Weekend Wrap Up part 2: Be spontaneous

Aaron and I have a continuous joke.  It comes in the form of "let's go somewhere".
Frequently when we are out driving somewhere one of us will say "let's just keep driving".

But really, between work, kids, school, and well, just life in general, packing up for an impromptu jaunt out of town isn't realistic.

That doesn't stop us from throwing it out there.

Well, on Sunday morning it got thrown out there again.
"Let's just go somewhere."

But this time, after throwing it out there and kicking it around, we actually did.

In a little over an hour we packed up 11 people and drove out of town.

Be spontaneous!  Carpe diem!  Keep life interesting!

The kids were blown away, and perhaps the older ones were a little nervous that mom and dad may have actually lost it.
Not yet kids, when that happens it will be on a much grander scale.

Since we live in such an awesome place, we had numerous options all within not too many hours.  But after chatting a bit we realized that we have been shamefully neglectful in sharing some of the wonders of Utah with our kids and they had never been to Arches.  (when you are always tackling the demands of infants and toddlers, most adventurous things get pushed to the back burner)

So off to Moab we went!

Now that our oldest kids are old enough to really be huge helps with the other kids all sorts of worlds are opening up!

We rolled in to Moab early in the afternoon.

 
I always forget how much I love it there!  So many great childhood memories.  So many amazing things to see.

And So. Much. Sunshine.  Hallelujah!

We checked out a couple of arches and windows, sticking with the short and easy walks so we could get an idea of how the littler kids would hold up.

So beautiful.

I am quite sure that no where in the world is the sky bluer than against red rock.

I learned this weekend that my kids have adopted their own signature pose, and it's not my double thumbs up.

Not sure when this kicked in, but I am wondering how many pictures with this pose we will get in the near future.

We talked another tourist (who barely spoke English) into taking a picture of all of us.

I think we scared him.  There are a lot of us.

We headed up to Delicate Arch as well, but at that point it was nearing 7pm, we hadn't had dinner, and the littlest littles were getting close to bedtime and worn out.  A little over halfway up as we watched the masses heading across the open slick rock, we decided it wasn't going to happen.  Too many people (sunset is a popular time to be there), too much chaos.

Back to the hotel, dinner and some time in the pool instead.

It was a fabulous day and the kids were thrilled to be there, as were Aaron and I.