Green River, Arches and Goblin Valley

Between Shane and I going on several trips this year without our kids and then the chaos of moving, I was feeling quite guilty that I was ignoring my kids and not spending enough time with them.  We promised them a trip once things got settled down in our new house.  Not wanting to plan an elaborate trip and knowing all our kids really want to do is swim, we decided to a do a long weekend down in Green River.

We drove down Thursday afternoon, ate dinner at McDonalds in Price (it was all they could talk about the whole way down.)  Then that night we checked into our hotel and went swimming.



The next morning we drove over to Moab and went to Arches National Park.  The kids loved looking for Arches and did great hiking around all morning.  I told them every time we reached or saw an arch I had a treat for them, so that helped with attitudes.  They loved chasing the lizards and even saw a bunny rabbit.  They loved Balanced Rock and Double Arch.  Right before lunch we hiked a short distance to a viewpoint of Delicate arch and that was the most grumpy they got, it was hot and they were hungry.  After eating lunch we headed over to Sand dune arch where we had their buckets for them to play in the sand in some shade.  That afternoon we swam back at the hotel and then ate pizza in a park followed by some popcorn and a movie.



























Saturday morning we headed over to Goblin Valley state park.  We had such a fun day here.  The kids climbed and climbed all over all the rocks here.  They thought some looked like Smurf houses, some looked like Mario mushrooms but pretty much they thought the entire place looked like a big Pokemon battle field.  We spent quite a bit of time looking for 'Team Rocket' and making sure we weren't discovered.  We even took some walkie talkies and split up and hid from each other for a time.  I figured after we ate lunch they would be ready to go but they insisted on continuing on for about another hour.  Such a fun day and I loved watching their imaginations at work.



















And I have to add this picture in here because the highlight of the day might have just been seeing this pink truck. They were insistent we get a picture of it....lol



That afternoon we went back to Green River and went to Swasey beach along the river to 'the beach' where Siena was mostly dismayed that there were no seashells.  However, they still had a great time playing in the sand and water.





Sunday morning we headed home, stopping by a geyser that we never saw go off but still fun to see the river from a different view point.



We had such a fun weekend and the kids did great on the trip.  We had all 3 of them share a queen sized bed and turned them sideways.  They slept pretty good except for the time at 3am when I was woken up by them fighting over the covers and who had more.