MOAB, MOAB, MOAB

We headed down to Moab to camp for Spring Break this year. We got really lucky for quite a few reasons...We had a great bunch down there--the Bakers from our ward went with, and Aunt Cathryn and 2 of the cousins. We happened to catch the BLM office just a few minutes after someone canceled their reservation on the one of the better campsites in the area (Big Bend campsite C), so we had and AWESOME spot. AND we had fantastic weather. The first day little Dylan wasn't so lucky. He accidently touched a cactus on purpose. Again luckily, Aunt Cathryn morphed into her work persona, "Nurse Cathy" and got us all taken care of. We had a blast!!


Happy again...

Dress Ups

The next weekend after our trip to Arizona, the arizona cousins came up for Grant (Alan's boy)'s baptism. They stayed with us and had fun dressing up.

miles and miles

We know the drive home from Snowflake well. It starts like this:

The complete monotony of the landscape is occasionally broken by notable exceptions like this:

but we've seen it before. many times.

trying to conserve gas, we took the camry, so we were closer than usual in the back seat.

the camera provides some relief back there...

the contours of the land slowly change:

in to the hills of the canyons.

and now for my favorite view--the windmills mean we are almost home. i love to see them at the end of a long, safe trip!

Cousins Pool Party

After the baptism,we had a cousin's pool party. The kids did a lot of jumping:

Little Bit got baptized!!

We drove down to Arizona for my niece, Samantha's, baptism. She has gotten to be such a big girl! I remember how tiny she was when she was born--TEENY! That's why they call her "Little Bit." She looked beautiful in her white dress.

I was proud of Maddy, who played prelude music for the program. She told me she was "really uncomfortable," but I told her that is how it always is. She did great!

Here are all the Arizona Rencher kids! And there is one on the way, another boy!!

Samantha and the folks:

"Dad" "cleaning up" after lunch:

Something to do while we eat...

School Concert

Nick was really into singing the Christmas songs at the school concert. You can see all of his classmates are super engaged. Happy, smiling Christmas-sy faces. So happy to be singing for the parents.
Dylan's group on the other hand, really WAS excited. They had colored little hippos and glued them to tongue depressors to wave around for the song "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas."
Really cute. Until the kid next to Dylan got too excited and smacked him accidentally in the face. This is the only picture I have where Dylan isn't crying. Nice.

Its beginning to look alot like Christmas...

Every where you go...