the Jeep trails will beat you up!!! It was cool to see different parts of the park and to be so isolated! We tried to capture it all on camera, but it just doesn't give it justice!

The next morning Jim and the kids went on some more "aggressive" trails that were a little too butt clenching for me!! So Brayden and I hung back and did some laundry. Once everyone got back we headed to shops downtown and then back to hotel for Jim and the big kids to soak their wore out bones from the trails they went on :)

On our last day we took a beautiful ride up the LaSalle mountains. We were intending to take a Jeep trail up to Geyser Lake, but we got 1/2 way there and the road was completely snowed in/under, so we turned around and went back. on our way back down we saw several frozen ponds/lakes. So Jim took to one of them and that was our lunch spot for the day.

The next morning we packed up and headed to our final destination of Hovenweep. It was one LONG drive out to this park, but I think everyone enjoyed it. It was an area of Pueblo Indian ruins. It wasn't as cool as the cave dwellings, but still pretty awesome to see how well preserved these ruins were!

The rest of the trip was driving home. The kids did great in the car. Thanks goodness for tv!!

I am going to try something new here... I am going to paste the link to the photos that I have uploaded onto Facebook. I hope that all of you can look at the pics that I have uploaded. And if you "hover" over the picture a caption should come up. Let me know if this works. If not, I'll upload them onto Blogger also. Here's my link: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?tab=1#/album.php?aid=97078&id=1025738506. Now if we are REALLY lucky you can look at all the pictures that Jim uploaded onto his page. Again, try thins and let me know if it works. Some of you might have seen some of Jim's pics on Facebook already, but he added some more yesterday: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?tab=1#/album.php?aid=8797&id=1154479879&ref=nf

"IF" this works and you get to see our photo albums on Facebook, please note that we both have multiple pages of pictures on there. If you look in the upper right hand corner of the photo album you'll see a "1,2,3, next.." just click on those to see more pics. Let me know if it works....