St. George.....

We got home from St. George last Sunday night and before I forget to post about it I thought that I should do it, good Sunday afternoon activity, I think. We had a fun family vacation together, we always do. This year J.D. did something different for us as a family. Each day he assigned one of the kids to give a little spiritual thought about something, sortof like having mini family home evenings while on vacation except that we would start our day with it. The first morning was Drews and he gave a thought about the temple, and how thankful that he is for them and how glad he is that we can be together foever as a family. We had just gone the day before to the open house at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple, so it was fresh in all our minds and it was nice to be reminded of the importance of it in our lives. So we thought it would be appropriate to drive by the St. George temple while we were there. Ella is always so excited to see the temple. She points them out whenever we drive by or look up on the hill to see one. Her enthusiasm never changes about seeing the temples. The next day was Brennas turn and she talked about family. She read a scripture and a quote from the "strength of youth" pamplet. Morgan talked to us on the third day about repentance. She especially focused her talk on Jensen since he will be getting baptized soon. J.D. took the last morning that we were gone and he talked about the Holy Ghost and feeling the spirit. He also really focused on Jensen and how important the next step in his life is. It was a fun way to spend each morning together, having family prayer and remembering what is really important. I am so grateful that J.D. encouraged the kids to take part in this and hopefully it can become another fun part of our family vacations.

FOOD!!!

Food is always involved in a vacation, and we do it right!! We enjoy things like hamburgers and shakes on a hot night and nobody even feels guilty about eating like that, because after all, isn't that part of a great vacation...

Eating ourselves silly at the Iceberg across the street from our hotel. Grandpa, Grandma, Julie and Bradley were there with Aliza, so were Brittyn and Leah who drove down with grandma and grandpa (lucky girls).


Strange boys I know....they are always coming up with funny things like that!! I am glad that they don't think that they are too cool act silly.

THE PARK!!

After dinner we all walked to the park. For July the weather really wasn't too terribly hot. I mean, it was hot, but not unbearable like it usually is. I think that J.D. must have been praying hard for it to be like that, because be really does not like to be in the heat. We stayed at the park for a while that night, which was something out of the ordinary for us to do. Grandpa had to go back to the hotel and get the car, because neither Grandma, Morgan and all the little girls were not really up for the walk back. I thought it was fun.

Me and Jiles - his first swing!! He is still a little too small to hold his head up, but it was cute to see him try. He is such an easy going kid. We were able to drive all the way to St. George without even stopping once, that is a major tribute to all my kids. They did a great job, as soon as we were ready to stop in Cedar City Ella gave up and went to sleep, so no stop....we kept on going. Unfortunately, Jensen started crying, unusuall hard, on that last little bit of the drive saying that his ears hurt and I knew by the way he acted that he was serious. He had complained earlier in the day saying he thought he had an ear infection, but since he hadn't even been sick I thought that was strange. Sure enough, after a trip to the Instacare in St. George he was diagnosed with a double ear infection - so weird to me, the middle of summer and we have ear infections. As soon as we got him started on the antibiotics all was well.

I have another picture of my kids on a slide when Ella was just new, like maybe 6 months or so. I love it, I have it framed in my kitchen, so I thought it would be cool to take another. No Jiles though, I kinda had to force this one because Morgan didn't feel well and Ella wanted to be playing with her cousins, but I got one in. Lucky me.

THE RODEO!!

We did some fun things this trip. Things that we normally don't do. The first night in town we went and saw "Annie" at Tuachan which was really fun for all of us. I think this was the hottest night that we were there. Still around 95 degrees when we headed back to our hotel at 11:30 at night, I felt like I was going to melt. Especially since I was holding the baby, they are little furnaces by themselves, so we were hot. It was a good show, they always do a really nice job down there. I am glad that the kids enjoy going and doing things like that, it gives them a little bit of culture I suppose.

One of the other nights we went to the Rodeo - or 'radio' as Ella called it. She wasn't very happy that she didn't have any cowboy clothes, so J.D. found this cute hat at the outlets and bought it for her. She wore it all night and for the rest of the vacation actually. I even spent time in the hat while I was at the pool - she looks way cuter in it than I do. It was kinda funny the looks that I got from people though while I was wearing it, I am sure they thought that I was a crazy woman of some sort (probably all those kids that did it to me, haha).


THE POOL!!!

Let's be honest, the whole reason why we go to St. George is for the pools....that is where we want to be the whole time we are there. After all, when you are in the pool you don't notice the heat and everyone has fun. It is sometimes hard to please everyone at the same time, so the pool is the answer to that. Drew and Jensen are fish when it comes to swimming!! They dive, belly-flop, cannonball, do somersaults in the water whatever, they have fun. We have stayed at the same hotel for what seems like forever because of the pool situation. They have an indoor pool and an outdoor pool, along with the kiddie sized pool - everyone wins. Morgan and Brenna along with all the other girls lay by the pool and the dads are either in playing with the kids or sitting in the shade. We have alot of fun when we are there and I think that because we are such a large group we scare everyone else away.

Last but not least....Handstands in the pool - I am the overall winner, glad that I can be the best at something - I am surrounded by amazing people!!

Going to St. George is one of our favorite things to do. It is a vacation with very little hype and little to no plan. We just go and decide what is next with each passing day. It is something that I have been doing with my family ever since I was a little girl and we have all kept the tradition going now that we have our own families. I am so glad that my sisters and parents still go, it is so great to be so close as a family.