Goblin Valley + the Griffin's

As Memorial Day weekend approached, Brett was ready to fleeeeee!!

He really wanted to go somewhere, and camping with the boys was at the top of his weekend list!  So, I agreed... and we were so happy and lucky that the Griffin's were game to come too!

Brett even shaved his beard for the occasion, and I was even more thankful the Griffin's were coming after I saw that this creepo was going to be my camp-mate.

We packed up and as we were literally on the road decided to head to Goblin Valley.

We got there in the late afternoon and set up camp.

Jack was so excited to sleep in a tent... I was  a bit more apprehensive, especially after seeing the tent Brett brought.

Pretty sure it came over on the Mayflower.

What the hell? Isn't he scoutmaster?

Luckily, the Griffin's had the Taj Mahal of tents to rub it in my face!

We had a great evening hike right by camp, and then enjoyed some dinner and time by the good ol' campfire.

(I picked this bouquet of flowers on our hike, and was quite please with myself).

We had an unusually good night's sleep... with the boys' first night camping being a total success! Little campers didn't even stir!

Brett was sure ready for the day...

OMG

After breakfast, we drove to Goblin Valley... where our boys would discover, quite possibly, their happiest place on earth!

They were in complete and total heaven.

It really was a blast!

We headed back to camp for lunch, and we enjoyed naps and lots of rock smashing, magnifying glass burning, slingshots, etc!

Probably one of the very best things to come from the trip was this picture of Tucker:

After we re-grouped, we headed out for an afternoon hike at Little Wild Horse.

It really was a highlight for me.

Our entire trip was surrounded by amazing beauty... and I was completely floored by the crazy geography we kept seeing.

This hike was no different, with awesome winding slot canyons... it was one of the coolest places I've ever seen.

I was equally amazed by how wonderful my kids did on the hike.

It was almost 3 miles round trip, and they were troopers!

They had they best time!

We were sure into the groove of hiking when we got back.

We had tunes blaring, dinner cooking....

And then, the wind and the rain came.:( BOO!!!!

We strapped the kids in the car to wait it out...

and we stewed over what to do. Stay? Go? Stay? Go?

If it were up to Randy and I... we'd still be stewing.

Luckily, our decisive spouses came to the conclusion it would be best to head home.

So, at 10:30... we ripped down camp... and drove 3 hours home.

It was kind of brutal.  But, all worked out great, and I'm glad we weren't cleaning up camp in a muddy mess the next morning.

I was plenty mess the next morning, however.

Woah.

We had the BEST BEST BEST time.

It gave me a whole new desire to try and get out and have more adventures like these with my boys.  They're just now old enough to do more now, and I can hardly wait to see whatever journeys we have in store this summer.

It was so great being with Annie and her family.  How lucky we are to get to have these boys together! They were darling together... and they really made the trip even more of a success. I feel super fortunate to have great husbands who get along, and who are such great dads to these boys.

No doubt, we'll be doing THAT again!