Moab

We got back from our vacation to Moab on Tuesday and I wanted to post some pictures of the things that we did. I have a hard time narrowing down the pictures, so this is a long post, but here is a bunch of pictures from our trip. (Click on each picture for a bigger version)

Hailee was actually excited to get in the car for the 5 hour drive, she knew that it was Grandpa's car that we borrowed and she thought it would be fun. Plus she does a "Full Body Cheese" every time she sees the camera.

She actually did excellent on the drives to and from Moab, throw in a movie and she is good to go. We bought two new movies for her, Lilo and Stitch and Chicken Little, she watched each of them several times and didn't want to watch anything else.

One of the first places we went was Dead Horse Point, it's just outside of Moab and offers spectacular views. Hailee had fun climbing around on all of the rocks, she did take quite a spill and scraped herself up pretty good. From that point on she kept saying "The Point hurt me" or "The Point gave me an owie" It was pretty funny.

Brooke and Hailee at "The Point"

We also ventured to Canyonlands National Park, it was raining a little bit but we didn't let it stop us. We went on a little hike even in the rain. We found that Hailee really loves to hike.

We hiked up to Mesa Arch, it's just a little walk really, but Hailee hated being in her backpack. She just loved to walk around and play on all the rocks. Of course due to the many thousand foot cliff that's on the other side of the arch we forced her to get in the backpack so she wouldn't go running off.

Hailee was really excited to see any sort of wildlife, she chased some lizards and thought this crow in the background was pretty cool.

Because she liked hiking so much, she thought it was fun to try on my hiking boots. Of course she is already very into shoes and tries on shoes anywhere she goes. No matter the size.

We went to the Moab Arts Festival at the park over the weekend and one of the highlights was being able to play on the blow up toys at the park. Brooke enjoyed the roasted corn on the cob and we had fun just hanging out at the park.

Hailee was very excited because at the park they had a "Teeter Tot", she has one at her day care and loves to play on it. She thought it was pretty cool to also make Mom and Dad play on it with her and make sure to sit on each of the 4 different animals.

I did get a few minutes to take a bike ride, I was in Moab it's a sin not to ride a bike. I road the Bar M trail and the Circle O loop in the middle of it. It's an easy trail and worked out perfect to ride during Hailee's nap.

We went to Arches National Park and took a minute to check out Balanced Rock. Of course Hailee loved running around but has proven to be quite a clutz, even walking around on a paved trail she had quite an amazing trip onto her stomach and somehow had enough force to flip her body over.

We took the hike up to Delicate Arch and it proved to be quite challenging. There is a lot of steep parts of the trail and it rises quite a bit in a short time. It's a long 1.5 miles to the top. Hailee didn't want to be in her backpack again and walked most of the trail herself. She also thought it was fun to drink out of the camelback.

Brooke and I had a hard time keeping up with Hailee's little legs. She just kept going up and up the trail, she did great and took so many steps she almost wore out a pair of shoes on this hike alone.

Of course I had to carry the empty backpack that she refused to ride in.

We eventually made it to the top and had lunch at the arch. There were tons of people up there and it was really difficult to get a picture without anyone else in it. But here is proof, we made it.

Hailee showing off some of the injuries she sustained on the hikes we went on. She is pretty tough, she falls and gets lots of scrapes and bruises but it doesn't seem to slow her down for more than a few seconds.

Moab has a nice little trail through town, so we took a leisurely bike ride to...

The ice cream shop of course. Cleverly named Kaleidescoops.

Hailee has so much energy it's amazing. She just ran everywhere we went, I think she had fun being in so many new places.

We drove almost 300 miles and of course one of Hailee's favorite activities was to go to the park and play on the slides.

In Moab they have this weird Hippie park with all sorts of musical instruments built out of used and recycled stuff. It's actually kind of cool and you can hear the sounds all over the park. It's not usually a lot of real music because it's a lot of kids Hailee's age that just love to bang on the pipes randomly. She had fun though.

And as we were packing to go home, Hailee occupied herself by making a train of matchbox cars. We packed up and headed home. It was a fun trip and I think we all had a good time, we were plagued with some bad weather and some weird bad luck but all in all things turned out really good.