Yesterday was my birthday, and I decided that I wanted to go explore a National Park today. There is a new program this year, where fourth graders can obtain a pass to get into ANY National park, along with anyone else in their vehicle, for free, for the whole year! So I decided that we should go and get started on using that pass.
We got all the kids loaded up in the van along with their thermos’s, Kyle handed me a present (Victoria’s Secret lotion, and See’s) and we were on our way. We went to Daylight Donuts to get some donuts, but they didn’t have anything good left so we got some donuts at Macey’s instead. Then we went to the Uintah National Forest. We traded in Jeremy’s paper National Park pass, and got a more durable plastic one to use throughout the year. We drove into the forest a bit and found a place to park, and decided to go for a bit of a hike. The reservoir that we parked by was beautiful.
I didn’t really like that the hiking path was so narrow, and that it was being used by people on foot, people on bicycles, people on dirt bikes, and could even be used by people on horseback. The problem was that it was so narrow, there was really nowhere to go to get out of the way when a dirt bike or a bicycle wanted to pass us.
After awhile the kids started their complaining, “I’m tired”, “I need to go potty”, “This is boring”, “I’m thirsty and my thermos is in the van”, “Can we go back to the van and finish watching the movie?”…. Adam reached a point where he just didn’t want to go any further.
We pushed on just a little bit further.
Adam protested more.
Then we started working our way back the way we came.
We left the forest, and made a quick stop at Costco for a few things, then we went home. I made dinner and finished making my cake while the girls all took off to the neighbors house. Dinner was later than usual and we had to round up the girls and get them back home before we could eat. We didn’t have time for cake before the adult session of stake conference.
Kyle and I made sure the kids were ready for bed before we left for the adult session, and we left Ethan in charge while we were gone. Ethan was to make sure Adam stayed on his bed, Tyra was to make sure that Lydia stayed on her bed, and the others were to make sure they stayed on their own beds (Seth was in the crib so we weren’t worried about him wandering the house). We came home from the adult session to find them ALL asleep!
We served my cake tonight.
I made a Mounds cake. Chocolate cake, with coconut filling, a coconut buttercream frosting and chocolate ganosh to top it all off. It was very good, and quite rich. A little bit went a long way. 🙂