30th Birthday Hike

I turned 30 this month, yep 30. That means I am an official adult. When you are in your twenties it is like you are a jr. adult but once 30 hits there is an officiality that surrounds your adulthood status. I don't feel any different, I mean once you have three kids, a husband and student loans you are an adult in my book but I am official to one and all now, at least in my head. (Not sure if any of that rambling made any since)

Anyhow hiking the entire Narrows has been on my list to do since I was 15 yrs old. The Narrows is a 16-17 mile hike in Zions park in Southern Utah. The hike is thru a narrow, steep canyon I would estimate about 3-400 feet high. Most of the hike is in the virgin river. Most parts are shallow but there are parts that are too deep to walk so you simply float leaning back on your pack. My sister Shelly and I had been conspiring together to do a hike for awhile and finally the stars aligned and we did it. My sister Tammy joined in and Shelly's daughter BreAnn came as well.

My camera got wet the second day so we only have a few shots of the first day. The second day was more fun in of that we floated parts of the river and hiked around a waterfall. It was so great to get into the hiking zone where your mind clears and you are only thinking about the next step and the beauty around you. I enjoyed it a great deal. I also enjoyed the bonding time with the girls. We had more then a few good laughs and lots of indepth conversations. What more could I ask for? not much! Except maybe a pillow on the trail at night.
Above is Bree and I wet up to our arm pits and still with smiles on our faces. It was awesome!

Above is Shelly rounding some rocks in the rapids. This hike was not the summit hike that I would typically go for it was more tedious. We spent most of the time in the river negotiating rock after rock after rock. My legs were hammered after day one and day two was no different. We were all walking funny once we were done.

Above is my sis Tammy. We are seperated by four boys between us in the birth order but we are still good buds!
At the end of the first day it begin to thunder and lightning and rain. Shelly found this spot in the sand just under a rock overhang. We were dry and the sand was a big improvement to the hard hard ground we didn't sleep on the night before.
Here we are the Fab 4. Thanks ladies I had a blast!

Happy 30th to me!

Motherhood- Failblog

My son doesn't want to be potty trained. Just ask me and I will tell you all about how complacent he is about the whole thing. I will go on in detail about how nothing seems to stick to keep him motivated and about how grose the whole business is of potty training. I did just this to a friend at the park yesterday. Then as we were leaving the park Nelson saw other kids going potty at the park restrooms and said as we were in the frenzy of heading to the car to go, "Mom, I need to go potty." Instead of saying "Ok, lets go big guy" I looked at the park restroom and imagined how unappealing those places are. Not wanting to wrangle the one year old ( who was still screaming about having to leave the swing) in there while simulaneously keeping the walls from being painted by an unexperienced three year old. I responded with "Can you wait til' we get home?" Oh no I didn't. Yes I did. Sighing inside. I had just been talking about how complacent this kid was and just when he showed interest I squashed it! I cring just thinking about it. I am a mom with all the best intentions but despite all of them I fail, a lot.

So do I bemoun my imperfections? No! Well maybe a bit, like all the way home, and when I go to bed that night. But I have decided to do a retake. We are going to do a retake on potty training at our house and be more fresh and excited about how 'cool' this potty business really is. Retakes are a good thing. Below is a picture I got offline that makes me smile. Wouldn't these people like to do a retake.