Three for me

1. Spring Break!  We didn't have travel plans for Spring Break but Kate was begging to go camping.  Like begging so much all the time.  Jerry couldn't take time off work and even though I would have loved to go camping, it's not as much fun without him so I was really dragging my feet about going.  But pretty soon Sara was also on the camping bandwagon and I wanted to do something during spring break besides sit around the house so we decided to go to The Wedge, aka, The Little Grand Canyon.  I had never been there but it was on my list of places to go to in Utah so I decided to quit being lame and just go do it.  We decided to not have Sara skip Lacrosse practices so we headed out on Tuesday and came back on Wednesday in time for her to go to practice.  It was so much fun.  We had a blast and I love exploring.  I loved going with just the girls.  We had a great time together.  It was definitely worth all the work and driving!

We drove down and found a campsite.  We didn't really know what to expect and we found one close to the bathrooms which made Abby excited so we just went for it.  Kate wanted to explore around, but we didn't know what we would find and I didn't know how crowded it was going to be and all those logistics so we just stayed there.  It was a fun little place.  There were some better campsites right on the rim, but I don't know if they would have been available even when we got there so we were fine with where we were.

After we got our tent up (which took longer than it should have, but that was partly because we had to deal with the bent tent poles, haha, but we still got it all figured out and we were pretty proud of ourselves) we went for a hike.  We wanted to see what the canyon was all about.

Sara almost fell in.  Phew! She saved herself!

It was really cool!  Abby didn't love hiking but she also wasn't feeling great so I think that was a lot of it.  We just stayed on the rim so it wasn't hard and we only went 4 miles which should have been easy for her but she just wasn't happy.  

I love nature!

About halfway to the lookout point, Sara realized she had forgotten to change her shoes so she did the whole thing in her slides.  Dork!

I finally got Abby to join in the foot selfie taking.

We hiked back to the tent and had some downtime.  Sara laid in her hammock and we sat around the fire pit.  Then I decided we needed to drive and see the other look out places.

We found all the better camping spots when we drove to the edge of the east side of the canyon.  Next time we'll know better!  It was sooo pretty!  I can't believe I hadn't ever been here.

We also drove over to the west side of the canyon.   We could see the San Rafael river from there so that was cool!  It was all so pretty and amazing.  Love it!

At that point Abby couldn't handle not having a campfire so we had to go back to camp and build our fire. It was a little windy so we built up the rock around the pit and kept it pretty small until the fire died down. We were totally self sufficient and even chopped the wood into kindling and smaller pieces and then we let Sara start the fire.  It took her three matches, but she got it done!  Ha Ha.

We had a ton of fun roasting hot dogs and laughing and talking.  Abby and Sara thought that was the most fun part of the trip!

We were cozy inside our tent!  Well, I was cozy, everyone else got cold in the night.

The next morning we wanted to explore some more of the area.  We drove down Buckhorn wash to a wall of petroglyphs.  That was fun and Buckhorn wash was really pretty.  There were a ton of campsites along there too so we have lots of info for next time!

After the petroglyphs we continued down the wash to an old bridge that crossed the San Rafael.  Honestly, it wasn't that cool but it was fun to see new things!

We also stopped and saw a dinosaur track.

After that we drove home and were home in time to clean up, shower and get Sara to lacrosse practice!  Such a fun 30 hours!  I can't wait to go back.

2. Rocky Mouth falls.

Abby and I made it up Rocky Mouth for April!  This time we dragged Kate and Sara up with us.  I thought there would be at least a little bit of ice left, but there wasn't.  And the falls were pretty small, hopefully that isn't peak run off.  I've seen them much bigger and I think they'll get bigger.  We'll see what May brings!

3. Heugh's canyon and waterfall

I dragged Kate out of bed Friday morning so she could get a little elevation training in before the real Grand Canyon.  Heugh's is one of my favorite falls in the spring.  I love when training involves chasing waterfalls!

 

Two for today

1. Big news for this week was that I saw my shoulder doctor.  He was really pleased with the progress I have made in the last 6 weeks.  In fact, he said everything looks so good that I don't need to go back to see him unless something were to start going wrong!! He said everything is healed and even though it will still be a few months before I feel like it's back to normal, the surgery has accomplished what it was meant to!! Yay!  I am so excited to be moving forward.  I still have some strength to build and I still do a lot of stretching, but to know that I'm moving forward is such a relief.  Most of my recovery still comes in the form of building confidence in my shoulder, but each ride, each down dog, each time I put my shirt on properly builds more confidence.  I'm happy to be where I'm at because in January, I was worried I wouldn't ever get my range of motion back, much less confidence in my strength.  But through a lot of hard work and a lot of patience and a lot of pain from dry needling I've made a lot of progress!  Yay!

