Emily and Arches NP

We wanted to take Emily to a fun, cool, gorgeous place in Utah and decided Arches NP should be the one. We would have loved to take her to all the beautiful places in Utah since there are so many but we had to take our pick. It was the perfect time of year to go down there. Way too hot in the summer but nice and warm in the fall.

We left early in the morning (hence Max wearing pajamas) and made our traditional stop at the sand hill, just outside of Moab.



It is so fun for Noah (and us) to play in the sand, jump off the rocks, climb to the top of the hill, build sand castles, etc.



We had lunch by the river, followed by a hike in Negro's canyon. At the end of the hike Noah found this monster truck. Notice the little monster truck in his hand. He hardly ever goes anywhere without a monster truck. I think we brought 3 of them to Moab with us. At least.



Then we headed to Arches National Park where we were very lucky to be able to get a camp spot. It turned out that two of Karl's sisters were coming down with their family the same weekend (fall break) and had already reserved one. The campground is pretty small and very popular and it is extremely hard to get a camp site. The view from our spot was breath taking.



Arches is great for kids. There are quite a few shorter hikes with wonderful arches on the way. So even Noah could hike to a few of them.







My three boys taking a break and enjoying the scenery. Notice again the monster truck in Noah's hand. He loves Moab partly because he knows that this is the place where jeeps, dune buggies and monster trucks come to climb over the rocks.



We also hiked Delicate Arch which is the most famous one and on our license plate. Emily liked this one the best.





Noah, of course, cared more about his cousins than the arch. It was so fun to have them all there. They definitely motivated Noah to hike more than he would have otherwise.





The kid's favorite was definitely Sanddune Arch. Just a huge fun playground in nature.





Hanging out with Abbey by the campfire (after eating some blue piece of candy)



Max turned out to be such a great camper, much to our relief! He loved being outside all day in the warm sun. The nights were not any worse than at home. The last one was actually better than at home. Here he is all bundled up at night.



Thanks everyone for such a fun trip! We are a little sad (very sad, actually) to have to call this the last camping trip of the season. Unfortunately, we will have to postpone winter camping for a few years, though. But then again, we have this super warm queen-size sleeping bag that might fit all four of us...