Mammoth Cave, Cedar City

The other day at work the teacher in charge of experientials, which are what the girls do on Fridays instead of school to give them experience in what they learned about that week, asked me if I would do an experiential with the girls where hiking was involved. So today I went to explore the cave that she wants the girls to go to. It was kinda cool. I didn’t know that our red rock mountain had lava on the top of it. The cave that we went to is called Mammoth cave, they are lava tubes I guess. I’m not really sure exactly what they are, I guess that’s what our lessons will be on the week before this activity and I’ll get to learn all about them. I convinced a friend to go with me because well yeah no hiking alone.

The blog I read about the tubes said ‘I had knee pads they were helpful’, when it should have read you NEED knee pads if you like your knees at all. They were really cool and I’m glad I went before taking the girls up there. I there are four tubes to explore but two of them you have to crawl the whole time, we only did one of these, and the other two you can pretty much walk through. I’m excited to come back with girls who aren’t as adventurous as me and Steve and see how they do, there was a really big room a ways in to the big main cave and we turned off all our lights for complete darkness. I’m excited to do this with the girls.

I was having slight camera difficulties sorry some of them are blurry.     

The main cave

The white on the top is ice

Steve looking at the ice on the ceiling

Stalagmites of ice

More ice on the top of the cave

I was trying really hard to not blink. 

I guess I succeeded 

Getting out of the cave

This is the exit to the third tube we did. You could

walk all the way until the very end

Some panoramas just for fun, the first is a

 180* view and the second is a 360* view

Kanarraville Falls with Dylan

Somehow I forgot to blog about mine and Dylans trip to Kanarraville Falls sometime in April, I know it was after Zion’s and before he moved on the 27^th. Just me and him went and we had a lot of fun. We were reminded by a snake to tread lightly, and nature reminded us that April is not the time to go on a water hike. Our feet were frozen and it kinda turned into a game of lava, you know how you try not to step on the floor by jumping on all the furniture, well we kinda used the rocks that weren’t under water and balanced on them so that we wouldn’t get as cold. Since it’s been a month and a lot has happened since then that’s all I remember about this trip. Most importantly I just remember it was fun and quiet.  

Here is a video of how we managed to not have to wade in the

waist high water.

Maximizing Cousin Time

This weekend was AWESOME! I wanted to maximize cousin time so I drove home after work and got home around 11 pm to all the Smiths awake and waiting to maximize their cousin time too.

Then Friday Lauren, Parker, Kate and I rode scooters and longboards to Mapleton park, Elle was Elle and didn’t want to come.  We brought tennis racquets and snacks and had a great time. Sadly there are no pictures of our adventure because I left my phone at home. I told them that we were just throwing it back to the 90’s for the day so instead I will paint a picture of all the fun we had. At the park there is this thing that you can hold onto that if you can touch the ground you can spin it, kinda like a merry go round but you hang, so I was spinning it with Lauren and Kate on it and Parker wanted on so he walked up to it to jump on but he missed then Lauren and Kate both kicked him with their feet as they swung around. We also played some tennis. At first it was just sad, we could not hit the ball back over the net, but as time went on we all got much much better. Kate had some really good hits, and Parker and Lauren made quite the team, they were pretty good at getting the ball back over to me and Kate. When me and Dylan were little we used to climb this huge tree in the park but I guess since then they made an attempt to make it climb proof, yeah that of course did not stop us. I boosted Parker and Kate up to climb the tree, they had a blast! Parker loved it, he went all the way to the top. We had a blast at the park!

We went home and went to In-N-Out for lunch. I learned a new game on our adventure, traveling with the Smiths has got to be the most exciting way to have a trip ever. The game we played was called the what game, the only rule is you can’t say what, oh and your only goal is to get everyone else to say what. BEST ride from In-N-Out to Macys grocery ever! The Dollar Store is right next to the grocery store so of course we went and played in the dollar store. Parker wanted to get some pop-its so I said sure everyone can get one thing, but make it fast before your mom and dad come and say no. So Elle was taking her time and changing her mind like every five seconds, so I was like Elle choose now we need to check out before your mom and dad come and get us. So we go to check out and the cashier looks at Lauren and goes is someone over 18 here? Parker looks at me and goes aren’t you like 24? I assured her we were old enough to buy sparklers. We left the dollar store with just enough time to play with the toys before Nedra and Dustin came out of the store.  Then we went home and got ready for Kate’s baptism.

Lauren and I played a special musical number for Kate’s baptism, everyone liked it, even if we did mess up and I forgot to count. Later that night we played the candy bar game. Nothing like a good ‘friendly’ game with the whole family squished around one table. I did see a camera flash, I have no clue whose camera or who was taking them but they are out there, they exist.

Then even later that night I took Myia and Lauren to go get Myia’s temple recommend but first to get slushies.

Now it is finally bed time, and I realize that when you write out all that we did in one day it’s no wonder I was beat! That was one very cousin filled day!

Saturday the Smiths had to start their adventure to Cali so of course we needed to figure out a way to stall that you couldn’t say no to so we went to do baptisms for the dead. I mean, who says no to cousins going to the temple together? After we got back from the temple they sadly had to depart.

Here are the few pictures that I did manage to get.

During the candy bar game I was 

still wearing the hat 90's style

Parker annoying Elle.

Oh yeah I forgot that Uncle Dylan gave Kate some of the

confetti filled eggs. Let's just say some of them ended up

with confetti in their pants!

Early morning temple trip

After we got out of the temple we took more pictures

And the BEST perk of going home

 Aunties homemade jalapeno bread!