Shortly after taking family pictures 2 weeks ago, we stopped off the side of the road on the way home because Noah begged and pleaded with Juli and I to let him climb on some huge boulders on the side of the mountain.

(we should have named him Billy and called him Billy the mountain goat!)

It was cold but we decided to let him out and climb around for a few minutes. As I watched him climb I was reminded of a photography meetup that was going to occur the following weekend in a place called Goblin Valley. The group would be going down on Saturday for a day trip. Well I got the brilliant idea to go down the night before with Noah, climb around the hoodoos and have some fun before the snow comes.

Fastforward one week and the day has come to take off for Goblin Valley. Being the mean dad that I am, I was only planning on taking Noah and have a guys only camping trip. Well once Hailey saw us packing and Noah let it slip that we were going camping she was so excited and basically said, “I can’t wait to go camping with you guys!” My heart melted and Juli gave me those eyes like, “You better not EVEN think about leaving your daughter behind!” I was up for it but we had 2 problems. One, Noah and I have traditionally slept in the back of the Durango on these short trips. It’s easier and more comfortable. Where would we fit Hailey? Two, Noah had to be ok with it and he was so excited for me and him to go camping. After all we missed the Fathers and Sons trip because of moving into our new house. I spoke with Noah and of course he said no. I returned the eyes to Juli that said, “Well I tried, what else can I do?” Juli was having none of it and took Noah downstairs to “talk” to him. Whether her hand talked to his behind or her mouth talked to his face, I don’t know. All I know is that Noah comes bounding up the stairs, approaches Hailey and says, “Hailey you can come with us camping!” Hailey was like, “Duh! of course I’m coming!” and the 2 of them bounded off to see what needed to be packed and loaded. Truth be told, I was glad that Hailey was coming. Traditionally, Noah gets bored with his old man on these things and wants to turn around right after getting there. This time that was not an option as the trip to Goblin Valley was going to take about 4 hours one way.

Right before leaving, I called the reservation place and asked about camping spots. The lady on the phone says that all the spots have been reserved except the walkup spots. I immediately felt this uneasy feeling in my stomach but what was done was done. Now both Noah and Hailey knew about the trip and there was no backing out. So we made our way down.

Once we got there and pulled up to the park entrance, I asked the ranger about walkup camp spots. He gently laughed and informed me that there were no spots and there hadn’t been for weeks. They were running an 1/2 marathon the next day and the whole place had been booked for months! Nothing like getting that news after driving in the car with kids hyped up on soda, skittles and cheetos for the past 4 hours. Hey, don’t judge me! In fact the whole experience has me thinking I have PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). I still wake up at night yelling, “Keep you hands to yourself!”

This brings me to a point in which I wish to digress from the story a bit. It’s my story so deal with it. I have vivid memories of camping with my family, specifically with my Dad. I remember lying in the back of that old Toyota pickup at fathers and sons talking with Dad or heading down to Rocky Point to camp on the beach. I remember having so much fun and being carefree and eating tons of junk food and generally having a blast. Well now I know why that was. If you weren’t aware, camping is hard. You get all dirty, there are no showers or toilets. You sleep on the ground, it is often cold or hot depending on where you go. This means no A/C or heat. There are bugs, germs and all sorts of things that can get into your food, water, and body orifices. And heaven’s-to-betsy we haven’t even talked about bears and skunks! None of this matters though as a kid because well Dad took care of everything. As a kid I didn’t have a worry in the world. If I needed something cleaned, he was there. If I started breaking down crying after mile 31 on our 50 mile hike up and down Mt. Baldy, he was there. (Dislaimer: That never happened. Please notice the IF that precedes that sentence.) When I was hungry, food magically appeared. Camping was great! Well being the Dad on the camping trip is a whole different story and experience. Now please don’t assume that I mean that in a negative way. Nothing could be further from the truth. Watching my son with his first pocket knife carving on a stick or cooking hotdogs over the campfire is so much fun. It makes the work worth it!

