March 15, 2014

We made our escape to St. George for a long weekend.
Mostly Jake had to do some Continuing Education so Utah will let him still be a lawyer and we thought we should tag along.
The kids were super excited- not only for the trip but for the "lunch" we made for them for the drive packed with juice boxes, and all kinds of treats.  Mari carried her lunch around the entire morning so we wouldn't forget it.  And before we were out of the driveway everyone had broken into their packs.  Silly kids.
We decided kind of late that we would go to this conference, so I called 12 hotels and resorts in St. George and nobody had anything available this weekend.  Apparently there was in addition to lawyer conferences... baseball tournaments, a race, tons of schools including UVU's Spring Break, etc, etc so the whole world was going to St. Geroge for this same weekend.  So we ended up staying in Hurricane, which is like 15 minutes away.  But I am pretty sure we made the best choice and will be staying there always from here on out because not only was it the far nicest place we have ever stayed ever, it was gorgeous and completely empty. Oh and when check out was at 11 and I wanted a late check out- they said sure, when, and I said... like 3pm, and they said- sure thing.... umm yeah best place ever.

After checking in, the kids broke right into the special paint sets I had got for them for the trip for something to do.  Then I let Bethy get a nap while Jake took the kids for a swim in what was not suppose to be, but ended up being our own private pool for most of the trip. Like I said, nobody was there.  And yes, it was WARM.  Warm enough to swim outside in the pool anyways.
Then we went to get some dinner.  Chick-fil-a.  We let the kids play in the play center and then headed back to our condo.  Where we got ready for bed.  Then assembled the bug looking paper airplanes that came in dinner's kids' meals.  Then we played hide and go seek with some glow sticks I had brought.  Bethy had to be contained in a pool flotation device so she wouldn't get into things sometimes.  And even though we splurged on a three bedroom place to people will go to sleep and let us sleep... nobody slept.  And in the morning there were four people in our bed, only two of them belonged there.  We don't have an alarm clock in our room at home, but having the clock in the room glaring at me every time I woke up to feed Bethy that night made me realize that I am literally only sleeping about 2.5 hours a night for getting up with her.  At my house it is the same but I don't have bright red numbers flashing in my face to testify to my not sleeping.
Jake left early for his classes while the kids and I got up and dressed, colored, watched the tv's.  Yes there were FOUR televisions in this condo.  Which the kids thought was pretty cool and liked to watch tv in their own rooms.  We only have two TV's and none are in front of beds at our house.  They kept saying how rich this place was.

Since Jake was going to be gone most of the day, the kids and I set out for some fun.  First up, some hiking.  We just set out from where we were since Jake had the car, but the place we were at was pretty in the middle of no where anyways.  We found lots of red rocks to explore and beautiful hiking terrain for little kids.  Then we came home, made ourselves some Mac and Cheese and grapes for lunch.  Though the kids were begging me to let them have Cadbury Eggs  and Peeps for lunch because we brought some. Then brave me took all four kids swimming by myself.  And again we were mostly alone except one other family in the pool.  The kids swam for almost two hours, until Jake arrived back.

Next up on our trip list was the new St. George Children's Museum.  Except that in the 20 minutes it took us to drive there everyone but Kate and Jake feel asleep. A full day of hiking and swimming will do that to you.  So Jake and Kate hopped out of the car at the St. George Temple while I sat inside letting the others nap.  They toured around and went to the visitors center.  Then we all went to the museum.  While there the kids fixed cars, flew jets, navigated pirate ships and rivers, pretended to be president,  did experiments, art, and ran a grocery store.  Bethy tried to grab fish in an aquarium.   The best part... this museum is FREE, and so is the amazing splash river next to it.   We made a small donation at a window but,If you are going to St. George with kids you could spend the entire day here and it wouldn't even cost you anything.

And then we ate at the Pizza Factory.  And I don't care how not fine dinning it is, it is always one of my favorite places to eat. On our way back Jake and the kids went to play at a waterfall at the resort, but Bethy and I stayed in the car, me and my chubby girl and her long eyelashes.

Home and then to sleep.  We didn't do any better in that department this next night.  HOW COME MY KIDS DON'T SLEEP???  Whoops I called it "Home"  I kept doing this on the trip and Mari was kind of confused.  We haven't been on many vacations in her lifetime so she didn't always understand what we were doing.  At one point we left her beloved blanky at the condo to go out and she was afraid we had left it forever.   

The next morning Jake left again for class.  The kids and I had to do some cleaning up and packing. Then we went out hiking again.  Our kids loved hiking this past summer, and this reminded them how much they like exploring.  After our hike I let them run around on the grass.  They played tag, and had cartwheel contests.  When the kids are on vacation and only have each other they are pretty good friends to one another.

Then we came back and I had some more packing and cleaning to do, so I let them eat whatever they wanted out of the snacks we had brought... in one of their beds... while watching cartoons!  They thought they had died and gone to heaven.  I packed up and cleaned up and when I returned to find them, they had eaten an entire bag of Sun Chips,  five oranges, and an Entire bag of animal crackers.  And yes, that is Bethy eating a Peep.

Then we traveled home.  I wish we were still on vacation.  I could take sitting by the pool half the day watching the kids swim, and not doing any laundry or cooking dinner every day.