Last day in Mesa Verde

Today was the last day of our amazing Mesa Verde trip. Lily did such an incredible job planning everything.

We drove to the trail-head for Step House and Long House and had lunch.

It was a little rainy, so the kids played a new game Lily bought for them while we waited for things to clear up.

Then we set out for Step House

I begged Clarissa for a nice normal smile and this is what I got

After seeing Step House, we hiked to Long House where Lily scheduled a tour for us.

The kids had a lot of fun doing foot-races on the way.

In the link below, we are hiking the final segment to Long House.

https://youtube.com/shorts/aMgo7uKoUT4?feature=share

Ammon has been over-the-top social on this trick. At one point he stopped a lady on the trail and insisted that she needed to see my magic trick where I can remove my thumb. It was awkward, but she stood there, and I showed it to her, lol. Ammon is talking to everybody all the time. At the hot springs, He had someone singing “Never Gonna Give you Up” by Rick Roll in the bathroom with him. He stops to say hi to everyone and tries to be every dog. It’s honestly too much because he’s always throwing himself into conversation with others whether they want it or not, and we’ve had to coach Ammon about thinking about what other people want and not just always demanding people’s attention all the time. But even though Ammon is learning how to reign it in, the reality is, it is such a beautiful trait to make friends everyone. Within minutes of arriving at the Long House, he found a five year old boy named Luke and they became friends and held hands. They had so much fun together, and as a result, Lily and I became friends with Luke’s parents and we all chatted on the way back to the car.

After Long House, we drove home. We surprised the kids by stopping at Pasta Jays in Moab, one of our all-time favorite spots!

On the way home we had almost an hour of lightning. It was hard to catch much on video, but some of the lighting bolts were breathtaking. It was like having another night of fireworks.

On the way home I finished listening to a Mormon Stories podcast about the great Salt Lake. Lily is so good at pushing great content my way. Before that Podcast, we all finished Book 1 of How to Train Your Dragon which as family favorite, and maybe even THE family favorite audio book. My favorite line in the whole book is when Gobber the Belch tells the young soon-to-be Hooligan Vikings to read a book to learn how to train their dragon, and one of the youngsters says, “but what if you can’t read?” Gobber quips back, “no boasting! Get some idiot to read it to you.” Lol, it still makes me laugh! It was such a wonderful trip.