Fall Break, staying at the Barnhisel "party house"

The Barnhisel's so generously let us stay at their house in Hurricane. I had no idea it was such a party house, so that's what I nicknamed it after we got there. The girls and Sam played a ZILLION rounds of poison ball. Like a ZILLION. 

The hot tub was really fun too. The boys got in one of the nights and the girls and Sam got in several times over the 3 days we stayed there. 

Playing dodgeball out on their turf at night with the lights. 

And they were so kind to have ice cream basically every night for us. Seriously, we went through a lot of ice cream. 

Friday night the girls and Sam stayed up WAY too late watching The Night Before Christmas movie. 

More poison ball.
 

Right when we got there Liam and the three of them played Sorry. Liam won of course. 

First round of poison ball was with Liam. Thanks Barnhisels! You have SUCH a fun house! All of us loved loved staying there with you!

Zion National Park, Wheeping Rock and Court of the Patriarchs

Out of order pic of kids looking at the court. 

After our two big hikes on the Zion day, we squeezed in Weeping Rock. 

It was a quick, but steep walk up. Adeline REALLY was done hiking by this point (see previous post on why we waited to do Zion as a family for so long). But it was very cool to read about the dripping. Some of the creations are so amazing. It's crazy to think this is water that has been trapped for hundreds of years and just little by little coming out now. 

On the way back out on the shuttle, we stopped for a few minutes at the Court of the Patriarchs. Man that SKY!!!!! These were so cool. We mostly were tired by then and just stopped so we could get a picture. 

Here is the court. Not sure which one is which, but they are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So so tall. This was a really cool place. 

Zion, you were a great beauty! I'm glad we decided to opt in for doing everything in one day. It made it a LOT better than trying to come back in another day early and do the shuttle. There were a couple things we missed, but I feel like we did a lot of it. Sorry, Angel's Landing. We saw you from afar, but no way were we going to attempt. 
 

Zion National Park, Emerald Pools trail

Out of order pic, Adeline coming down a little bit of the steep trail near the end. 

The other thing I really wanted to for sure do in Zion was the Emerald Pool trail. I hadn't really done tons of research on this (I only knew we were NOT going to be doing Angel's Landing  ha ha) so I knew it was kind of a loop. This I just realized is me and Adeline coming out of the Narrows. Whoops. Wrong section. Oh well. 

On the start to the trail. That GORGEOUS blue sky. 

Eating a quick lunch at the Lodge Cafe. We were all very impressed with how cheap it was and the people that got pizza said it was REALLY good. So it was a good energy booster after all the narrows stuff. 

Evelyn and I on our way up to the Emerald Pools. 

By the lower pool. I think Adeline said something like, this is it? Ha ha She was not very impressed. 

The parts of the rocks were dripping though which was cool. Had we been a week earlier with all the rains, some of these would have been rushing waterfalls. That would have been a sight!

Looking back at the mist. 

This is where the trail got a little more steep and intense. LOTS of stairs. I think it was a little more than I had anticipated, but overall it was very pretty. But I was SO glad we hadn't gone on a busier day because it was already fairly busy and there are definitely lots of sections you had to wait since only one person would fit going up or down. 

This was in front of the middle pool. 

I don't love this picture, but proof I was there. 

And here we finally made it to the final upper pool. It was definitely the coolest one. 

I didn't get a great picture of this, but there was a tiny little spicket of water at the top of this 1000 foot cliff dripping down. As well as some water from the rocks that could have been in there for hundreds of years that were seeping out. It was cool. 

Rock climber Adeline. 

One last great pic of the blue sky. 

Coming down we went just the middle pool trail which was a different way. Definitely less crowded and a little shorter than the lower/upper pool side. Plus some cool views. 

It was a great hike! Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.