last days of summer activities

here are just some of the activities we did before jack went back to school!

we had a family dinner at bree's favorite place - baja tacos in aliso.

we all love it.

we all met together and wished bree well off to hawaii!

elise and asher baby!

my parents bought the grandkids ice cream to keep the kids

 sitting next to us instead of wanting to run around the table :)

this boy is adorable!

another day i took jack and his friend james to chuck e cheese!

jack loves this place.

this one by our house is super clean and has nice kids there.

they played and played.

(notice the kid climbing :)

they had a good time!!

then we went to costco before bed...

jack always finds bugs anywhere we go.

Brady and I took Jack to the Science Discovery Center.

we are all science nerds so we pretty much had a disneyland amount of fun there!

brady tried out the nail bed.

jack's body

they were being pretty funny!

brady was a sports announcer in spanish

he did a little shopping

here in this little area brady found a kid that was without his dad, so we brought him to the front.

we are loving summer!

ZION NATIONAL PARK

i'm a little overdue on posting this...

but here they are!

brady had this great idea to hike zion.

he told me and his brother kip about it.

not only did he plan it, he word excel spreadsheeted it. 

he is the type of guy who researches everything he can before traveling, gather all information,

study it, figure out the best ideas of every detail and then plans it out perfectly -- down to the minute.

he is a great balance for me.

i can be dropped off in new york with no plans and be so happy about it.

he needs to know what to do in new york with all details intact.

i'll help him be more spontaneous and he can help me have more of a plan.

with that being said, zions was well studied prior to getting there.

(these pictures were all taken from kip's phone and the other fancy 

ones from brady with his nice new canon 5D)

we met his brother kip there where we set up camp.  one tent, three tarps, 

hammock and lots of ant spray.

we took the shuttle to observation point hike - 8.2 miles.

observation point was beautiful!  the hike was 8 miles roundtrip and we finished in 2.5 hours.  it was so steep and gorgeous up there.  i couldn't have asked for a prettier hike.  we all caught up and had a great time... except when we saw some grey clouds roll in and so we sprinted for a part of it... worried about lightning and flash floods.

luckily, the clouds held their water and passed our area.

we finished the hike with the brothers showering in the silty river and dinner in town.
we slept in the hot tent.
just kidding, i slept in the hot tent alone, kip out under the stars and brady in the hammock.
we meant to wake up early 5:30am early... but that didn't happen.

narrows is what happened on day TWO.
this hike is 16 - 18 miles.
we thought we could finish it in 12 hours with no problems.

so we drove from the bottom of Zion's to the top of Narrows.  it took us over an hour to drive there.
on the way, kip saw these guys!
horned sheep!

we really thought we were almost half way at this point:

our first resting place for lunch

then, mile 8 or 9 got me.

i rolled my ankle and then the fun dimmed a bit.

it was pretty painful.

the shoes i was wearing were cheapy things but i had to make them work.

brady took his sunday shirt i was wearing and ripped the sleeves off to make an ace bandage.  it was perfection let me tell you.

he is a surgeon of teeth but 

brady was the sweetest to help me down from crazy hilly, rocky places. he even threw me over his shoulder to carry me through the roughest parts or when i was crying from how painful it was.

we ran into a group of people who helped us as it was getting dark. 

they informed us how dangerous it was to continue in the dark so they helped us out.  

brady carried me up this huge hill, they re-wrapped my ankle and fed us.

then they took two of their sleeping bags and allowed us to sleep in them. 

we slept next to dozens of spiders, possible snakes and bugs galore.

i faced my phobias that night and slept like a champ - wedged in between protecting men who were sweet to be the outside layer of these guys.  

we started back up early and hauled out of there! 

there were people along the way helping us to make sure we had water and food.

it really was the nicest thing.

we finished and it felt so good to be done!  

i didn't post all pictures but these were some.

it was a beautiful hike but we would love to do it again with the right supplies

after we started to drive home, we saw two girls stranded and were able to take them home.

it is so nice to pay back what others have done for you in some sort of way.

we stopped by a yummy shaved ice place on our way home.  

it was so great to get home, take a shower and sleep in a soft bed.

i brought jackson back a sherriff pin, a ruler for school as well as postcards from the park.  he loved it!

thanks again brady and kip for having me there!  it was so fun!

love you guys!