Okay, I know that I said that our trip to Zion National Park would be my next post, but I forgot that we made a pit stop along the way and the photos are just to beautiful not to share. 🙂  On our drive from Arches to Zion, we made a little detour and ventured into the Grand Staircase-Escalante.  We weren’t sure what we would find, but we were pleasantly surprised when we stumbled across this little gem!

If you’ve never been to a slot canyon, you need to add it to your bucket list!  This one wasn’t very long and the water was never more than an inch deep.  I’ve seen photos of some that you have to wade through waist-deep waters!  This was more my speed. 🙂

Part of the canyon was blocked and we had to hike up the side and scale along this ledge before we could get across.  Lucky for me, this guy is pretty agile and he helped me get up and over.

We can’t wait to take the kids back here one day!  They would have so much fun making their way through the canyon and splashing in the water long the way.  It really was an unexpected treat on our road trip.  Up next, Zion National Park (for real this time!).

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My husband and I celebrated our 20 year anniversary last July.  We flew to Denver, CO, rented a car, and then drove to 4 different national parks in 12 days.  We put a lot of miles on that rental, but it was an unforgettable trip!  We can’t wait for the kids to get a little older so that we can take them back.  Maybe not all 4 in the same trip though! 🙂

Up first on our itinerary was Arches National Park in Utah.  I will say this about each of the parks that we visited – my photos don’t do them justice.  If you ever have a chance to visit any of these in person, DO IT!!  The scenery was breath-taking.

This was the entrance to the lodge that we stayed at the first two nights.  All decked out for the 4th of July holiday.  We got up early the next morning and went horseback riding.  It was really hot that day, but I’m so glad that we decided to do it.  We were able to wander through the mountains and get a different view of the area.

After our horseback riding adventure, we drove over to Arches National Park.  Let me tell ya, it did not disappoint!  The entire area is so beautiful.  I wanted to take pictures of EVERYTHING!  Here are a few of my favorites.

Is it just me or does this remind you of the Flintstone’s? 😉

Next stop on the tour is Zion National Park.  Stay tuned!

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So, I realize that Spring Break was just last month for most of us, but I am so far behind on my blog posts that I am just now getting around to posting pics from last year’s Spring Break trip!  Maybe I’ll have photos from this year’s trip ready for you all to see before Christmas.  🙂

We spent Spring Break at a beach house in Florida and my parents were able to fly down from CA to hang out with us.  The weather was all over the place.  We were there for a full week and half of the time was hot and sunny and the other half was cloudy and too cold for me to venture into the water.  My kids never think it’s too cold to go swimming though!

My boy is the king of the sand hill!

My kids had the best time with my parents.  I definitely think that it’s time to plan another beach vacation with the grandparents!

Time to build a sand castle.  Just look at their concentration.  🙂

This day, we decided to go in reverse and instead of building up the sand, we dug a trench and the kids pretended to be waiters.  It’s hard to tell from this angle, but the trench was deep enough that my son could just peek his eyes over the wall.

We rented a house right on the beach between Destin and Seaside, along Hwy 30-A.  It was so nice being able to walk right out and set up “camp” for the day.  Then we could easily head back inside for lunch and restroom breaks, which is HUGE when you’re vacationing with kiddos.  I would definitely go back to this location again!

In keeping with my theme of blogging about super old vacations, today I’m sharing our trip to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida.  My husband had a conference in Orlando last February, so we decided to pull my oldest out of school for a couple of days and tag along with him and make some memories.

This was my son’s first time to a theme park and he absolutely loved it!  He was tall enough to ride a lot of the rides, although he did miss out on our favorites that were at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  I guess that means we’ll just have to go back again.  🙂

While my son, who was 3 at the time, loved meeting all of the characters, my daughter’s favorite part was the rides.  Especially those in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter because she loves all things HP!  Unfortunately I didn’t get a lot of pictures of this part of the park because we were too busy riding all of the rides.

Both kids enjoyed picking out their wizard wands from Olivander’s and walking around, casting spells.  Since our son wasn’t tall enough to ride some of the rides, my husband and I took turns taking our daughter on them.  Which means she got to ride everything twice!