Snow Canyon --with affection.

 We took the four day weekend to go visit Jeff's parents in St. George. We spent the better part of two of the days in Snow Canyon. It's starting to feel like my own personal canyon. Jeff and I toiled up it during Ironman on our bikes, and we have had so many happy days in it on hikes with our family. 

 We all went together the first day, and alternated hiking and jogging. Really fun.

 Photobomb!

Bird's nest well protected in the cholla.

 These pictures does not do the sunset justice. So beautiful.

 The second day Jeff had to work, so I took the kids out myself on the "Lava Flow" trail.

 Finally we got to see the lava tubes!

 Along the way were spectacular red cliffs.

 Then we would run into these holes in the ground, which were the shells of lava rivers.

 The cooled lava was in all of these wonderful shapes and colors.

 There were rumors of bats in these caves/tunnels, but we didn't see any. The one that had the bats in? Truthfully? I chickened out climbing down into it. I knew I could get down, but wasn't sure I could get back out again. We stood and contemplated going down, and could hear another little girl somewhere inside screaming in terror. That didn't help me be brave. I wished I had Jeffy there to help me cowboy up.

 We climbed up to the top of this look out point.

 On the tippy top!

 I was far more scared watching Kai get to the top than I was going there myself.

We felt bad for Jeff missing this one, but I was glad we seized the adventure.

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Gingerbread houses.

 We needed some sort of "Gala" thing to do on New Year's eve. My parents came over again, and we ordered take out Thai, watched Jurassic World, and made gingerbread houses. I spent the morning finding candy (and exploring a new trail up right hand fork of Hobble Creek with snow shoes), and Ari baked all of the houses -- one for each of us. 

We put them together with melted sugar, whipped up some royal icing, and started decorating with the movie going in the background. 

 I'm super happy with how mine turned out, so you're going to have to see a few pictures!

 My poor mom had the worst luck. She started out with her bag of icing not having the tip cut, and it got all over everything which was a bummer, then her gingerbread was probably the most delicious, because it looks like it was a little softer than the others. In the middle it spontaneously created it's own side entry garage. It was sad...but also kind of funny. Murphy's law of houses!

 You can tell this was Jeff's. He slapped on a fruit roll-up, stuffed a gumdrop in the door, and shuffled over to the couch to watch the movie. 

 Ari paved hers in fruit rollups, then added more stuff on top of the rainbows.

 This was Tia's --

 Individually cut shingles! Jeez.

 I loved the front.

 Ummm....made a bit of a mess...

 But we all had a good time.

 Except maybe my mom. She's a great sport though.

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