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.

Colors

Driving in the dark, the near-dawn, to begin hiking the Narrows:

The anonymity of duskiness brings a slow blink, a nod of the head, a study of the car interior. Eyes raise, and the sudden shift of the environment shedding its monotone shocks, unnerves, and then delights.


Strokes of watercolor percolate through the rock--streaks of sunrise and sunset, blue haze wafting off the trees and far peaks, junipers exhaling indigo to slurp up the sandy stone smudges. The rim of the sky embraces the leafy colors seeping upward, against gravity, and the domed sky swishes upward as the cloth is whisked away, first white and yellow, then orange, pink, sloughing away to leave the powdery blue of a dawn sky.

The sky recedes and the sun reveals the stony pigments blasted into the rocks, deep-seated color like kilned ceramics. But, blocked from the sun's radiance, the creviced blue shadows siphon the hues from the stone, wicking them back to air and sky.  

As tones become hardened by the sun's entrance, the scrubby flora emblazons gold, scarlet, and bronze onto the landscape. Orgasmic leaves boast their own brilliance, confident in their breath-taking, almost unnatural richness, until the sun overwhelms and incinerates the now curling, ash-light foliage. 

  It is too much to bear. Sunrise deceives us, portrayed so often as a calm, peaceful, moment of yawning and potential, of waking. As I watch it emerge through my window I am hard-pressed, breathless, stunned. The earth falls prey, surrendering its brushstrokes of innocence to the sun's savagery. We also fall prey to this celestial tyrant, intent on exposing beauty, pursuing it to the climatic moment when it is consumed. 

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.

First Camping Trip

We began this summer off with high hopes of camping bi-weekly, hiking every Saturday, swimming during the week, etc. etc. etc.  We were NOT that ambitiously engaged by the third week...but still managed to have fun. We went camping twice and have one more trip in the works. These are some shots from Rosie's first camping trip.  She looks like a hobo, actually...but a very cute hobo :) 

Her accomplice is of of her best friends, parents' choice :) But seriously, they have now gotten over their fears of each other and had a blast getting dirty together.  Carrie is 2 months older than Rosie--not that you would know it to see our giant girl next to this 40% percentile pixie...

(I would DEFINITELY recommend the Timpanogos campground right above Aspen Grove to young family campers--their fire-pits are guarded from little ones by big cement walls (but still accessible with parents' help) AND they had flushing toilets--such a big plus!!!)

Rosie LOVED the hot-dog roasters, and got to use her favorite words of the time: "up" and "down" (it made roasting anything pretty difficult, but she sure was cute!)

Rosie did great on her first hike!  4 miler to Stuart Falls and back.

Our family...and one AWESOME hat :)

SO glad she has more hair now--it's amazing what 3 months will do!!

Next step: teaching Rosie to sleep in a tent...no wonder we haven't gone camping since, I can't pull all-nighters with my crazy baby like I did in college (sans baby, of course, those sleepless nights were by my own volition). 

First week

We've been getting complaints for not uploading ANY pictures of Rosie since the hospital, So here is a smattering or those of you who would like to see her.  Confession, I've been putting this off because we keep taking pictures of her and, in my mind, they don't look like her - trust me, biased mother that I am, that she is infinitely more adorable in real life than in any of these snapshots!  Maybe I need a better camera???

She loves the car and her stroller.  This is on the way home from the hospital and she was happy the whole way.  Now she mostly sleeps when she gets in the car :)

This is her in her new room, on her very first night.  A little to much pink, perhaps...

I couldn't capture her cuteness on camera, so here is a taste of her personality - she makes the most entertaining faces.  Since her very first moments she has loved to stick her tongue out.

She is definitely our little diva - she strikes poses that would put most runway models to shame.

Hopefully I look more happy than tired in this picture...I have been learning as of this week to take naps with her during the day...but that usually means I have to skip my 'take a shower' opportunity....

Here's a shot of Daddy multi-tasking (putting Rosie to sleep as he brushes his teeth). You can get a view of our nursery (more pictures to follow), including the hide-away-bed-couch's mattress that we slept on for her first week.  Dustin is so patient with his slightly paranoid and hormonal new-mother wife.  He cheerfully slept on it with me with only a few humorous cracks at my expense (like being 6 feet closer to her really kept her from rolling over and suffocating in her sleep...I have since chilled out and we have moved back to our bed, much to Dustin's liking).

Tummy time is Daddy's favorite thing to do with his new little girl.  She...mostly likes it.  For a few seconds.  Then she usually starts screaming and face-planting into the blanket in frustration with her much-too-eager parents.  But since week #1 she's been able to flip her head from side to side (a great accomplishment in our book - oh, the pathetic-ness of new parents!)

Again, gotta love this girl's faces!!!

Bath-time has been fun.  She doesn't much like being doused with water, but she loves getting her hair/head washed and being dried off in her towel might be her favorite hobby to date.

 She has managed some fun outings so far - both Grandma's houses, fishing at Utah Lake, doctor's offices, walks to the parks - can't wait to take her hiking and train-riding later this summer!

 

She does still sleep through most of her adventures... but we still love doing things as a family.  Disregard the dirty laundry behind us and the sleep-deprived faces.  That is one happy baby and an incredibly blessed and happy family!  What a great life!!!!