Lil' Dean Fam

Jess, Justin, Mom and I went to California for a quick weekend trip to see Grandma and Grandpa.  Our family threw them a party to celebrate their 67th wedding anniversary.  It was a bit of a whirlwind but it was such a blast.  I was kind of dreading the trip, thinking that my grandpa was going to be so ill, but we had the greatest time and I'm so glad we went.  We had the best time and laughed our heads off all weekend long.  I was so glad to spend some quality time with my grandparents and my siblings.  It isn't often that we don't have any kids with us.  Grandma and Grandpa were bummed that we didn't bring the kids, though so we'll have to bring them next time!   Shout out to the Keaches for hosting an awesome party! 

Evan was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.   He was so excited to turn eight years old and make this big step.  He has been looking forward to it for a long time.  Our day was lovely and everything went very smoothly.  I was so glad to have so much family with us on this special day.  Colin's parents were able to come from Maryland and my whole family came out to support Evan on his big day.  We had a brunch afterward at our house. 

The last stop on our National Parks Tour was Zion National Park.  We drove from Bryce to Zion and came in on the East Scenic Byway entrance.  It was really cool to drive through the park; there's so much to see just from your car.  The amazing thing about our tour in general was all of the different geography.  It's incredible that such different structures exist in a relatively small amount of area.   We stayed the night in a nice hotel and had a great breakfast in the morning.  We entered the park pretty early to avoid the crowds which was a really good decision.  The only downside was that it was much colder than we had anticipated.  The cliffs are so high that the shadows make for pretty chilly mornings.   We hiked up to Emerald Pools and that was our main hike for the day.  It wasn't too hard but it was very rugged.  I felt like a mountain goat climbing in and around the rocks all day.  We did a few other short hi...