Evan's Fifth Birthday, and Death Valley

In February, my littlest boy turned five years old!  He went with Dad to pick out a cake, and came home with an awesome Porto's fruit tart.  For gifts, he got a bunch of Rescue Heroes with their vehicles (hooray for garage sales!), and a Nerf bow and arrow set, which he was actually pretty responsible with.  Evan brings so much energy to our family, and so many "great ideas!"  He's super friendly to everyone he meets, and loves sports more than any of the rest of us.  We love you, Evan!

 

The day after Evan's birthday, I finally took our New Year's growth-chart picture and measurements.  Apparently, they all grew!
   

Two days after Evan's birthday, we went to a BYU volleyball game at USC.  They didn't win, but we had fun anyway.  Outside of the sports complex was an awesome sign we thought somebody might appreciate.
   

  

Over Valentine's Day weekend, we went with all our camping buddies up to Death Valley.  We spent the night in Bishop (not camping,) so we could enter the park the next morning from Big Pine and see the Eureka Sand Dunes - the tallest dunes in California.  The drive took longer than we expected, and the last ten miles of road were badly rutted and washed out, which was kind of exciting in a minivan.  The hike up made some of us grumpy, but we all made it!
   

Top of Eureka Dunes

Sliding Down

  
After a restful night of tent sleep, we took an even dodgier road up to hike this really cool canyon (sorry, I can't remember the name of it.)  
  

She got stuck.

That afternoon we went and visited Scotty's Castle.  We didn't pay for a tour, but still got a chance to look around.  It would have been a fun place to stay back in the day, as long as you came in winter.

   

 On our last day, we stopped by Devil's Golf Course, and revisited the pupfish in Salt Creek.  On the way home, we (along with the Walches and Menssens) helped a couple of stranded German college students on the road to Trona.  We're going to miss having the Menssens around to arrange all our camping trips!
   

  

Ryan and Elise in the Devil's Golf Course