Mom to all Boys

Jaxon just celebrated his 6th birthday.  I just can't believe he is getting so big.  After school we went to the new nickel arcade in Springville and let the kids play for a while.  Then we had to come home for Caleb's soccer game.  After that we ate fast food (because he is 6 and all he wanted was to eat somewhere with a playground) then came home for cake and gifts.  The birthday list he made was pretty outrageous - a kindle fire, $100 bills, and a cellphone to name a few.  We made some different choices but I think he was happy with what we picked out. 
He bring so much sunshine into our home.  He is almost always smiling and loves to make jokes.  He loves babies and is so sweet with them.  His everyday goal is to keep up with his big brothers.  He loves to go to the Cabelas shooting gallery.  he climbs right up and sits on the stand so he can see.
Yesterday he had another thing to celebrate - he lost his first tooth.  He is even more excited because he is the youngest of the boys to lose the first tooth.  He was very excited about it.

We love you Jaxon!! We are thrilled that you are a part of our family.

We finished out the trip with a day at Zions National Park.  We hiked to the Emerald Pools and came out through the Grotto.  We are bummed to not have many pictures.  When we first arrived we left everything in the car to go in the visitors center and decided where to go.  We ended up jumping on a shuttle bus and didn't realize that we left everything in the car until we were up the mountain.  Oh well.  The kids were all super hikers and we had a good time.  We drove through the big tunnel on our way out and decided to continue home that way.


We didn't realize it was such a long trip out of Zions through the East and by the time we reached a town it was past dinnertime and everyone was starving.  We were so thankful to Subway for having a shop in that small town, they saved our bacon (even though they overcharged us and we didn't realize it until we were far down the road, oh well).  Our scenic drive added quite a bit of time to the trip home but it was beautiful.  When we stopped in Cedar City for gas we wanted to turn right around and head back to the sunny weather - brrrr!!  It was hard to come home to cold weather.  I am such a summer girl I am tempted to pack up and move south.  The kids say they would love that too if we could take all of our neighbors with us.
It was a great vacation.  If fact the kids deemed it "the best vacation we've ever had".  We really enjoyed being together as a family and we can't wait to head south again.

We spent most of day 2 at Sand Hollow before packing up and heading about 5 miles away to Quail Creek where we would camp for the next 2 days.  We gave bass fishing a try and although we could see huge fish right off the dock we just couldn't get them to bite.  The boys all had a great time paddling around in the kayaks.  (Thanks for Daniel for letting us borrow a few so everyone could have their own)  Benjamin dropped his iphone in the lake, luckily close to shore, which prompted a run to Walmart for a bag of rice. 
Later in the evening the boys and I were standing on the dock waiting for Benjamin to come off the lake.  It was getting a little cool and breezy but Jaxon was playing around like he was going to jump in the water.  I jokingly told the boys that whoever jumped in I would buy them an ice cream cone.  To my surprise Jaxon went right in shortly followed by the other 3.  I guess I wasn't too disappointed in an ice cream trip (I am a sucker for ice cream)
The next afternoon we decided to go check out Browse.  A friend had told us there was a creek with amazing fishing.  We took a long, crazy, drive on a bumpy, skinny, twisty, dirt road.  When we got to the end the boys set up pine cones on a log and shot their bb guns.  We never did find any great fishing holes but we enjoyed a beautiful drive through the mountains.



After we made our way back down the road, we headed into St George for dinner.  The boys ran into sportsmans warehouse (whats the chance we would happen upon one?) and got some bass fishing advice from a guy.  We ended up sitting in the grass at a church to eat pizza.  Then we were back to the campground to try out the new fishing techniques before dark.  Jaxon and I opted to stay behind and play some cards.



I really enjoyed spending this time with my boys.  We had some interesting talks in the tents (about some of the good old facts of life) and some good laughs.  It was so nice to be away from tv and computers and video games and all other electronics, no friend, no work, no school.  Even though Benjamin dropping his phone in the lake was not a good thing, it was nice that not even he had any electronics for a few days.  I think the boys even fought less.  I guess that is one of the things I love most about camping.  We can just get away from all the distractions in life and just enjoy being together as a family in nature.