Moab 2016

This blog began as a type of travelogue, and was hopefully going to document our world travels. We DO have an international trip coming up (yay!) but first here's a record of our traditional, closer-to-home travel. Moab, UT is a fantastic place for outdoor activities, be that porch-sitting or canyoneering. It's a family tradition (thank you, Grandma and Grandpa Fuller) to participate in their Spring 5-mile/Half marathon race and then head to Arches National Park, the La Sal mountain range, or any number of lesser-known hiking/site-seeing spots.

Moab

  In March we took another family vacation--Arches National Park. We were in Moab for a race (just the five-miler--no half marathon this year!) and took a day off work to make it a long and highly anticipated weekend.

  It became our first parental experience with vomit in the car. (no graphic photos included)  Sometimes I am so clueless as a mom. We got up early to head down to Moab with our first stop being Provo bakery. What fun parents, right? Rosie was super excited to see the donuts and chose a heavily sprinkled specimen--and then in the course of ten minutes only managed to consume three sprinkles. For anyone who has seen the manifestation of Rosie's inherited sweet-tooth, this should have been a red flag. But no, we drove off (and happily consumed her donut for her). Halfway there she starts crying and telling me she has to go potty and that her stomach hurts and then the moment comes and my mom-stincts finally kick in and I start shouting "Where is a bag, where is a bag, DUSTIN WHY DON'T WE HAVE A BAG IN OUR CAR?!?!?!?!!" And up it comes before I find anything and out comes my lightning-fast mom hand and the damage is done. Luckily she'd felt too sick to have much in her stomach so the mess was mostly isolated to her clothes and car seat. I'll leave the rest up to your imagination except for commenting that the girl is tough and managed to have her only other vomit-related moment while in a national park visitor's center bathroom. What a rock star.

Even sick, Rosie tackled the rocks like a champ.

I can't believe how quickly my kids are growing up. Sara was walking as a 9-month-old so every moment we spent out of the car she wanted to be on the ground and modeling her cute baby-waddle without our helping hands. Needless to say, our hiking was pretty slow.

Arches National Park is breathtaking, and even when our feet got tired, we were all loving the view.

And we got to meet up with some of our best friends and enjoy the parks together...well, honestly, we spent most of our time together in the hotel room. Their 3 year old managed to get sick on their way over from Colorado, so our sickies and babies preferred games and chatting and eating yummies in the hotel.

But it was a fun trip and one we hope to do again soon! Moab is stunning and lifelong friends are hard to come by.

Fun with family

  This is just catch-up from the first 3 or 4 months of the year. Why? Because 2013 has been awesome to us in so many ways.  And these are just a few of the fun highlights.  Gotta keep the memories alive.

   Dustin's family enjoys an annual tradition of pulling out the snow bibs and heading to the slopes each winter.  It was during one of these outings eight years ago or so that Dustin (with help from his Dad and against my natural tendencies) taught me to ski. Except one awesome trip with my roommate Bonnie and our friend Mason where I snowballed down the hill and almost died against a brick wall (great story, since I have obviously survived) every trip up the mountains trailing skiing gear has been with my in-laws. And though you'll never see me on a black diamond run, I do get an adrenaline thrill every time!

(older brother Jared and younger sister Kristiann)

    Fun snaps taken after Dustin took Rosie on a run in our new jogging stroller we got for Christmas (winter running with a kid is DEFINITELY not the funnest way to spend your time, but the snow suit is just so much fun to use). Very glad for the stroller now that Dustin and I are planning on running my first (his what, 3rd?) marathon this fall...now if I would only get out and use it...

   Sigh...the night I learned why I should never gamble. Dustin's work through a party, part of which was an intro to Vegas games with each guest provided with a $500 chip. I was a daring and luck-enthused natural and quickly doubled my earnings...and kept on getting more! Took a break for a delicious dinner, went back to the tables, and promptly won all of my winnings--Dustin luckily ruled out continuing once I reached my original $500 chip. So I broke even on the night, but am grateful that I do not live any closer to Vegas and that Dustin is so wise and level-headed (except during one-on-one games with each other).

   Rosie's first time swimming!  Where: motel pool in Moab with the cousins. She thought it was the best thing ever, and my shaking, just-finished-a-half-marathon muscles were glad to be in the pool as well :) 

   Whew!  That gets us through March. April was mostly me stressing out and losing sleep doing research for final papers and grading my students' projects (yay! first semester teaching college English ACCOMPLISHED!). Enough with the check-off-catch-up posts--on to bigger and better things! (and a few more of Rosie...if nobody minds?)