Zion, Mountain Meadows, and...

So Staci has posted about the first half of our summer vacation in July so I thought I would finish up and post about the second half. On a side note, does it bother anyone else how tiny of a window it is to see your post while editing it, and how hard it is to arrange photos? It totally bugs.

This is a picture from the fishing trip that I really like.

On one day we drove to Enterprise, UT to visit Staci's grandma and afterwards we drove to St. George. On our way we stopped at the Mountain Meadows Massacre memorial for a couple minutes. That was such a tragic series of events, check my other blog for some ramblings on it. The picture below has the actual location where the massacre took place in the back ground.
We stayed in my grandma's house in St. George, which is available for family use (a great place to have available, the last time I stayed there was the night before we married). We woke up early and headed for Zion National Park (not Zion's National Park, thanks Tyson for correcting me, albeit in an insensitive and arrogant way :) jk).

I have been wanting to hike Angel's Landing for quite some time now and I finally made it down there to do it. It was a great hike, definitely worth doing, and starting early in the morning is a must for hiking in the summer. We got a little later start than we had hoped but still early enough so we were done a little after noon. We felt bad for the people just starting as we were finishing.



When we got to the top we actually had a couple minutes with nobody else up there with us. It was very nice to have a peaceful couple minutes up where the angels land with my very own angel....oh Staci I know you love it :-)
We found that the chipmunks are very friendly at the top, a little too friendly at times.
This was the closest I've been to a vulture this big so I had to take a picture of it.
This is a real pic, I wasn't photo shopped in.
And then we went down.

That was the highlight of the vacation, so much fun.

The following week we went back down to Cedar City for a couple birthdays and a baptism. After our nephew Tasin was baptized we had a picnic at the park and played around. It was fun playing in the park with my nieces and nephews.I played with a Transformer

Played soccer with Tason
And played tag on the toys, (having the Spiderman t-shirt on helped me climb on the toys much better. It was lot of fun. Oh and we couldn't touch the ground.

But they did wear me out very quickly, I was always so confused as a kid when people would tell me I had too much energy for them, I couldn't understand how, I guess I still don't know why but I do know that little kids have so much stinkin energy.

In the end we spent three weekends in a row in Cedar City/Enoch but all things must come to an end sometime.

(hint, I put the picture of the sunset to represent our summer vacation coming to a close)
I know I was inconsistent on having explanations to photos switching from being above the pictures and below the picture; but I couldn't do everything perfect otherwise there would be nothing for me to improve upon. :-)

Yankee Meadow

Early Tuesday morning Dad, Tason & Jordan (nephews), Jamon and Me headed out to Yankee Meadow. We were going to get some fishing in before everyone else came up.

Jamon catching some shut eye & Dad setting up poles for the boys.

Tason, Me and Jordan.

Here fishy, fishy, fishy

We had fun and caught bigger fish then we did at Fish Lake, not as many though. Four total, but we let quite a few go.

Jamon helping get the boat hooked up.

I caught the second biggest fish. I'm really not as disgusted as I look.

The Beginning and Birthday's

The Chapman's are finally here. We (the Wilcock family) can't wait for this time every year. Albert, Camille, Kylee, Brynlee, and Haylee drove into the drive way at 7:00 pm Saturday night and won't leave until the 26th. I have missed my nieces SO much! Saturday and Sunday we all played games and had fun talking.

Kylee, Brynlee, and Haylee

Monday was Brynlee's Birthday so we had a fun party/BBQ with two other brothers and their families.

Top Pictures: Roasting hot dogs and playing with polywogs and frogs.

Middle Pictures: The amazing pinata Jodee made and the birthday girl taking a swing. Jodee dumping out the rest of the candy and yup that's Jamon getting in there too. Actually he was helping Brynlee get the most candy.

Here are the amazing cakes Camille made and all the cousin's and one friend who came to the party. (It's a flower and butterfly)

Enjoying the Party

Girls Camp

For the first time in 10 years I got to go back to girls camp. I was called to be the Waterfront Specialist. My job, to teach the girls how to paddle a canoe and then come up with am "Amazing Race" type activity using the canoe's, and the confidence games. I was able to spend the whole week there even though my activities didn't start until Thursday morning. It was really quite relaxing, because it was so organized and no one needed my help with anything. My Amazing Race activity could have went better in my eyes, but everyone said they had fun.

Boating Instructor

Of course I had my camera with me and took tons of pictures, and yes that is snow.

It's Not How Big, But How Many

Jamon and I decided to take a spontaneous fishing trip with my brother Wade, his family and my Mom to Fish Lake. Jamon spent a lot of time in the boat fishing. We only fished for perch, which are small fish, but easy to catch, especially for the nieces and nephews.

First round in the boat: Jamon, Wade, Tason, & Jordan
Total fish caught: 50 plus

Second round in the boat: Jamon, Staci, Wade, Macy, & Kimber
Total fish caught: 40 plus

It was so fun. It only took 5 min or less to catch a fish.

(pictures to come)

It's ELECTRIC

Yea, Jamon and I actually had the same day off work that neither of us had to request off. These kind of days don't happen often. So what did we do with our time off for the 4th of July?

That's right, camping. Camping at Electric Lake. It was so BEAUTIFUL!

We relaxed around the fire and made smore's. We set up our small little tent and started watching a movie and then the rain started. It rained pretty hard, so we put the seats up in the Element and slept in there. For a night camping it wasn't that bad. We woke up and had blueberry muffins and sunflower seeds for breakfast, loaded up and took off.

We went to bed early that night so we could wake up early on Saturday and participate in the 10K Freedom Run. We woke up at 6:00, rode our bikes to the park, found my brother and his wife and her family, and started to run at 7:00. We both started to train for it a couple months ago. Jamon reached 6 miles during his training, but I only reached 4 miles and that was in the beginning of June. My busy work schedule didn't allow for any training the 2-3 weeks before, but there is something about running in a "race" that makes you just do it. I walked maybe 1/4 mile, but ran everything else. Jamon did much better and ran the whole thing. It was fun that we could both do this together. We are already preparing for our next 10K which will be August 22. Anyone want to join us?

(I think the sweat make us look like we are glowing. Oh well, what can you do with just a camera phone

After the run we were trying to decide what to do with the rest of our day. Outside was too hot and our house wasn't much cooler, so where could we go where we could relax and be cool? The movies. The good old dollar movie (which is actually $2.00 now). It was great. Then it wouldn't be a 4th of July with out a BBQ and Fireworks. We BBQ'd with some friends in our old ward and then watched the Stadium of Fire firework show. Jamon can now cross one more thing off his to do list, kissing during a firework show, it was "Electric."