This is how we rock.

Remember Spencer’s 30th birthday and the whole super-sweet-rock-climbing-in-Vegas thing? Well, apparently red rocks were our theme for the 30th birthdays this year.


Thursday was the big THIRTY for me (how did that happen--seriously?). Spencer took the day off and we had a great day with a big (okay, HUGE) southern breakfast at Lucile’s, a facial (just me--no kids), and some much-needed clothes shopping. Isabel was kind enough to wear her fanciest dress to breakfast and even coached me on how to do her hair for maximum fanciness. I think that she figured that if I wasn’t going to dress up for the big occasion, she would!


The next day, we headed off for my birthday trip. A weekend in MOAB!! The Pierces were kind enough to join us and we had such a blast. Prepare yourself for a dizzying number of pictures because, really, how could I possibly narrow it down?


Oh, and please note that half of these pictures were taken by Sage. No need to point out which ones because it's easy: they're the beautiful, color-saturated ones that really capture Moab. ;)

Isabel holding sweet Beckett.

The baby boys just hanging out. Well, hanging their mouths open anyway.

Lovin' some s'mores.

The view from our campsite. Amazing right?

Trying to hide from the morning sun.

Doing some early morning "studying" with Mike.

The big boys playing some variety of Star Wars.

Being silly (what?!) at breakfast.

Spencer, a.k.a. the jedi master of s'mores cooking up a marshmallow for one of us. That's right, we've turned it all over to him. He's just that good.

All the dads. All the big kids. And some seriously beautiful red rock on our hike up Negro Bill Canyon (believe it or not, that IS the "new" name of the canyon).

Keeler loving the front carrier. How cute is he?

The fam on our hike. Why Spencer is standing 4 feet away from us, I'm not really sure.

Isabel taking a slide down the wet rock in the stream. It felt so good to get in the water! mid-80s feels a whole lot hotter when you're baking like a lizard on the rock!

Milo checking out the crawdad swimming pool that Mike built. Nothing like a little crawdad catchin' to bring back childhood memories right? Well, for me anyway...

Checking out a baby crawdad.

Isabel showing off the cradad pincer that she found. This was right before she got pinched by an intact crawdad. Her reaction was so hilarious that none of us could even compose ourselves enough to tend to her really. (She was fine--just shocked that the little bugger actually pinched her!)

Wading upstream with the dads.

Checking out the dinosaur footprint fossils. They thought this was so awesome!

Hiding from teh sun in a little cave. These were up the side of a pretty steep stretch of slickrock. Sage and I were both nearly stroking out the whole time they were climbing around.

We made a valiant attempt at hiking to a railroad tunnel. Turns out, the only thing hotter than slick red rock in the middle of the afternoon is hot black rock and steaming hot railroad tracks in the middle of the afternoon. Made for some cool pictures though. :)

The last day we hung out at a sandy beach along the river and the kids played their little hearts out. Milo is such a water baby. He has no fear--which completely freaks me out.

Isabel was having a blast (and entertaining the eldery European tourist) by dipping her whole self in the water then rolling around in the dry sand ("like a sugar donut") and THEN dancing around like some sort of tribal person on the beach. That girl never leaves us bored that's for sure!