Girls Trip to Moab

On Friday morning Karen, Muffin, Jessica and I left for our much anticipated Girls Trip to Moab! This getaway was very refreshing on many levels, including 2 days of nonstop girl talk. I learned so much about and from these special moms (we have 11 kids between the 4 of us) and look forward to making a "Girls Getaway" an annual retreat (or weekly...whichever works better:) Special thanks to my fabulous husband who didn't hesitate to watch the 3 kiddos for 2 days, including bottle-feeding Wether. Speaking of which, 2 of us are nursing moms, so we didn't go far without our pumps. Anyway...

Here's the skinny:

Friday:

6:45 am - Departure

10:15 am - Arrival at Dead Horse Point National Park and a quick yet breathtaking hike (picture 1 L-R Karen, Olivia, Muffin, Jessica).

Early afternoon - Set up our tent at Goose Island campground right outside of Moab. We were right on the Colorado River with 700 foot cliffs of the other side (picture 7).

Afternoon - Arches National Park. We did a series of short hikes including Windows, Broken Arch, Balancing Rock, and Sand Dunes (picture 2).

Lastly we hiked to Delicate Arch - the most famous arch in the country and on the Utah license plate (picture 5 - Muffin and I are directly to the left of the arch). I LOVED this hike (picture 3), especially because the heat of the day was replaced with rolling dark clouds, wind, and thunder (picture 4). On the way back from the arch the wind became very strong and it started to pour on us (picture 6).

Early Evening - The rain continued for a couple of hours so we sagely replaced our tinfoil dinners with a yummy dinner at Zax restaurant in Moab. By the time we finished eating, the sky was completely clear.

Evening - Back at the campgroup the tent had a fight with the storm and lost. It was collapsed, a poll was bent, and it was wet and very muddy (fortunately, all of our camping gear was still in the minivan). Still, we got it back up in a jiffy, cleaned it and Muffin got a fire going (picture 7). We enjoyed s'mores, talking, sitting by the fire, a devotional by Jessica, stars not seen in Orem, and the light show on the cliffs.

Saturday:

After breakfast, putting away camp, and lots of sunblock, we were off to our day of white water rafting down the mighty Colorado (picture 8). The weather was perfect, the river high, and we had an awesome river guide who let us float down the river for quite a bit of the trip (I would have stayed in the water the whole time if he had let me! Picture 9). This was definitely one of the highlights of the trip for me. Halfway through the day we stopped for lunch on a sandy beach.

8 pm - Arrival home to tan children, a clean home, and a hungry baby (thank goodness). I'm already ready for another adventure in gorgeous Utah!