Bucket List pt II, Valley of Fire

Last weekend, we took advantage of Nevada Day (no school on Friday) and checked off another "Bucket List" daytrip: Valley of Fire. The Valley is about an hour Northeast of our house, bordering a section of Lake Mead. We camped with two of our closest couple friends here in Vegas, who both have boys almost the same age as John. Such a fun trip!

Stunning rock formations everywhere. Above: Rainbow Vista.

Happy camper.

The boys: David, Traegon, and John.

Explorer Heaven. Rocks, dirt, caves, and climbing challenges everywhere!

Fearlessly trying to climb up after his dad.

Us on our favorite "hike", Mouse's Tank

(or was it Moose Tracks? I could not get this one right)

Cookie Monster.

Favorite part about the whole experience: our campsite. We were nestled in the rocks, oblivious to all nearby campers. As mentioned earlier, there were rocks, sand, caves, and hikes a plenty right at our campsite= adventurous boys' dream come true. We ate fun camp food, went all out on S'mores (Nutella was the newest confection epiphany), laughed, talked, and had a great time together. Highlights: Matt splitting his pants (trying to put me down from his shoulders), blowing off Roman Candles, viewing Jupiter and four moons through the Parkers' telescope, and an epic "fill-in-the-blank" narrative. Matt and John slept well despite the cold night (crummy sleeping pad= crummy sleep for me). Nevertheless, fantastic camping!

The cliffs above our campsite.

Moms and babies in the caves.

The sandstone is so soft, there are eroded holes all over.

The bigger boys challenging each other. Again, adventurous boys' dream come true.

The drive.

My mountain man.

Matt taming Elephant Rock.

Me repelling down a cliff; so fun!

Matt coming down the cliff.

We took A LOT of pictures. The scenery was so beautiful, and we wanted to adequately document each family. Here's an album with the rest of our pictures :) Overall, one of the more fun camping trips I've been on!