2. The other big news for the week was getting to travel to Del Mar with Jerry and all his co-workers who earned the trip.  It was a short trip, but so needed.  It was nice to just have time with Jerry and of course nice to be on the beach.  There is something so soothing about the beach and the waves and the sun on our skin!

The view from our balcony was pretty great.  

Thursday we boarded our plane at 11, then we had to get off our plane while they fixed something, and then we were able to get back on and finally make it to San Diego.  So only had time to walk along the beach before dinner, but we made up for that on Friday.  After breakfast we just went to the beach for the rest of the day.  I read, took a nap and played a lot of smash ball which went pretty well with my shoulder! I did not get in the water because I'm a little bit fair weather when it comes to water and it was nice to just sit and not have to worry about entertaining kids.  It took a few hours to just decompress.  If we'd had another day we definitely would have gotten wet suits and boogie boards, but I just needed some down time!

Saturday we went for a run on the beach.  Rough life!

Then we had time between checking out of our hotel and getting to the airport so we went to Torrey Pines state park.  I've looked into it many times since we've been going to San Diego but it just wasn't the right activity for the time every other trip.  It was perfect for just a few hours though.  It is a really pretty area and it's crazy to see the desert so close to the ocean.  It was weird to see Southern Utahlike hoodoos.  It was a fun cool place!

Razor's edge point.  Which if you took away the beach in the background didn't seemed a lot more like red rock Utah then you would think!

Yucca point.  We didn't really have time to hike down to Flat Rock or the beach but it was fun to see it all from above.  There were paragliders all around too and it was fun to watch them.  

It was such a good trip.  Super quick but it was so nice to have a chance to relax and take a breath with all the busyness going on!

 

Six on Sunday

I did it! I finally got caught up on my blog so I can do what I've been planning on doing.  A weekly recap of all the things.  Yay me! Ha ha

1. Field trip with Abby!  Abby was excited to get to go on a field trip again.  First one since Kindergarten. I went along and it was fun to be with her.  We went to the museum of natural curiosity which was super crowded and not my favorite museum but that's ok.  We had fun!

2. Jazz game with Jerry.  I finally got to go sit in his awesome work seats and they are awesome!  I had asked for him to reserve this game for me and him to go to because they were playing the Memphis Grizzlies and I really wanted to watch Ja Morant play.  He's so fun to watch.  Sadly, he wasn't playing but the game ended up being a really fun one.  They went into overtime and even pulled off the win. The Jazz have struggled but being there when they won was awesome!

3. Mini golf with Abby.  Abby wanted to keep score so we did.  It was super fun.  We had a lot of laughs together especially when she asked me how many strokes I had and I said, "That's my number 2."  She laughed a lot because when you're 9 poop jokes are funny. 😂  I wouldn't say I'm great at mini golf but I played the game to the best of my ability.  I even got a hole in one.  But Abby kept pulling out these amazing shots!  I told her she was doing that and she said, "Yeah, I just need to pull them out earlier."  Ha ha she says the funniest things.  When we added up the score for the round, she beat me by 1!!  She was so excited and I was a little surprised.  It was a fun day!

4. Jerry went on a gravel bike ride with a friend so it was just me and the girls for our Saturday activity.  We are all a little done with skiing on bad snow and the temps at the ski resort were not going to be spring-like so we decided to go biking.  I was pretty proud of a rack full of girl bikes and a car full of girls that did it all ourselves! Just me and my gurlz!

5.  People keep growing around here.  And by people I mean Sara and Abby.  Abby is going to pass us all soon. And Sara is thrilled to be barely 1/4 inch taller than me. 🤷🏽‍♀️

6. Girls on the Run.  I told Abby she had to choose an activity and she settled on Girls on the Run...if I would coach.  So I said I would.  I was curious about the program and we'll see how it goes.  This week was our first week.  It was fun.  About 10 minutes into the first lesson Abby leans over to me and says, "I hate this." 🤦‍♀️ Not what I was hoping for!  We were doing a name learning game and those are always awkward.  I hate them too, and when we got home and were talking about it, Kate and Sara said how much they hate them too. So I think that helped her feel better about it.  The lesson on Thursday went well and she said she had fun so I think it will be ok.  We'll try it out for the season at least and reassess.  I'm excited to do it with her and the 5k at the end will be fun!