Nature Walking

This past Thursday and Friday was UEA (something about education blah, blah...basically it just means the kids were out of school) and my sister, Emily, came up from St. George.  One of the days she was here, we wanted to do a nature hike/walk with the kids.  Then taking note of the adults who would be responsible for the hike, we realized that 2 women who are about 30 weeks pregnant and one with a 2 month old baby were not quite the ideal supervision for a hike into the mountains behind my parents house.  Yes Grandma and Grandpa were going to be joining us...but you feel a little guilty sending them off with 7 kids under the age of 8 and yelling "Have a fun hike!"

Thankfully Utah has some AMAZING parks, and we took the kids to one tucked up in a quiet neighborhood right against the mountains in Centerville that has walking trails, a huge open field, a little creek and waterfall and a great playground.

Let us pause for a moment and think about how much we love Centerville, shall we?

Our first order of business was attempting a picture with all 8 cousins.  It went a bit like this:

Assemble the older kids.

 Now, add the little ones.

 Try to get the baby situated/lose the interest of Addison

 And now the other 2 year old.

One of those that stuck around while Grandpa tries to coax the others to come back.

Then we gave up.

After that successful attempt, we decided it was time for the nature walk.  My mom had this great idea to put tape on the kids wrists so the sticky side was out, then as they gathered leaves etc. they could stick it to the bracelet...but anything that didn't fit couldn't come with us, which was way better than bringing home bags full of sticks, leaves, flowers, rocks, dirt, etc.

 

 

 

And at the end, they all sprinted back to the playground.

I just LOVE Fall in Utah...so perfect.