Fifth Water Hot Springs

 Mel asked if we wanted to hike to Fifth Water Hot Springs in Diamond Fork Canyon with her and Ataiya and Amarie. It's a 5 mile roundtrip hike to some natural hot springs. Rockwell and I wanted to go, and Wyatt was able to come with us too. We started on the trail at 7:30 am so we could avoid the heat of the day. We glanced at the map at the beginning of the trail, and headed on our way. I never knew there was red rock so close to us. It was a combination of red rock and green landscape and it was beautiful.

Turns out, we were on the wrong trail here too. There were enough things along the way that made us think we were on the right path based on the comments from the AllTrails app. But we definitely weren't. Again though, it was beautiful and peaceful on this trail, and we all enjoyed the hike. Luckily Mel was able to let a couple other groups know on the way down that it wasn't the trail to the hot springs and saved them a few extra miles of hiking. We all felt like we had driven all this way and really wanted to see the hot springs, so when we got back down to the parking lot, we found the other trail and headed back up for another 5 miles. :) 

This trail followed the river most the time and it was beautiful as well.

The boys started complaining about the smell and I told them we must be getting close if it was stinking. They looked at me like I was crazy. Haha! (That was one of the signs on the other trail that made us think we were getting close there. The smell ended up being cow poop all over the trail though. Gross!) The hot springs smell like sulphur. It's pretty crazy that the water is super hot out in the middle of the mountains.

There were a bunch of different pools you could soak in. It was really slippery in the water and crazy hot, but really awesome too. It was such a different destination than I've ever hiked to before.

We made our way downstream, and each pool got cooler the further away from the waterfall we got.

This last pool was their favorite. It was deep enough to swim in and had the coolest temperature.

I was so proud of Rockwell and Wyatt for hiking 10 miles! Both trails were steep, so it wasn't an easy 10 miles. They did great, and I'm so glad they were there with us.

Summerfest Carnival

 Al invited us to go to the Orem Summerfest Carnival with her and Wyatt and Hallee on Thursday. The rides were all $1 that day. The lines were long, but luckily it was a cool day and the kids had fun with their cousins.

I stayed with Damon, Tessa, and Hallee and did the rides they wanted to do. Al took Wyatt and Rockwell to the older rides. It was nice that they could all be happy and choose what they wanted to do. There were some that they all wanted to do, so Al and I got some time to visit in those lines too. It was a fun afternoon!

We roasted hot dogs and s'mores that night. It's been a very hot summer so far, and so it was great to spend so much time outside on this cooler day.

This & That

 Paul's friend Karen hired Rockwell to come mow her lawn for a wedding they were having there. It looked amazing!

He is mowing the Loosle's, Chao's, and Thompson's yards every week this summer. They all are so happy with his work, and he is loving having that income every week.

Damon wants to earn money too, so we've been coming up with some things for him to do around our house. He's helped with weeding and fertilizing the plants.

He wanted to do a lemonade stand. He was so excited with the $4 he earned from that.

Tessa has been begging to color her hair for a while now. We got her some hair chalk, and that has been great. She put some in Damon's hair the other day to make him a "rocker." :) They got dressed for the part and put on rock music on Alexa. It was adorable.

 

Tessa was riding her bike over to Roxanne's house (2 houses away!) to go play in her backyard. She fell off her bike and came running right back over with a bloody head that looked pretty serious. I figured I would have to take her to the doctor, but knew that head wounds bleed a ton and can look worse than they really are. I very carefully searched through her bloody hair but couldn't see much of anything. I decided to wash her hair so I could see better. After washing all the blood out, it looked like she scraped her head. There were a few little scrapes, but luckily no cuts or anything that looked like it would need staples. We were both so grateful! I had a good talk with the kids about wearing helmets after that. They have been more willing to wear them since then.

Gloria Falls

We went on a family hike in Little Cottonwood Canyon. I had seen a few people mentioning Gloria Falls recently, so I thought we could try that one. We read the comments on the AllTrails app and headed out.

It was beautiful and peaceful. We only passed a handful of other groups.

We crossed over a lot of little streams.

After we had gone quite a while, we realized this was probably not the correct trail. There was no sight of a river or waterfall. We headed back down the trail and tried a different one. :) The kids weren't thrilled about passing the parking lot and starting on a whole different trail. There was definitely some complaining on the second trail. 

We made it to a river and the kids were happy to play in the water for a few minutes. 

I ran ahead a bit to see if the falls were close. I followed the instructions on the app as best as I could understand them, and this was all I could find.

We called that good, and decided to head back down. We thought we were going to hike just under 3 miles, but ended up doing closer to 6 miles. We were disappointed with not finding the waterfall. We all actually enjoyed the first trail more than the second since it was less crowded and just as pretty. Oh well. It was still fun to get outside in the mountains with the family.

Upper Falls

 I took the kids to hike Upper Falls. I was a little concerned about how steep it is for Damon, but figured we could take it as slow as we needed to. They all did great on the way up! Tessa and Damon had been complaining before we left saying they didn't want to hike, but about halfway up Tessa said, "Mom I regret saying I didn't want to come here. This is awesome!" Damon followed with a quick, "Me too!" I'm glad they liked it so much.

It really is a beautiful hike and I think they liked the challenge of it.

They always like when they can walk right up to the waterfall and feel the water.

The views are pretty everywhere you look!

When we got down to the car Rockwell asked when we can do that hike again. I told him I'm always up for hiking in the canyon and he said, "Great, tomorrow then?" :) It was one of those awesome hikes where everyone really enjoyed themselves. I love those!!

When we got home we played on Damon's splash mat again. It was a great summer day.