memorial weekend [part 1]

This past weekend was amazing.

It involved camping [and psuedo-camping], family, St. George, more family, and a baby blessing.

Ellie's baby blessing, to be exact.

But let's start at the beginning.

On Thursday, Ellie and I packed up the car [she's a great help, don't let her fool you], picked up Tim from work, and drove out to the Bryce Canyon area to meet my family.  Growing up, this was one of my family's favorite places to go camping, and it holds many fond memories for me.  Initially, we had thought that we would just camp with my family, but after thinking about it more thoroughly, we decided that Ellie and campgrounds might not be a great fit.  Which meant that we actually ended up staying at an inn in Panguitch at night and driving out to the campground during the day.

Tim found some creative ways to keep Ellie warm on Friday morning:

And then we drove into Bryce Canyon National Park to do some sightseeing:

During the car ride, I heard my brother, Jeff, laughing in the back seat and turned around to see Tim in this position:

He was obviously still a little sleepy.

I realized on Friday morning that I'd forgotten to bring Ellie's hat [and her pack...but that was a lost cause], so we made a pit stop at the gift shop and got the smallest hat we could find.  Which was obviously not small enough.  But I'll be danged if she wasn't the cutest little baby I ever did see.

Along the Navajo Loop Trail, people kept stopping to take pictures of Ellie, since...you know...taking a three month old baby hiking probably isn't the most normal thing.  And it's probably even less-normal that Tim and I have been taking her hiking for about a month now.  But it's good to know that Ellie will be in photo albums around the world!

Casey obviously wasn't thrilled to be taking pictures with me [I think he was more interested in the hamburgers...but I can't really blame him]:

My cute parents making our dang good hamburgers:

My mom bought this little Bugs Bunny outfit to keep our little girl warm:

And none of us could stop laughing at the expression on her face.  It was like she already knew what this picture would mean for her in 16 years.

That night, we all sat around the campfire and roasted marshmallows and told stories and loved every second of it.

Aaaand I'll finish up with St.George in a separate post.  Keeping my fingers crossed for tomorrow!