WE ARE MARSHALL: Capital Reef National Park

Last year when we went camping, and were laying on our super comfortable new camp pads that Derek made himself (composed of memory foam, and a firmer foam, and then professionally upholstered), but not sleeping well because we kept getting woken up by our kids, I rolled over to Derek and told him that for our anniversary next year I wanted to go camping with just the two of us and no kids. Well, Derek made that come true! His awesome family took over our kids for a couple days, and we went down to Capital Reef National Park.

The first night the campground in the park was full so we set up tent on some gorgeous BLM land just outside the park and had a lovely campsite all to ourselves.

We cooked up some delicious tin foil dinners and played games uninterrupted!

Then, in the morning we relocated to the campground inside the park so that we could conveniently do a hike, return to camp for food/rest, do another hike and so on. Overall the weekend was a little rainy, but it was nice and cool and perfect weather for lots of hiking (which was what we did). And, I think the rain helped keep the numbers down over what could have been a very busy memorial weekend. On most hikes, Derek and I hardly passed more than one or two other people.

The first day we hiked to Cassidy Arch.

The next day we hiked Cohab Canyon

then the Hickman Bridge

and did a beautiful drive through the park in the evening. That night we had dinner in Torrey at the best little steak house.

In the morning, we got up and did a quick hike through Capital Gorge, and then set off back home to rescue Derek's sister from our kids. I can't tell you how much I loved this national park. I love that it is quieter than other national parks (it's like a hidden gem). I love all the history attached to it. I love that it has fruit orchards that you can pick when the fruit is in season. I love the red rock, slot canyon hikes, the wild flowers in bloom, beautiful views. Ummm, I just loved it.

And a few pics of the kids:
Liv on crazy hair day really wanted to dye her hair purple

One day when she insisted it was freezing, but actually it was probably 70 degrees.

Preschool graduation- that would be our kid sporting the Ariel necklace. We took a ton of videos too. Cutest thing ever- the whole class recited Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Oh and Liv mid one of the songs starts dancing weird and getting this obvious I gotta pee face, but trying so hard to hold it cuz she didn't want to miss anything. Finally, she steps down and lets me run her to the bathroom. She says, "Mom, I was trying so hard, but I couldn't hold it!" Sure enough she had peed her pants. Unsure what to do, we just threw away the wet undies and luckily she was wearing a skirt that didn't get wet at all. So she went back out, comando style with stern instructions to not tell or show anyone that she was not wearing any underwear and to not do anything that would show the fact that she was not wearing underwear. So, Liv graduated from preschool without any underwear on!

Camden a few minutes after I relented on a day he fought me on his nap.

The boys at home depot. They only look sweet and innocent. They were terrors.

My big trouble-maker...Carter! All in just the few hours of morning before I left for work he dumped out an entire bag of pretzels, knocked hanging decorations off the wall and onto his head, bit open my favor cold compress and squeezed the contents out, threw a glass of ice water off the counter and shattered glass all over the kitchen floor, bit his brother twice, went to the bathroom all on his own but got more pee outside the toilet than inside it...and I'm sure the list goes on. And this littler smirk was all he had to say for himself!