St. George, Part 1

For some reason, blogger won't let me upload pictures, so we'll have to do without for now.

A few weekends ago we headed down to St. George for a quick little vacation. We left Orem at 8 PM on Thursday, thinking that the boys would sleep all the way down and through the night. Well, they did sleep most of the way down (and through the worst snowstorm we've had this year -- freaky whiteout conditions), but once we arrived at the hotel at midnight, would not go to sleep for 2 hours. Note to J and E: DO NOT DO THAT AGAIN!!!

So, Friday dawns bright and early since my kids hardly ever sleep in, and there are thunderclouds following my little ones around. To the background noise of whining, complaining, and all-around grumpiness, we had breakfast, went to Target, and headed off to Zion National Park. J and I were awed by the beauty of the rock formations (lots of pictures that don't do it justice, even if I could upload them). S was hating vacation, O was offering commentary on how grumpy S was, and H was helping (think: copying) O and S in their individual strains of thought. After a yummy lunch, we headed up the Middle Emerald Pools trail. The moods lifted as we spied horses, plicky plear (prickly pear) cacti, deer droppings (mother of boys, remember?), yucca, and -- at last! -- the waterfalls! There was a heart-stopping moment when O walked under the chain to the edge of the waterfall (We have a picture of "the cliff where O scared the hell out of us"). On the way down we saw a herd of white-tailed deer, grazing about 10 feet from the trail. So neat...

After leaving Zions (and S's good mood) behind, we ate dinner and went back to the hotel to swim in the completely shaded pool in 50 degree weather. Vacation rocks! We all bathed, watched the last 2/3 of Kung Fu Panda, and went to sleep.

I wonder how the boys will remember that weekend in St. George. Beauty, fun, whining, movies, grumpiness, playing in the park, mommy jumping out the van to walk around the St. George temple in order to convince herself not to leave her kid on the side of the road and drive off, swimming, bloody head, yummy frozen yogurt, watching the 3-D version of "Monsters vs. Aliens" without 3-D glasses in Best Buy while waiting for J to find whatever he was looking for... I'll have to ask them. As for me, a few weekends later, I think it was a really fun trip!