Sunny St. George

The time came in February that I was tired enough of the cold that I just wanted to go somewhere . . . warm. We also hadn't gone on any trips for a long time, so I was starting to feel kind of stir crazy. Both of these combined led me to decide one Friday morning (of President's Day weekend) to start packing clothes and bikes and scooters and pack n' play and stroller and food and swim suits and everything else it takes to take four kids away for three days (which seems like a ridiculous amount) and take them to St. George that day. Grandma Great would be there waiting and Scott would need to stay home working so that he was ready to take time off of work for his surgery. 

I worked all morning to get us loaded up. When Brie got out of school, we took off. We got in the van at our house and didn't stop again until we were unloaded at Grandma Great's house. No stops! Wahoo! We were so excited to arrive, especially when we felt how much warmer it was. So excited!

I wanted us to be outside as much as possible. We walked and rode all over Grandma's little community.

We spent that first day at the red rocks. We climbed all over and to the top of almost every rock formation there. 

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I love this series of pictures I caught of Zachary celebrating that he got to the top of the big one!

Zachary was nervous of the big, tall ones, but Ava and Brielle had no fear. They loved it. After a nice picnic lunch that Grandma and Ada brought for us, Zach and Kate hung back with them for awhile while Brie, Ava and I went exploring. 

Kate LOVING the oranges Grandma was feeding her.

Off to climb! I love this series of pics also. I didn't realize I caught this, but man, look at that leap by Brielle over a treacherous divide between the rocks!

Climbing up.

Victory!!

And climbing back down . . . or sliding down on their bums in new school jeans. 

We had such a good time being out there. We all got sunburned and dirty, but it felt awesome to be outside in the sun. Grandma took us to a little old fashioned candy store and ice cream parlor next. The kids got their "Superman" flavored ice cream and we took it across the street to the park to play some more. 

This is seriously Zachary's heaven!

Ava's ice cream cone.

Lovin' it. All over his face and clothes.

All of this outside fun had to be topped off with a swim in Grandma's pool and then In n' Out Burger for dinner. Talk about a good day! Everyone went to sleep early and exhausted that night. Especially me.

We got to lounge around Grandma's house a bit on Sunday morning before church. We went for a walk while Kate slept, the kids played dominoes with Grandma and colored pictures for her.

Church. Oh, church was an experience. We went to Grandma's winter branch. It was a branch of all the "snowbirds", which means everyone there was 75 years old or over. My kids were the ONLY kids there. And they were crazy. Mostly Kate was crazy. She was squirming and wiggling and climbing and yelling and screaming (happy) and just so noisy. We eventually made our way out to the lobby where we remained to the end.

After church I took the kids to the St. George Temple while Grandma rested a bit and they got some more energy out.

These two danced in circles like this forever.

Monday morning came and it was time for me to pack all that stuff up again. We packed the van and got ready to go, but before leaving everyone had some work to do to help Grandma. The kids cleaned bathrooms, swept, dusted and I mopped. We also helped put stuff away in the attic, which the kids thought was so cool!

When our work was done and we had said our good byes and thank yous to grandma for taking such good care of all of us, we hit the park for the day. It was an awesome park with the coolest toys! The bike path even goes around it for riding scooters. We will definitely go back again. These guys played for hours and then were sad to leave when I finally had to put them in the car to drive home. Slurpees at the gas station was the perfect bribe for that though. We had another really good drive home. Just one quick stop at the bathroom and throwing lots of licorice back at Kate to keep her happy!

Thank heaven for sunny St. George. All of us who are enduring the cold, snow and inversion have a beautiful escape just a few hours away. I am SO GLAD I spontaneously just went! It did us all some good. Thank you Grandma!