| arches national park & annual green river campout |

We do a campout every year with the Ahlberg side of the family at Green River. I always LOVE it. Camping with cousins, could life get any better?? I am glad so many of our family members were able to make it this year too. The more the merrier.

The kids had plenty of time to play, paint, climb trees, look for bugs, roast marshmallows, GET DIRTY...you name it! I hope that as each year comes and goes we will continue this tradition, that our kids will look forward to it and talk about it for years to come. (thanks for the pictures Becky, I don't know why I forgot to document this part!)

Poor Mitchell is allergic (or something??) to mosquito bites. He tends to puff up, and if we aren't careful ends up getting infections quite often from them. One of the nights the corner of his eye got bit as well as his head. When he woke up the next morning he looked like quazimodo. 

They found a little gopher that was happy to come out and play for quite a while. Fun!

We always try and do some sort of sight seeing while we are there. This year we chose to go to Arches. I have never been, so I was pretty excited to say the least. There was a lot of hiking to be done and the kids were troopers. It isn't easy being so little and having to keep up with all us big adults! There were a few melt downs and moments, but for the most part my little kiddos seemed to do really good.

This teeny tiny spec under the arch is Drew.

And this one is me!

And this one is the parents!

There was so much beauty along the way. My favorite by far though were the desert roses. There were tons of them hidden away. Such an awesome wonder of nature. This land is a beautiful and unique one that is for sure. So many different formations, colors, flowers, and oddities. 

 Is this not the most adorable thing?? Poor Bryan...he was probably the most beat out of any of us after this hike! What a good dad!

This is a second hike we did. It was awesome, but SUPER windy. Wind and sand don't mix well...let's just say we moved fast!!

None of us would brave a pic in here (well Russ & Kylee did and sorely regret it!) This arch was awesome, but a wind tunnel. The wind thrashed the sand around quite bad if you ventured under it.