My favorite hiking spot.

Back in high school I spent a very miserable night camping with some friends. It was dark when we hiked in and we were sleeping under the stars on a particularly windy night. The sand blasting my skin all night was quickly forgotten in the morning when I awoke to a gorgeous little cove surrounded by white sandstone. The hike into the cove is under a mile and when visited in the spring or summer is simply gorgeous.

A few weeks ago was General Conference and after the morning session we knew we'd be asking a lot to have our kids sit through another session without a nice break. We headed up to the white sand dunes in Snow Canyon armed with a play parachute, snow sled, umbrella, and lunch. Quite the combination of items. The sled was too be used to ride down the sand hill in the cove but we quickly discovered this was NOT the brightest idea. The sled moved very slowly down the hill and it was torture to keep climbing back up it. The umbrella was unnecessary due to the overcast skies which made for a beautiful fall day until we looked over and the overcast skies quickly became dark ones. Mat had the idea to take the parachute and umbrella and make a shelter that we would wait out the storm in. I had and idea to get the heck out of there! Guess who won! We grabbed all of our gear and the kids. Peyton was not happy with the fact that she was being carried to the car rather than walking and the kids were bummed that we didn't get to make a shelter. While I'm sure in theory the rainstorm would have been an adventure by the time we reached the van and pulled away there was a full blown storm happening. Lighting, drenching rains, the works. Silly me for enjoying it from the comfort of my minivan. :)