The low down from our Amazing trip!

I know many of you are completely "over" hearing about my incredible birthday weekend and would like me to stop bragging about it - but hey - it's my blog, so I'm going to write about it. If you follow me on FB or instagram hopefully this will sum things up for you better instead of just glimpses from pictures. :)

My husband is totally amazing and knows me so well. He knew that since we were dating our last spring break of college I've always wanted to go back to Arches National Monument outside of Moab Utah.

So here's the rundown of how our weekend went - :)

Friday - we left after Richard got done work and drove about 6 hours (supposed to be 5, but traffic was a little bad) to Grand Junction

Saturday - My Birthday - woke up for a nice leisurely 4 mile run at sunrise. Then packed up, and filling a million water bottles up and headed out to Moab Utah. (said goodbye to the boys, and they stayed with their grandparents. We are so thankful for a great relationship - they love our children and our children are so comfortable with them)

Got to The Arches National Monument around 1pm. Stopped in at visitor Center and got our backcountry permit to be able to camp. This park is basically in the dessert so water was a big commodity. At first we hiked to a few of the arches that are easily accessible and not long/hard hikes at all.

Balanced Rock

Just completely Amazing

  Around 4pm we parked our car in the designated spot and got our packs ready and said goodbye to the car. And started on our journey

all ready to go with tons of water on our backs

We hiked about 2 miles off the beaten path and found a great spot to camp.
This picture below was on the hike to our spot. Such beautiful scenery that went for literally tons and tons of miles

so vast!!!! (but very dry)

The slick rock terrain

 Once we got our camp all set up - we set our packs down and went for another hike down to a canyon we could see and sat there for a while just taking in the beauty of it all

 At our camp site cooking our dinner, aka - cans of soup heated on a tiny flame

 This was the sun setting behind the camera but the rays were shooting across the whole valley. IT was amazing. But this was also the time I started getting really  nervous.

 I'm not gonna lie - I don't like the dark hours of the night when we are out all by ourselves away from security of other people around, or some sort of vehicle or structure for protection. There were storms all around us we could see and I was completly paranoid that one of those huge rays of lightening was going to hit us - but they stayed far away. And it was super windy until about 11pm. Once the winds calmed down it was bright full moon out and calm. But still I kept saying "I would give anything to be back at the car right now! drinking water gallore and sleeping inside something other than this tent." "I almost convinced Richard to hike out that late at night, but ultimately knew I would be so happy if I made it through. And would regret not making it through the night. So I counted down the hours until we started to see this ---------

Absolutely gorgeous and so beautiful. And I was right - so happy I stayed through the night and did it. (I don't feel that way at all when we're car camping or with other people, it's the solitude and no security of a vehicle in case of disaster, and only through the dark hours)

happy the sun came up :)

Our hearty Breakfast

Notice the bright moon as the sun is coming up

And that my friends - off in the distance is our car :)
Something I was happy to see :) 

We hiked out early after packing up our camps. (our backpacks were much lighter after drinking a lot more water) Thankfully we only saw the tracks of snakes on the sand, but did not come across any. I probably would've died! 

We had many more arches and hikes to do that morning. It was much easier knowing we had plenty of water left and seeing some faucets of water to fill up if we needed.

Don't mind the sweat - it was super hot! Give me a break :)

We hiked for a few more hours. Making sure we were going fast enough on the hikes that no one passed us and trying to pass as many people as we could to make sure we got our exercise in and stayed young. (I am 28 now after all :) hehehe)

After we were done hiking for the day - we got our hotel room in the town of Moab. How wonderful to finally wash the sweat off my face from 2 days of hiking in the dessert with little water and to brush my teeth. The water running over my whole body and the water I drank all afternoon felt so amazing! WE were of course starving also - so we went to the Moab Brewery (for old times sake, remember that Lydia?? ) with all the old people (I think we were there before 5pm) and gorged ourselves with wonderful food. 

 The next morning, Labor Day morning we woke up and went to an awesome Restaurant recommended by one of my running buds - and had the most amazing omlet I've ever eaten. (now I don't usually enjoy too many omlets so that's not comparing that many of them). Amazing! Roasted red peppers, basil aoili, tomatoes and mozarella cheese! Mouth watering

Then we were reunited with our boys around noon or a little after on Labor Day!

I harp on this a lot - but I cannot say enough how precious that time away with the man of my life and best friend is. I kept saying over and over how thankful I am that we are together. That he is my husband. I enjoy the time with him. We enjoy each other, we enjoy doing things together. I cannot imagine doing life with anyone else. I am blessing beyond measure and weekends like this make me realize that so much more.