Anyways, back to my story. We get there and there are no camping spots. I asked the ranger if there was anything else around and he directed us to BLM land that he said we could camp on. So we set off on an adventure to find a place to camp. We didn’t have to go far when we finally found a spot nestled up against the side of this humongous butte. And no Mindy, that is butte as in a geologic formation, not butt as in the body part. Sheesh! See what I have to work with?!

(our campsite)

(view from our camp as sun was setting)

We were quite literally in the middle of nowhere. I told Juli that if I ever needed to dump a body, I now know where to go. We found a spot and started setting up camp. Generally speaking I don’t like camping in the desert. Once Noah fell into a cactus and I was picking needles out of his butt all night long. Yes Mindy I am now referencing the body part and not the geologic formation. Please try to keep up!

This however was different because Goblin Valley is filled with Hoodoos, and come to find out, Goblin Valley is a free for all hoodoo climbing paradise. After setting up camp we went about exploring the area. right off the bat, Noah is dangling precariously from a ledge yelling, “I am king of the world!”. I could barely keep up with those 2. They were going this way and that way, exploring all over the place.

(Billy the mountain goat!)

At one point Noah said, “Dad, come here!” I walk over and he points to an animal track in the sand. He promptly declares that this is a wolf track and that we need to watch out. I gave out a wolf howl and both of them looked at me like I was crazy! “Really dad? You are going to call the wolves to us?!” Well, their little kid imaginations worked themselves up and we hightailed it back to camp to start a fire and cook dinner.

Without fail and around 7:30 both of them say, “Ok the sun has gone down. Time for bed!” I tried to put them off but nope, they wanted to go to bed. So we got in the car, ALL 3 OF US, and climbed under the covers. It was cramped but I figured that the more bodies, the warmer we would be. We all slept pretty good but apparently Noah got really hot (he was between Hailey and me) and decided he didn’t need covers anymore! Hailey kept waking up asking if there were any more blankets. So I stayed up most of the night trying to keep them warm. According to the ranger it only got down to 31 degrees that night so it wasn’t too bad.

The next morning we woke up and had some breakfast. Hailey promptly had a bathroom accident (no fault of her own) and we cleaned up and decided to go hiking again. This time we made our way back to Goblin Valley proper and paid entrance into the park to climb around.

This place was surreal.

We all loaded up on water and took off. This place would be the ultimate capture the flag field. It was massive and had all these boulders and hoodoos you could climb on. We were in there for an hour before Hailey twisted her ankle. The bad one. She couldn’t walk anymore and so I loaded her up on my back and hiked a mile back to our car. It was all fine and dandy though, Noah wasn’t quite ready to go but he said the kindest thing. He said, “Dad I really want to stay but Hailey is more important than climbing around.” With that we packed it out and headed home. Here are some pictures of us in the park.

Overall we had a great time! And the tell-tell sign that the kids had a good time? Here is the proof:

(notice the death grip on the soda!)

Taking family pictures is always an interesting venture with 3 kids. Trying to take a picture without actually seeing the scene from the camera’s point of view and hoping you get a good shot is even more of an adventure. It usually ends up that we take hundreds of pictures with the hope that we can get at least one with everyone looking and smiling. Last year we actually got a really good picture without a lot of effort so we decided to try again.

We got a late start in the day and by the time we got our act together, the sun was rapidly going down. When we finally made it up the mountain, the sun was already setting, we didn’t have a spot picked out and so we just stopped off by the side of the road so that we didn’t make a wasted trip. I am hoping that the weather will hold out just a little longer so we can try again, but if it doesn’t here ya go. Our latest family pictures.

My extremely HOT wife. She practically melted the snow away!

And last but not least, the 3 rug rats. Hailey the instigator, Noah the joker, and Joslin the extremely photogenic and fantastically cute pretty princess.

