Summer vacation

van der Horst family reunion in southern Utah.  First we flew in through Las Vegas and drove down the strip.

It was too hot to get out of the car

We did stop at In-n-Out burgers for lunch. It is a uniquely western thing to go animal style.

We stayed at a large vacation home just outside of Zion National Park. We spent time with family playing games and swimming in the pool or the pond.

We went canyoneering, which is both rock climbing and rappelling.

We hiked The Narrows, which is not really a trail but a walk in the Virgin River through the canyons. Usually the water is shallow, but it does get pretty deep in some stretches.

On the way in we found a shallower path which did not go much above my belly button. This was a deeper course.

We rode UTV or can-am trails out to peek-a-boo canyon. Everyone was safe and we had a great trip.

These footholds were made over 2,000 years ago to climb down into the slot from the top of the canyon.

We got tickets to the outdoor theater in St. George area, Tuacahn. They were performing the Tarzan Musical.

The place we stayed at was near an old "Ghost Town" Grafton, Utah.

Grandpa celebrated his 80th birthday.

That's a lot of birthday candles

The whole family

Spring Break

 

The first thing we had planned for our week of Spring Break vacation was a construction project. We dismantled the kids old play set several months ago and we had a pile of wood laying around. We decided to build a garden arbor/ hammock support. We pitched in to do this project as a family.

I love the way it turned out. We will plant flowering vines and ground flowers around the structure.

We also spent a lot of time at the Richmond Temple open house, touring and volunteering.

I was on security duty. Since there were no security incidents, I basically just walked around the property and talked to a lot of people. Everyone seems so happy to visit.

We next went camping to Merchants' Millpond in the Great Dismal Swamp region, just across the NC border

Canoeing the swamp is the main attraction. In fact, we camped in a location that was only accessible by canoe. We loaded up all our gear and paddled to the camp site.

Orlando Trip

 This year NANOS was in Orlando Florida.

Jen's parents came to stay with the kids and Jen and Scott got away for the week.

First, we went to New Smyrna Beach to visit Scott's parents.

They can drive right on the sand there. We arrived as the tide was coming in and everyone was in a hurry to get off the beach.
We had dinner together with some great seafood including fried gator bites.

On Sunday we attended the local ward in Davenport, FL and Scott attended the NANOS conference. He submitted a case for the Walsh meeting this year, but it was not accepted. Oh well, it was still a great conference. We met up with some of the Iowa alums on Sunday evening.

On Monday we went to Haines City Florida to visit an orange grove.

I knew we were heading to Haines City, but when we saw this cute sign we pulled off the highway and did this touristy photo-op. 

The orange grove tour was cut short when a torrential rain began.

At least we got a free homemade orange ice cream while we sheltered during the rain.

The next day we took a walk through the woods.

We could only make it so far, because parts of the trail were completely flooded from the prior rain

We did some swimming at the Orlando resort.

We also visited Scott's parents in the Villages. We went golfing. We had a blast.

As you might predict, we spotted an alligator from the golf course. They take water hazard to a new level.

This is the closest we got to Mickey while we were in Orlando:

I guess theme parks are just not our thing.

We broke up the trip home with an outing in South Carolina. We canoed 13 miles on the Edisto River on Friday, spent the night in a treehouse then canoed another 10 miles back to our car on Saturday morning.

The river was moving great. The weather was beautiful. The scenery was gorgeous.

The company was perfect!

Most of the paddling was just to navigate around bends and avoiding downed branches. The river did the rest of the work.

Super cute tree house. But don't let it fool you. It was still a rustic outdoors experience.

Being out in nature was so delightful.

We made dinner on the grill. Pizza Rustic Style.

While there was both a loft and a futon, we opted for the lower level because we found a couple of wasps up in the loft that we had to escort out of the tree house. It rained during the night, but we were cozy and dry. The gentle rocking of the trees and the gurgling of the river and patter of rain was a good combination for sleeping. However, at 4 AM there was a crashing/ splashing sound when one of the nearby trees fell into the river.

It was a wonderful trip, worth remembering.