payson lakes

saturday morning we woke up feeling adventurous.

we just found an awesome deal on a hiking backpack through ksl.com, so we thought we would put it to good use up at payson lakes.

i haven't been there since i was a little girl, and danny had never been so we packed a lunch, loaded up the car + the kiddo's and hit the road.

don't worry, we didn't even take a map :)

we knew we could get to the lakes through the nebo loop, so we headed up the canyon. five minutes into our drive, we saw something slightly strange up ahead but we couldn't quite make it out...

then we got closer:

an ENTIRE herd of sheep was being herded up the canyon road. we almost called the police. that can't be legal. but then we remembered where we live...and we decided against reporting them. they were cute little sheep though + noisy! i've never heard so much baa-ing.

seriously, though. i don't think that is safe in any way.

once we made it to the turn off, we saw a sign stating that in four miles the road was closed ahead. danny thought for sure it couldn't mean the main road, so we kept on trucking along...

turns out it was the main road. that can't be legal either :)

so, we decided to turn around and go the other way to payson lakes via I-15. forty five minutes later we were still winding up the canyon road, but luckily we didn't have any main roads close on us. we did almost hit a deer though. i almost had a heart attack!!

finally, after stopping at a little boutique for directions, asking some ladies on the canyon road {when we thought we should have been there by now!}, and driving almost an hour, we made it to beautiful payson lakes. the weather was a little chillier than we had planned for, but our kids were troopers. we walked around 3/4 of the lake before stopping for lunch and enjoying the beautiful scenery.

it really was so beautiful up there. and peaceful.

we felt like we were on vacation and we only had to drive an hour away.

max had a blast throwing pebbles into the lake:

{i LOVE it when he holds my hand!}

and avery was on her best behavior:

{she has started smiling so much more and it is the cutest thing ever. look at all those rolls!!}

we were pretty tuckered out when we made it home, but we had a blast and have decided to make saturday's our hiking days. next up: stewart falls.

anyone wanna join us??