Summer Bliss: Zion with Aline

I dont think I'd mind the winter cold very much if the days were just as long as they are in the summer. I feel like that the sun is meant to go down no sooner than 8pm. The thing I hate the most about the winter is that it's dark at 6. (At least in Utah.)

Anyways, with all the extra time for sunlight.... we must live it up. Viva Summer!!

In case you don't know we go down to Zion National Park, in Southern Utah, quite a bit. When Aline came back from Boston we decided to go camping down there with her. We've gone camping with Calvin already a few times but now that he was almost 11 months (at the time) this was a much different experience.When we took him when he was 3 months he was kind of just like a vegetable okay with whatever was happening and .... well .... "obedient".

Calvin was like a puppy in the tent. The first night we immediately set up the tent so we could put him in there while we unloaded the car. Calvin crawled around the tent and as we threw in sleeping bags and pillows it seemed to increase his excitement. He would burry his face in the soft pillows and sleeping bag. He would scream and shout as if Disneyland was contained in the middle of our 4 person tent. I thought he would calm down so we could all go to sleep in peace but I couldn't be farther from the truth. Once we were all in the tent that seemed to have created an adrenalin rush for this little man and he wanted to crawl all over all of us, sitting on top of us, burring his face in our pillows, pulling our hair (ouch!). He wouldn't stop. Eventually we all forgot about it and Calvin just found a place to sleep.

The next night Matt slept in an hammock and Aline and I slept in the tent. Calvin was SO HYPER. Eventually I was so exhuasted I just closed my eyes and went to sleep. Aline did too. A few hours I woke up looking for Calvin and I couldn't find him any where. This is how it went:

Rhiannon: ALINE! WHERE IS CALVIN?!
Aline: *sleepy voice* He is sleeping right by you.
Rhiannon: No he's not!
Aline: uh....

I looked around frantically, making sure the zipper was closed. Earlier in the day he had figured out how to open the zipper and get out. So I imagined my son lying on the ground surrounded by ants right outside the tent. Luckily, Calvin was curled up in a ball on the other side of a sleeping bag in the corner of the tent. (The tent is not that big, but a mother worries when her baby is lost for a second.) *phew*

We did a lot of hikking with Calvin. We brought a spray bottle along. It was 107F (41C) outside. (The nights were so hot!) There was water to wade in, in a few spots, and Calvin loved to splash. Personally, this trip was more fun because of Calvin. :)

 Here are some brief views of what we saw.

The beginning of the Narrows

He loved the water!

I love that we do all the work and he can nap where ever he wants.