the bloomin' desert: days 1-2

okay, so I guess it's about time to start telling about our little trip last week before it gets too far behind. Jim's parents decided it was high time for a Jackson family vacation, and they thought a-cruising we should go. wahoo! but we didn't need to be to the ship in LA until Monday afternoon, so we thought we might as well make the most of the weekend and take the kids to Zion on our way. Besides, we reasoned that anything we could do to break up the drive to cali had to be a good thing. we're all about surivival here.

I will say that the kids did such a good job in the car - it gives me hope for future car trips. once again, we took the emergency barf kit along and didn't have to use it once! if that's not success...I don't know what is. AND we didn't watch movies the whole way, either. another success. actually, this experience confirmed what we had heard, but hadn't known to be true yet, which is that kids grow up! holy cannoli! call me a bad mother if you want, but wow. that's such a relief.

so we rolled into Zion Saturday afternoon. Romney started shouting, "we're in Goblin Valley! we're in Goblin Valley!" it took a little convincing to get Romney to believe that we were in Zion, and not in Goblin Valley as he'd thought. we'd told the kids we were going to Zion National Park, but they looked pretty confused when we said, "we're here!" and finally one of them asked, "but where are the swings?" a little explanation later, we hopped on one of those nifty shuttle buses (serious highlight for Romney, well, that and the REALLY BIG ROCKS) and headed into the park.

We, not being quite as ambitious as some of you out there, opted for the mellow Emerald Pools hike (over, say, Angel's Landing! yeah, maybe in 10 years. Maybe.) The kids hiked the whole way! I was equally proud of them for walking themselves and happy for not to having to carry them. actually, they really ran (and sometimes danced) the whole way. Turns out that playing tag along the trail is really motivating. Hide and seek works well too. I also recommend bringing along a creative and energetic husband!

the desert was absolutely and incredibly gorgeous - everything was in bloom. Laine is turning into quite the photographer, and wanted to stop every other minute to photograph every flower she saw, and the blooming cactus in particular. yep, that's my girl! Romney was way more interested in the sand, the rocks, the water, and especially all three in combination.

the next morning, we drove through the very long tunnel (Laine snapped pictures the whole time, which added up to lots of black photos - one more reason to love digital cameras) and found some sweet slickrock to scramble around on for a while. the kids were in heaven, and would have been happy to stay and play all day if we could.
this whole outing brought back so many fun memories of doing these same kinds of things in the same kinds of places with my own family - I cannot describe how happy it makes me to be continuing this tradition with my kids, AND that they love it so much. long live trips to the desert!

stay tuned for the next installment of the trip.

*my apologies for a completely inconsistent pattern of capitalizing the beginnings of my sentences. apparently I'm losing the english major edge because I just don't care enough to fix it.