Family Reunion and family road trip FUN!

Here are a few more pictures from the Young family road which included an extended family reunion as well as a mini-road trip/reunion with some Stovall families. Overall, we made some fun memories and saw some beautiful places. It was nice to be together. The kids at 12-mile flat in the Manti-LaSal national forest where we had our family reunion. It was beautiful and the only thing I have to complain about was that it rained basically for part of the day, every day. Other than that, we had a good time and enjoyed seeing lots of family. We are glad so many came and braved the primitive camping to be with family.

Singing with some second cousins around the campfire. It was always dry and clear when it came time for campfire. That was nice.

Alison at 12-mile. She was kind enough to remove her binkie from her mouth for the picture (you will see it in her hand). Before we left, I started "leave the binkie in the bed" to transition binkie-usuage to the bed only. That was not a smart thing to do before vacation because I basically relied on the binkie to make my life easier as we traveled around and slept in strange places. So, now that we are home it is back to "binkie in the bed" although I don't think she takes me serious. I've lost some credibility.

A great picture from our trip. Seriously, this is the view from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Fog. We were in a cloud and clouds filled the canyon. It was a long 6 hours (3 there and 3 back) for fog which we could have seen on a trip to SF. I guess it gives us a reason to go back sometime.

The Young and the Bardsley kids and dads in front of Bryce Canyon. This was before our awesome hike down into the rocks. It was less than a mile and a half but there was lots of elevation change. Luckily, we decided not to take the stroller and John volunteered to stay back with Alison. That was one of the best decisions of our trip. About half way into the hike the kids were done so we had to motivate them by finding "magic" trees and rocks that they needed to touch to get energy. Good thing there are lots of rocks in Bryce canyon!

This is near the Narrows in Zion National park. We rode the shuttle bus into the valley to the last stop, got off, walked 3 minutes to the river, touched the water and threw some stones, and got back on the shuttle, got in our car, and drove home. Needless to say we will also need to return to Zions to actually get off the bus and see more of the park. The drive home was not bad except for the small issue of traffic out of vegas headed to LA on a Sunday afternoon. Sitting in bumper to bumper traffic in the middle of the dessert in the middle of the day in August is not fun. Ever.

A gaggle of cousins with Grandma and Grandpa at the cool Zions River resort where we stayed for just one night. The kids got to go swimming and loved it. They had been waiting to go swimming the whole vacation and finally, the last night, they got their wish. We thought the rain might come but someone had mercy on these little kids and the rain stayed to the east.