My Favorite National Park (so far) - Zion, Utah

I love America's National Parks.  I would love to visit every single one of them if I could.  In particular, there are several in the Northwest I'd like to visit.  So far, though, my absolute hands-down favorite has been Zion, Utah.  Paul and I went there pre-kids as part of a whirlwind driving-camping trip that included the Grand Canyon, Sequoia, and Death Valley.

Had I known how incredibly awesome Zion is, we'd have spent more time there.

Red rock, everywhere.  The desert has a particular smell to it.  The smell of dry heat, of red rock, of sand and shrubs.

One of the biggest highlights of Zion was going to see the petroglyphs.  No lie - I have probably 20 pictures of the petroglyphs.  I just love them!

This one shows some horned goats or antelopes, with hunters behind them.

And this one shows jumping men, squiglys, spirals, and other symbols

They actually keep the petroglyphs out of common knowledge as much as possible in Zion.  They aren't advertised.  When you go there, you won't see much about them.  They don't want idiots harming them.  We were lucky enough to know about the petroglyphs before our trip, so that we could track them down.

I love the exotic flowers and cacti that you find in the desert as well.  I have a lot of cactus pictures!

While in Zion, we had to pick and choose our hikes since we weren't there long.  We did a short hike up to Weeping Rock.

And then of course we hiked parts of The Narrows, a river bed surrounded by red canyon walls.

As hot as it would get during the days, the nights would be cool.  We camped in the National park, our campsite on a sheet of hard, baked red clay.  When we lay down for the night the tent was stuffy, but it didn't take long for the winds to pick up and cool things off.  The wind blew all night long, and as a result I slept so deeply.

My hope is that one day we can return.  And this time spend more time there.  They actually have a marathon in this region of Utah, known to be a Boston Qualifier for the fact that it is all downhill.  That sounds like it'd be really tough on the quads - but I bet the scenery would make up for it!

How do Shrimp and Trains and Running go together?

This past weekend we went to a shrimp boil that was a merging of the cultures.  The train and running cultures that is.  The current president of my running group, The Star City Striders, is also involved in a miniature train club.  And so it was only natural that the two organizations came together for a summer shrimp boil.

As much as I adore shrimp (and all things seafood), I couldn't help thinking a time or two with sadness of the oil spill.  Total downer.

Luckily, there were mini trains running all over the place to bring back the smiles.

Check out Pierce in train delight.  This picture just totally cracks me up.  Is it just me, or is that dog up front driving and grinning from ear to ear?

Paul and I took turns.  Riding trains vs. Managing Grumpy Twins.

Guess which one was more relaxing.

Although on the managing grumpy twins side of things, there was some very nice bluegrass music.  Which completes one of my summer bucket list items (yay!)

I think Pierce may have had the time of his life.  After riding both the trains at least 5 times each (and there was a TUNNEL in the loop for added coolness) he certainly didn't want to go home.

If there's anything more exciting than riding trains for a 3 year old boy, let me know, because I haven't found it yet.

Muffin Tin Monday - Loving the Grill

It's Muffin Tin Monday again.  Check out the cute muffin tin my mom found at a thrift store for us!

This is a typical summer-style meal at our house.

Watermelon, bean-spinach-tomato salad with a lime/olive oil vinagrette, grilled corn on the cob, and a hot dog.

I think Pierce's favorite food in the whole entire world is corn on the cob.  He was eating it at a very early age off the cob and never stopped.

Want to join in on MTM?  Click:

Now, just for Wendiwinn, Elvis Lives!

I did not put him up there, by the way.  Apparently, Elvis has decided it is his chickenly duty to be a guard bird.  So now he perches on this bear carving by our front door.  He actually sleeps there at night - I look out the door in the morning and there he is.  He definitely has a way of wigging out guests, who think that he's fake until they get close.  Good thing he's not prone to attack birding, huh?

I ran a 5K but don't ask me how I did

On July 3rd I ran a local race.  It's normally held on the 4th, but since the 4th was on a Sunday this year they had the race the day before.  We (thankfully) had a little break in the weather so it wasn't as dreadfully hot as normal. 
This race was a 5K.  I don't generally like 5Ks, as I'm not a speedy person, but they do serve for an excellent speed workout.  This was my first 5K since the twins so I didn't expect much from it.
The race went well enough.  I tried to keep my friend Trina in sight, as she was just ahead of me, but I lost her after the first mile.  I got to scope out a few yard sales along the route.
My ob/gyn, who is a runner (why else would I have picked him? ;-)) passed me around the halfway point.  He had been running with his kids.  He has 10 of them!

I'm in the white tank w/ purple shorts.

