On our way into Bryce Canyon, we did a little hike to Mossy Cave/Waterfall. We only went to the waterfall since the cave was closed. I have to admit that any hike is a challenge for me lately, but I made it up and back without help.
Our motel rooms were also a bit of a challenge, with little gnats in the rooms and uncomfortable beds, but they did have one redeeming quality...
This was definitely a hit! Inside that square red box, the kids found an ancient and flat basketball. They wanted so badly to play that they walked over to the office to see if the owner had a pump. Curly came back with a pump needle and a suggestion to head over to the gas station.
I remembered that we had an emergency kit we rarely used in the van and it just happened to have a pump in it. We attached the needed and within a couple of minutes it was GAME ON! We had so much fun playing even though the "ball" left our hands filthy after even one touch. See that chair over by the wide steps? The kids got tired of crawling under there to get the ball... you know, spiders and such... But everytime we went outside, Sport and Curly wanted to play again.
This is a random pic of Scout and Curly because I can't show you the best thing we did on the entire trip. About 9:00 on Sunday night, my sweetie had us all pile into the van. He said we were reading scriptures while he drove us into the dark night. As we finished, he pulled onto a side street and just kept driving into the middle of nowhere.
Then he stopped the van and told the kids to get out and leave their phones in the van.
You can imagine that they were pretty stressed, but they did as they were told and he turned off all the lights in the van.
None of them have ever seen the night sky shining so brightly! They picked out some constellations and the Milky Way. We even saw a shooting star! After about 20 minutes, we started getting cold, and the kids slowly made their way around in the dark to find the van door.
They were a much more subdued bunch as we climbed into the van to drive back to our shabby little motel rooms. Suddenly the universe seemed much bigger than our little family unit and those trivial things didn't seem so important anymore.
Great job, sweetie. Score one for the parents.
That does look like a great adventure, and you indeed found ways to play on it. I liked your hubby's suggestion and what happened there. The photos were fun, and I really liked the last one.
ReplyDeleteBlessings and hugs!