Zion Nation Park-Wheat Family Reunion

For Kevin's family Reunion, we went camping at Zion National Park! This was the first time I had really been so it was a ton of fun and it was beautiful! We had PERFECT weather too!

These two were BEST friends immediately! It was SO cute!

 Our Hike to Emerald Pools

Lauren (Kevin's sister) and I

Another fun hike we did was the "Subway". This was a bit harder, but it was the most fun I have had on a hike. It was a 9 mile hike going up and down boulder's, wading through icy cold water, and a few rappel's. 

The Group BEFORE we started our hike ^

 At one point, after we got our wetsuits on, we had to climb through this little rabbit hole, go down some rocks/boulders and wade through some water on the other side. Here is a video, Kevin's brother took of going through the rabbit hole. ^

It was a good thing we brought our wetsuits because some of the water crossings were DEEP and ICY COLD! There's me with my packpack crossing the water! :)

There were multiple Rappel's...this was the biggest.

The whole group except Jen.

 The hike wasn't too hard until right before we had eaten lunch, I was starting to wear out. I hadn't had much water or food to eat until we sat down for lunch because Kevin was carrying all our snacks in his bag and everyone got lost in the excitement of how much fun we were having. The rest of the hike, after lunch, was REALLY hard for me because I don't think my body had registered that I had eaten and had water yet and so I just felt SO DEPLETED of energy! Plus we were climbing up and down boulder's still so I was still USING a lot of energy. I started to panic a bit when I saw that we had a mile and a half of climbing straight up (sorry I don't have a picture of that, but it was intimidating) and I had hardly ANY energy left in me. But I just told myself that the only option was to keep going and to keep drinking water. Luckily, I think my body was finally starting to register the food I had eaten and a whole bunch of energy started kicking in. It was perfect timing!

Us at the car after a long day of hiking! Relieved!

Kevin and I have talked about what we would have changed if we were to do it again, and for me I was would definitely, make sure I had a few snack on me so I could eat along the way. I think it would have made a HUGE difference in how I responded coming out of the subway.

It was a great hike, and I'm sure Kevin and I will try to hike it again! Probably one of my most favorite hikes I've done!

Besides hiking, the family enjoyed smore's and a lot of awesome camping food, and enjoying time talking to each other. Unfortunately,  we don't have other photos of the rest of the trip because Kevin and I made a rule that we wouldn't use our cell phones on this trip and Kevin and I didn't really pull out our other camera! I guess we just lived in the moment! It was a fun trip though! One we will remember forever!