City of Rocks

For UEA weekend we decided to head up north and go see the City of Rocks in Idaho.  Bump and I had never been there before and thought it would be fun to go explore a new place with the kids.  At first we had talked about camping, but after checking out the temperatures we decided to find a hotel instead.  We ended up finding a Super 8 in Burley that had a swimming pool.  The kids were thrilled!

Some friends of ours (Curtis and Lyndsay Hancock) were going to be there for the weekend anyway because of an 80th birthday party, so we decided to go up together.  They spent the first night in the hotel so all the kids could play and swim together and then spent the next night with family in the area.

We got to Burley on Thursday night and immediately hit the swimming pool.  We played and swam until we were all wrinkled and water logged.  Then headed to Jack in the Box for a very healthy dinner. :)

The next morning we got up and headed out to the City of Rocks National Reserve.  We stopped at the Visitor Center and watched a short video about the park and the pioneers that stopped here on their way to California along the California trail.  We got a map of the best hike to take with the kids and then went exploring.

 We stopped to take a picture with all of us at the entrance.

Curtis, Lyndsay, Levi, Katelynn, Quincy, Ema, Gabby, Me, Luke, Corban and Bump

We love these guys!  Our kids each have a best friend in their family. 

 Corb and his buddy Luke.  

They were very busy collecting all kinds of pretty amazing rocks!

 Katelynn and Quincy (it was a bit windy)

 Ema and Gabby

 Some of the large rocks in the park have immigrant signatures.  They signed their names with axel grease.  The names have faded quite a bit and are mostly gone, but it's still neat to see the ones still there.

 We went on a really great hike!  We took our time and stopped to take lots of pictures.  The hike was not long (only about a mile) and we only made one wrong turn that took us off into a valley where there really wasn't a trail.  We finally turned around and found the trail again.  It was a fun adventure for the kids.  The weather was perfect!  It wasn't hot and it only got chilly a few times and sweatshirts were perfect.

 Curtis' sister, Sundi, came with them (on the right).  She just moved back to Utah from Virginia. 

She was nice.

 At the end of the trail the path went up and someone had built stone steps along the trail.  We had to stop a take a picture of all the kids from youngest to oldest.

 We love these guys!  We were so happy to have them with us on this trip!

Me and Lyndsay.  

She is fabulous!  We watch each others kids, carpool together, workout together, split boxes of chicken when they are on sale and much more!  She is an amazing mother, a good example for me and a great friend! 

 I didn't take pictures the first night when everyone was swimming, but I snapped a few on the second night before I got into the pool.  We had it to ourselves both nights and the water was nice and warm.

On Saturday morning we got up and headed to Bump's parents house to watch BYU play Notre Dame in football.  It was a good game.  Nice and close, but we should have won!!  

Overall it was a great weekend!  We had fun and will definitely go back to the City of Rocks again!