Saint George weekend--April 24-27 (Does moving count as a good excuse for the 2 month wait?)

At the end of April, Kevin had the great idea of taking our first weekend trip with just our own little family. It had been almost 2+ months since Eden's arrival and 4+ months since we got back from France and started the adjustment to real life. The perfect time to take a break and re-focus.

Some friends of the Linkous' have a beautiful vacation home in Saint George and had offered us a weekend there last summer which we could never work out. We left late Friday morning, arriving in St George just before dinner. We grabbed some cookie dough, drinks, a few $5 pizzas, a redbox dvd, and some other groceries for the weekend and settled in for the fun :).

Sleeping in is no longer an option for us, but Saturday morning was as close to it as we've come in a long time. Just down the street from the house we were staying in was a great in-door pool (a blessing since this was the one day out of the year that it had to rain) with tons of fun water features and slides, where we spent Saturday afternoon. We were surprised that our usual dare-devil Elle was too scared to attempt even the tiny kiddy slide, but Ryn loved it. "Again! Again!" After each time down, she would finish with a mermaid pose and a huge smile. We had splash fights and stayed until the girls' hands and feet were painfully past the raisin stage.

For dinner that night we decided to risk it and tried Pirate Island Pizza. It was a blast and we don't even have boys! I kept thinking how much my nephews would love it....think Pirates of the Caribbean ride meets Chuck E. Cheese. Sunday was absolutely gorgeous. We attended the ward directly across from the temple so we could visit it after the meetings. I'd never been to this temple before and in the spring sunlight it's white walls were literally blindingly beautiful. One corner of the grounds hosts a perfect rose garden where we sat and enjoyed all the different colors. The girls desperately wanted to go in, but were satisfied with a visitor's center tour :).

Monday we decided to extend our little trip so we could see Zion's Canyon for the first time. Amazing. This really is a perfect canyon for a family trip--a shuttle that takes you to every trail head, complete with guides explaining all you are seeing along the way (like the beavers that live there who can chew through a tree 6" in diameter in 3 minutes!), and several hikes easy enough (and still breathtakingly beautiful) even for our group of little people. Weeping Rock was our first stop, then the Temple of Sinawava and finally the Emerald Pools. Ryn and Elle were excited to start every hike, found lots of lizards, birds, and scary bugs along the way, and then were usually ready to be carried at least part of the way down. Eden had the sweet spot in the baby bijorn, her juicy chunk rolls spilling out so we could kiss them every few minutes. Yes, Kev and I were pretty worn out by the end of the day :), but we loved every second and will definitely return soon.