Noah just completed his T-ball season tonight and after the game they handed out the trophies. He has been excited since day one about getting a trophy. His last t-ball league gave him this huge golden trophy and his expectation was to get another one just like it. the trophy came in a box and we didn’t open it right away. Driving home he opened it and from the back of the car we hear, “This trophy is CRAP!!”

We asked Noah to pass up the trophy and this is what he got for a trophy.

I could help but laugh and then totally agree! His last comment was, “I wanted a golden trophy, not nuts”

Since Noah and Hailey have been in school, Joslin has taken an interest in writing and coloring. What a princess!!

I love being a dad. I am not as good a father as my dad but nonetheless I enjoy watching my kids learn and grow each day. With that said however I have been doing fatherhood all wrong. For me, being a dad is extremely hard and takes a lot of time. Steering the fatherhood ship takes a lot of time and effort so that things don’t get off course. According to President Obama, this shouldn’t be the case. Juli and I were watching a show on Hulu the other night and this ad came on:

According to him, it shouldn’t be hard and only requires a few minutes a day. Wow, I wish someone had told me this earlier! Sorry Juli, I will not be able to help anymore with the kids at night because it is too hard and takes way more time than a few minutes. Let me know when you are done taking them to soccer or t-ball practice, feeding them, cleaning up after them, reading night time stories to them, brushing and flossing, getting them water before bed and potty time is over so that I can spend a few minutes to tell them I love them and kiss them good night. I’m glad that our president has taught me that it can be so easy and not take up a lot of my time! This new mantra should free me up to work on a lot more worthwhile things.

Speaking of worthwhile things, how about General Conference? I thought that Elder Holland’s talk about the Atonement last conference was incredible and extremely thought provoking and I remember thinking, “we won’t hear a talk that inspirational and motivating for a long time.” Of course all the talks given resonate with someone in a powerful way, but talking about the Atonement in that manner was meant for everyone to hear and understand. Little did I know that he would top himself 6 months later. If you haven’t heard, read or seen it, I would recommend you doing so. Look in the Sunday PM session Elder Bednar also gave a great talk on bearing false witness. He is one of my favorite speakers by far.

I took the kids to the pumpkin patch the other day. I now know that I probably shouldn’t have done that because it took way more time than a few minutes and was not easy. Never the less it was a lot of fun watching the kids go crazy with all the pumpkins. Noah loudly declared in the car that he was going to find the biggest pumpkin in the patch and that would be the one we would get. Well he made good on his promise!

Hailey and Joslin also had their ideas of what would make a good pumpkin and had a good time rolling each over and inspecting them!

Once we all agreed on a pumpkin, we proceeded to buy it and talk about how we were going to carve it up. We purchased a pumpkin carving kit and at home we all agreed to the flaming face. Of course it was the hardest to carve but that was the one decided on so we begin to ‘gut’ the pumpkin. The kids were fascinated but afraid to touch the pumpkin guts. Noah said that was the grossest thing he had ever seen. Juli asked him what his favorite pie and he quickly replied, “Pumpkin!” Once he said that though, he looked back at the now gutted pumpkin and got this weird look on his face realizing that he was probably eating pumpkin guts. It was classic. We’ll see if he eats pumpkin pie this year.

Joslin also got a small pumpkin and when we started cutting into the ‘Momma pumpkin’ as she put it, she took her baby pumpkin and proceeded to comfort it saying that we were not going to cut into the baby and that the ‘momma pumpkin’ was going to be ok. At one point I think she didn’t believe her own words and took the baby pumpkin and ran away with it to hide it. She is such a sweetheart when it comes to her dolly’s Why not a pumpkin? In the end, this is what we came up with:

You know what? We had such a good time doing this together. It took a lot of time to do and was not easy, but it was so worth it. Call me a fool, but I think I will disregard our president’s advice and continue doing things the way I have been doing them. It may be hard but it is so worth it.