Southern Utah trip

Before Melanie broke her leg, she was planning to run to Bryce Canyon 1/2 marathon.  So my mom booked a little home in Orderville for the whole fam (minus Nathan and Danae b/c they had something with her family) so we could spend a couple days in Southern Utah all together.  Sadly after Melanie's tree incident, she wasn't able to run to the 1/2 marathon but we still had this trip planned so we went anyway.  When we arrived in Bryce canyon on Thursday it was a torrential downpour.  We drove around the whole park thinking it may let up but it really didn't that first day.  We walked briefly to some look-out points but other than that we pretty much stayed in the car.  

 The ponchos sure stayed handy!

 That night we checked into the little house in Orderville and hung out playing games and eating dinner while we stayed out of the rain. Luckily Andrew and Melanie are always prepared with lots of fun new games to play.

We were originally planning to go to Zions the 2nd day and do Angel's Landing and some bigger hikes but there were crazy flash floods in the park and most of it was closed off.  So we decided to head back to Bryce instead and it was beautiful weather there!  We went on a 5 mile hike with everyone down into the canyon and back up again. I don't think we knew it was that long but the kids did amazing and made it the entire way! It was a beautiful hike and so fascinating to see the incredible formations there.

 Aiden and Brennan were fighting for the first part of the trip so we made them hold hands to make up :)  

 Like always, Nate was a trooper and carried Graham the entire way.  And Callie every once in a while too :)

 The last day we were in Southern Utah we headed to Zions.  Half the park was still closed because of the damage the flash floods did but we were able to go on the little hike leading towards the Narrows.  It was only about a mile long and just the right amount for these kids after a long hike the day before.

We rode the tram around Zions for a bit too but only spent about half a day there because so much was closed.  Luckily we are going back for a week next summer for the Curtis family reunion so we'll get to do all those big hikes then. Even though the conditions weren't perfect for our trip, we had a great time enjoying the outdoors and spending time with my siblings that were in town!