Andy & Sherrie's Place: Spring Break 2014: St George, UT: Part 5

Our last hiking day we spent at Pioneer Park, which was awesome! About 10 minutes from our condo...and 52 acres of just bouldering and hiking. Perfect.

I loved how happy Addy was all week. She just went with the flow of things so well, and loved hiking "by herself!" She was happiest when she just got to explore like the big kids. I love how you can see her sweet little dimples showing in this picture.

Brooklynn found a fun crevice to climb, with lots of fun little places to sit on the way up.

Super kids!!! I asked Brooklynn why she didn't flex her muscles with the rest of them...she told me she didn't know how. We have since fixed that little problem!

Again, Taylor was all over. I actually had to start watching him to remind him he didn't have ropes...and put my foot down on a few climbs he wanted to do.

Just Taylor, the rock, and the sky.

I found that if I followed the curvature of the rock walls and walked slow enough, I could pick my way up to the top of a lot of places. It took a lot of time and patience. I just cannot express how hard it is to know that you can usually do something but not be able to do it for a while. Its a great motivator to always stay in good shape so that as I get older I can continue to do the things I love to do! Its even harder knowing that its no fault of my own (for example being out of shape) that is keeping me from doing these things...but from a literal tearing of cartiledge away from bone which is causing severe and acute pain...and there's not a single thing I can do about it but try to "keep off my feet" and endure it. Sheesh...16 weeks to go.

Rachey was really high up with Andy who is just outside this shot. She was really scared...but I told her, "okay now smile at me like you own this mountain and you're not one bit afraid!" She did a great job. :)

Yes, you guessed it...the mountain "was calling." Seriously. And he'll probably kill me for documenting this...but...the need to document it is "calling me." This is the last day for this pair of Andy's shorts. They were good shorts. Loyal shorts. He loved those shorts. But his need to climb one last wall was their final undoing. Literally. He split his seam with one final big stretch to reach a foothold. (Yes, you know which seam I'm talking about). The split was about 12 inches long. Let's just say that he carefully made it back to the car and he was done climbing for the day. ;) I think the mountain may have called him one too many times.

Not the wisest thing I've ever done...but I knew this was our last day so I figured the pain was worth it and I could recuperate in the car. I guess that darn mountain kept calling to me too...I was itching to climb, so I just did this one little overhang. All right....yes...you guessed it...I'm 2 feet off the ground. And you can see that I'm grimacing smiling. It was a few seconds of pure agony. I do miss rock climbing though...I didn't realize how much until there were all these walls in front of me! Ya, I took a Norco that night so I could sleep. All for this one picture. (Thank you Taylor for being my partner in crime. Andy was slowly and modestly making his way back to the car at this point...ha ha!)

Matthew the conqueror!

Andy and I were laughing because we have seen at least one lizard on every single vacation we've been on. From California, to Oregon, to different parts of Idaho, to Colorado, to Utah...we always see lizards and my kids think they are the best. So here is our lizard friend for this trip. We'll call him Ralph. Just for fun.