{Easter in the land o' Zion}

okay....we were supposed to be on the road to warm country Wednesday evening.

Wednesday: Wind and rain

No go.

Decide to leave Thursday morning.

Thursday: Snow

No go.

FINALLY, we decided that Friday was our departing day come Hell or hurricane!!!!

We are comfortably driving down I-15 when a Dodge Challenger pulls up, honks, and speeds off.

I guess in Happy Valley, a honk means,

"pull over you dumb ass! you have a shredded tire that is flipping rubber all over the road!"

It was the boys' first tire change tutorial.

They love doing that kind of stuff.

After the wonderful side of the road education, Jax went into the trailer to wash his hands and yells, " OH BOY! Dad's not gonna like this!"

The freakin' tire blew a hole right through the bottom of the floor!!!!

Randy will be reinforcing it with a steel plate.

A lady told me that she's heard of toilets being blown right off from a tire!

EEEK!!!!

We stayed at a nice campground with hook-ups.

Come on! You know me!

I only go so far with the woodsy granola girl act!

I need some electricity and water!!!!!  HELLOOOOO!

Anywho, Saturday morning the campground hosted an Easter hunt.

It was a blast watching the boys and the other children have their eye on the FULL sized candy bars, hats, and gum....their toes digging in to the grass just waiting for the whistle to blow!

Riv's attempt on grabbing a gift card ended in him being tripped and sliding along the grass. 

The competition was fierce!

After the egg hunt extravaganza, Randy cooked us up some out of this world grub on his new 3 burner outdoor cooker!!  That's right!  This is why camping is so easy for me now.....Randy and the boys do everything!  I've waited for this day for many, many, many years people!

After the yum in the tum, we set out for the

{{LAND OF ZION...ZION....ZION}}

I always feel the need to deepen my voice and echo the name Zion when I say that phrase.

Warning: If you want to visit Zion, be prepared to pay $25.

We spent hours hiking, investigating rocks, enjoying the boys in their adventure.

You know those days where everyone is happy, everything goes right, and you are surrounded by love and beauty?????

Yah.....that was my Zion day.

Pretty much, if we weren't hiking rocks or mountains or doing the feeding frenzy, the boys were in the 80 degree pool.  They met new friends and wore themselves out to exhaustion.

Jax had a little issue.  I heard him hyperventilating.

The look of him in goggles and hyperventilating makes me burst into laughter.

I'm sick like that.

He can barely talk, but what I get from him, is that he.......

SWALLOWED A BANDAID!!!!

I think he thinks he did.

Who really swallows a band-aid? 

 Why wouldn't you spit it out?

It gave him a good excuse to have a pop-tart before bed because the stuff in pop-tarts kills germs in band-aids :)

Easter Bunny DID make it to the trailer.  Whew!  Jax was concerned that Bunny only knew the way to our house.

We are getting close to the source of the magic of Bunny, Fairy, and Claus being known.

:( yup.....not babies anymore.

After O.D-ing on peeps we went to a State park called Snow Canyon in St. George.

Only $6 to get in, and as much enjoyment as Zion!

On one side you have a white rock mountain (Snow canyon)

On the other side, you have soft red sand.

In the middle are huge rock mountains that look like layers of petrified cow poo.

It's like a stairway to heaven.

And the best part of all, are the lava caves and tubes.

The lava caves are accessible, in a semi-difficult way and scary even with a flashlight.

I faced my fears and drug the boys inside.

River swears he got bit by a spider and saw a snake nest in the pitch black dark! umm humm...

The lava tubes are not so easily accessible and from what the Ranger said, is very dangerous and stupid to attempt.

We chose to listen to the authority.

Don't need my long legged man getting wedged into a little tube.

I'm not that adventurous!

(BTW...we hiked 4 miles in and 4 miles out!)

From there, we stopped at Starbucks and took a deserved seat.

A couple of older gentlemen on their Sunday motorcycle ride, started small talk.

Randy had been hearing about this "Gunlock Reservoir" and was determined to check it out.

The "Wild Hogs" gave us direction and we were on our way.....the "scenic route".

Gunlock is a small town that consists of 50 shanty town shacks 20 feet from the road.....

and apparently have been famous for their rodeo since 1945.  Good thing the town is small because the benches will seat around 40 people total!!!

Randy said he found his dream location to retire.

I guess he wants to be alone when he gets old cuz I AINT LIVING IN GUNLOCK!!!

You hear me Randy??????!?!?!?!??

We were all disappointed to be leaving on Monday.

It had been wonderful adventures.

We found out that there was a horrible storm and high winds through I-15, and decided,

"what the hell!!  let's just stay another day!  YAY!!"

Mesquite is only 30 minutes South of St. George and typically has great weather.

We set our direction South.

Pulling into the parking lot, we realize that many others are pulling off the highway for safety.  We were glad that we made the decision to stay.  Winds and rain was starting to pound on top of us, but we didn't care, we had a nice trailer, generator, games, books and each other.

Or so we thought.....

It was getting to be too much for Jax.

We could see the wind up  and storm in his eyes of being confined.

Jax had a bipolar/behavioral/inappropriate freak out!

I won't go into details, but let's just say it was bad enough that at at 7:00 pm, we loaded up and left.

Drove for about an hour and the weather showed it's ugly face.

White out.

Winds.

People off the road.

We made it to Beaver and pulled off for the night.

Holy shiznit!  Was it Cold!!! 18 degrees.

We were able to pull into a KOA and plug in so that we could run our furnace and our electric blankets.

The night of no sleep and the next day of tears makes  me despise this disability....and at times, not like my own son (boy... that's a hard one to admit outloud). One little 10 year old can change the course of a family in a split second.  After much talk with Randy, we agreed that we cannot let that last day overshadow the greatness of bonding we had days prior.  Our life is so good,  and we let down our guard......forgetting what a horrible debilitating disease our son lives with every day.

Reminds me to take the good as great. And drink it silly while you can.

Things, people and time can change in a blink of an eye.

Thank God I still have my memories of my Zion day.

We will survive.

We are a core.

Walking through this bipolar life hand in hand.