At the start of mile 2 I had to see two different teenagers puking.  I tried to shield my eyes.  I am the world's biggest puke wuss and I hate to see/hear/smell/think about it. 
I stayed pretty consistent throughout I think.  I hit mile 1 at 8:10, mile 2 at 16:50 and mile 3 at ????  What?  I don't know my time?
Nope.  No clue.  See, I don't wear a watch to run.  I get picked on a lot because of this, but I don't want to be constantly worrying about it.  I run by 'feel'.  That's good enough for me.  But I do like to know my time at the end of the race.  I can say with assurance that I was faster than my personal 5K worst (29:11) and slower than my personal best (23:00).  I was somewhere in the 25 minute time zone.
But what about the time clock?  Nope, no time clock at this race.  And there was a guy doing the timing as I crossed the finish, but he wasn't yelling out the time for me.
But what about the online results?  Right.  Well, that's where I expected to find out my time.  So I started checking the results online the next day.  Nothing.  Nothing the day after that.  Or the day after that.  Finally, a week later, I found some results.  They said MEN'S RESULTS.  But where were the women's results?  Ah yes, a little footnote said, "Women's results coming soon".  Um, is putting race results in a pdf file rocket science?  I mean, I don't know, I've never tried it, but it must be very, very technical, huh?

Why Life with a 3 Year Old Can Drive You Crazy

This week we decided to head to Amazement Square with grandmother Cat Cat.  A day trip for us.  Drives with Pierce are currently an issue, because inevitably he wants 5 million things in his carseat, then drops them all on the floor and freaks out.  On this trip, my charming, albeit devious, child learned that if he drops something he can circumnavigate my typical response of "You'll just have to wait until we get there" by dramatically and emphatically screeching "I HAVE TO GO POTTY!!!!"

We made it in one piece to Amazement Square and I am now wise to Pierce's potty tricks.  No matter how dire he makes the situation appear.

The very first thing we discovered in the museum was this tractor in the 'barn' section.

Pierce is always waiting, waiting, waiting for Daddy to finish mowing our epic-huge yard.  So he was psyched to get to mow himself and did.not.want.to.share with other kids.

The museum is 4 stories tall, so my mother and I finally managed to drag him away to go see what else there was to see.  And there was a lot.  Boats and roller coaster ball drops:

To which Pierce said, "I want to go mow".

Cort and Reid relaxed in the stroller.  They didn't say "We want to go mow".  Instead, they watched the drama unfold, and secretly wished I'd roll them past the clear elevator box again, which they loved observe.

We milked a cow and excavated for archaelogical finds.

And Pierce said, "I want to go MOW!"

We played doctor and used our heartbeats to make the drum go BOOM BOOM.

And Pierce said, "I WANT TO GO MOW!"

Hey Pierce!  Look!  You can go in this room and PAINT THE WALLS!!!

"I WANT TO GO MOW!"

Look Pierce!  You can float boats down this river! 

"I WANT TO GO MOW!"

But wait!  A zip line!  You know you want to do the zip line.  It's just like Diego!

"BUT I WANT TO GO MOW!"

My response?

Pierce, you sound just like your father.

His response?

"It's not time to go home yet.  I have to mow"

Memory Lane Friday - A Game

Memory Lane Friday is a weekly blog carnival to preserve your memories for your family.  Each week has a different topic, but you are welcome to write about any memory you'd like and link in.  This week's theme is "A Game".  Any type of game.  Board games, football games, Atari games, kick the can - you name it!

The game I remember we just called 'the coffeepot game'.

I think we got this game from a book of car games that we had for long road trips (we had a little RV).  The game is simple.  One person picks a word and the others try to guess what the word is, by substituting the word 'coffeepot'.  So say the player is thinking of the word 'skiing'.  The conversation might go like this:

"Can you coffeepot at night?"

"You can coffeepot at night, but it's not typical"

"Can you coffeepot in the house?"

"If you coffeepot in the house you might get in trouble"

"Can you coffeepot outside?"

"Yes"

"Can you coffeepot in the summer?"

"It depends on the type of coffeepotting you're doing"

Now I don't know what it was, but this game was always full of laughs and we never seemed to get sick of it.  It certainly made the drive go by faster!

Participating in Memory Lane Friday is easy.  Just grab the code beneath the button and copy/paste it into your blog post.  Then come back and add your link to Mister Linky. 

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Don't forget to share the love and go leave comments on others' blogs!  See you next week I hope for the topic of "A Tourist Trap".

Muffin Tin Monday - The Blog Swap Edition

I've been participating in Muffin Tin Monday for a while now.  One thing I really like about it that is challenges me to be creative.  The other thing I really like about it is that it involves food (DUH!)

So when MUFFIN TIN MOM announced that she was hosting a blog swap involving all things muffin-tinnish, I was excited to hop in.

My swap partner was care-in at SWEET BROWN SUGARS.

I got my package on Tuesday.

I'm particularly excited to try the decorative picks, as we didn't have any.

Oh, and since the twins already devote a large part of their day trying to eat Scooter's food (our border collie), I'm thinking this dog bone shaped cookie cutter will be useful for them.  Thanks, care-in!