Memorial Day Weekend in Moab

For about 22 hours we had my whole family together in Moab over Memorial Day weekend, as various members of the family arrived and departed between Thursday and Monday.  We were glad that we had the opportunity to see Dan and Mia before they left to spend the summer traveling around Europe and the Middle East.  It's always a little crazy when you have 17 people staying at the same house who are on different sleep schedules.  Barrett was the earliest riser and despite Justin and I trying to keep him quiet he took it upon himself to wake up everyone else by running through the house proclaiming, "It's morningtime everybody!!" as loudly as he could.  My mom thought it was cute, nobody else did. 

 Some of our weekend activities included attending the Moab Arts Festival, 4 wheeling, playing croquet in the front yard, swimming in the pool, taking a hike to look at dinosaur bones, watching movies and bike riding.  The men rode Slickrock Trail one day and my Dad took a bad fall and injured his shoulder so badly that he couldn't ride out.  Brett came back to the house and got his Jeep so that he could 4 wheel in to pick up my Dad.  Peter and Justin walked him down to the point where Brett could pick him up and then had to hike back up to their bikes and ride out.  It ended up taking most of the day so we didn't make it over to Arches National Park for a hike as we had planned.  My Dad waited until the next day to go to the hospital to have his shoulder looked at and fortunately it wasn't dislocated, he had only torn his deltoid muscle.  He had his shoulder in a sling for a few weeks, but it is almost fully healed now.  

My Mom and I did a lot of cooking and made some delicious Mexican food.  We made three kinds of fresh salsa (which entailed ALOT of chopping) and some spicy Chipotle Grilled Chicken and a Mexican Chocolate sauce to put over ice cream.  It was fabulous.  Overall I think everyone had a good time and my kids are already asking when we can do it again.

The entire family in front of the Moab house.

Brynne, Hannah, Blythe, Barrett, Nathan and James

waiting to be fed.  It seemed like we always had at 

least one hungry kid in the kitchen at all times.

The kids in the pool despite the temperature only

being in the 60's.  No adults braved the pool that day.

Brynne enjoying the pool.

Barrett about to jump off the diving board

with a little encouragement from Uncle Brett.

Barrett in action, although unfortunately out of focus.

Our little water bug, who could not get enough

of the pool even when he had turned blue with cold.

Barrett was so worn out by all the swimming he did 

that during dinner he left the table and promptly

fell asleep on the couch.