July 17: Judson Property & American Fork Canyon

July 17 - Thursday:

Today was a big, wonderful, adventurous day.  Melissa worked today, so Nathan entertained us.  :)

He took us to their property south of Spanish Fork.  It's about an hour and 15 minute drive from their house to the property.  It's a pretty drive through the canyon.  I'm so glad we went.  It's just a beautiful, calm place and it smells SO good.  All of the best smells of nature.  

I took lots of pictures:

We brought an easy lunch of peanut butter and jelly and ate in their RV.  And we popped and ate lots of popcorn.

The kids found sticks and were very happy.  :)

Nathan taught Isak how to drive the tractor.  

Kira took this picture:

Then I took a few pictures of her:

And she took some of me.

Here's their RV.

Sofie tried to drive the tractor too.

And Noah too.

They were very happy to be out here.

Then it started to rain so we went back to the RV.

It hailed too.  I don't remember the last time we had seen hail.  The kids were so cute looking out the window.  

They played Mario Kart while I journaled.  

I took this picture and Kira pointed out the gradient of the mountains.  The farthest mountains are lighter in color and then it gets darker the closer the mountains are to us.

It smelled even better after the rain!

After the rain stopped, we explored some more.  Nathan showed us the swing on the tree.

And we played on it for a bit.

Nathan showed them how to bounce off of the tree.

More pictures with the great background.

Then we had to leave and we drove back to Melissa's house.  It was so fun to chat with Nathan.  He's awesome and I loved the time he spent with us.

We quickly packed some food for dinner and drove up to American Fork Canyon with the Judson's.  The kids were thrilled to have a fire and cook their food over the fire.  We did hot dogs, brats and grilled cheese sandwiches.  

Sofie was super proud of her perfect grilled cheese that she cooked.  

We also roasted marshmallows and made s'mores.

Even Noah ate a s'more this time.

Then we went repelling.

The kids did amazing and Nathan and Karl were patient teachers and helpers.  

Sofie, Isak, Kira and I all went on the big rock face.  I even went twice!

That's Isak about to go over...

Kira surprised me by loving it this time.  She practiced on this little one and then she went on the the big one several times.  And she smiled and laughed the whole time!  I was so proud of her!  She was like a kangaroo hopping down the cliff face.

Haha!  Karl was a good sport.

Nathan coming down.  I didn't get a pic, but he went down head first one time!!

Noah liked to climb.  But he did not try repelling.  He loved the hammock though and enjoyed being there with everyone.

I think this is Kira about to go over.

It was a great time and I'm so glad we went and tried repelling again.  I was pretty scared to do it again because the last time I hurt my elbow.  But this time went smoothly and the second time I went down was fun.  :)  We loved the canyon and the outdoors here.  Just a beautiful place.   Thanks Judson's!