spring break--st. george (april 2016)

Warning: Ridiculous amount of pictures to follow!!

You know the families who take amazing Spring Break trips to Mexico or Hawaii or Disneyland? 

We don't do that. 

Or at least we never have before. 

Spring Break is usually a time when I hang out at home with the kids, trying to entertain them, maybe fitting in a couple of local outings, and possibly working on a house/yard project or two. Of course there is nothing wrong with this. It's actually pretty awesome to spend some lazy days relaxed at home and not high-tailing it to the next scheduled activity. 

This last year, though, we decided that as the kids get older (and missing school is much less of an option), we probably should start taking advantage of the opportunity that breaks like this give us to get away as a family. 

That said, we didn't go anywhere terribly exotic and our destination probably wouldn't make its way to the top of most people's vacation lists, but our trip to St. George, Utah was pretty fantastic! 

If I remember right, I think we actually skipped out on the last day of school/work before the break to get a head start on our vacation:-)!! We packed up our things and the seven of us boarded a plane for Las Vegas.  

I think it was only little Joe's second time on an airplane, and he certainly had plenty of fun playing with his very willing sister throughout the flight. 

From the airport, we rented a car and made the hour-and-a-half drive up to Grandma Porter's home in St. George, just in time to crash in our beds for the night and wake up to a house full of family. It happened to be LDS General Conference weekend, and Kevin's mom, sisters, and their families were sweet enough to drive down to visit for the weekend. 

These guys sure do love their grandmas! 

And they are lucky to have multiple wonderful grandmothers to look up to.

We were all pretty excited to see little baby Abbie!

In addition to watching conference on Saturday, we also had fun swimming in Grandma Porter's community pool. Well some of us had fun swimming, and others of us just had fun watching. I'm sure you can tell from the pics, which of us just wanted to watch (I'm such a baby about cold-ish water, but luckily Allison is queen of the pool!!)

Looks like Kevin was just doing the watching thing as well--we're kinda lame like that I guess. No worries, though, seems like Uncle Darren (and his side-kick Abbie) had things pretty well in control 

Adorable little family!!

This pic stars the muscle crew (top pic), and pool entertainer/lifeguard with her posse of littles (bottom pics).

In the evening, this handsome group headed off to the Priesthood Session of conference.  

And enjoying some yummy treats when it was over!

Sunday was more Conference sessions and family time, and then sadly it was time to say goodbye to a good portion of the group. Before everyone headed back up North, we decided to get a quick shot with (mostly) everyone there that weekend. Unfortunately Darren and Heidi had gone back to their hotel to pack when we decided to jump together for the pic, but on the plus side, I got to pretend that Abbie belonged to me;). It was nice to have Cathy's good friend, Dana, there with us for the weekend as well. 

Of course, that was really just the beginning of our fun! It was also Spring Break for the Gee cousins, so Allison and the kids decided to stay and hang out for a couple of extra days. Woohoo!

We started by going straight over to nearby Pioneer Park for a Sunday evening stroll.

It was beautiful and a few of the kids were even brave enough to walk through the narrow crack. 

It was a really great and accessible place for some low-key exploration, and what do you know? There are little dessert bushes all over, just in case you feel the need to water one.
Joseph certainly did! (bottom right).

The kids thought it was kinda awesome pretending to free hang from this popular ledge.

And the evening view, with the city lights and St. George temple in the distance was definitely a perfectly serene way to end the weekend. 

The next day, we saw some of the St. George historic sites. 

Like the tabernacle ...

And Brigham Young's winter home ... 

The following day, Allison and I had more fun with the majority of the kids, while Kevin, Porter, and James headed off with Cousin Porter to Zion's National Park (https://www.nps.gov/zion/index.htm). They decided to knock out some of the more strenuous hikes (that Joseph wouldn't be up for) ahead of our family visit which would take place a day or two later. 

They managed Observation Point and Angels Landing in pretty record time (3 1/2 hours I think), and even got cousin Porter back in time for baseball practice;). 

What a view!!

After all that hard work, a quick stop at Chick-fil-a was definitely in order.

I can't remember if it was the following day, but sometime later that week (after the cousins and Allison had returned home), we all headed back to Zion's together. 

It was early April and the day was gorgeous, but the morning started off pretty chilly. We got there around 7 or 8am if I remember right and the park was already busy. After finding a parking spot (there was still quite a bit available), we jumped on the tram and headed to our first destination ...

Emerald Pools! 

I really should have blogged about this months ago and could have provided more details about each trail. Now I don't really remember all that well. Oops:/! I can say, though, that everywhere we went in the park was amazing. Really a beautiful place. Definitely a tourist attraction, so lots of people around, but the trams were very handy and the sites quite incredible. The Emerald Pools trail was no exception. 

It was fun to be together to witness the unique beauty of this incredible planet we live on. 

The kids had fun exploring.

Brooks thought it was pretty awesome to spot so much cactus (or cacti if I'm being grammatically correct). 

We really couldn't have asked for better weather--upper 70s to low 80s. 

Next came the Riverside Walk. Some in our group wanted to check out the Narrows, but it was officially closed because of possible flash floods. 

After that was Weeping Rock. You can't see the water dripping behind us, but it's there:).

Looks like Brooks was really digging this trail;).

After that, we jumped back in the car and headed towards the Canyon Overlook Trail. 

Everyone was feeling pretty tired from an early morning, and fun day of exploration. Brooks, though, was still energetic so volunteered to accompany his hike-loving dad on this particular trail.

It started off as just the two of them, while the rest of us where relaxing down in the car. 

But before I knew it, Porter got antsy and decided to head up the trail after them. 

And just moments after that, Mae and James decided that they were up for one last hike as well, and hustled to catch up to everyone. Don't expect to see me and Joseph in the picture, we were happy to close our eyes for a quick power nap:-)!!

And right when you'd think our trip couldn't get any better, we had way too much fun hanging out with this amazing 90-year-old ...

We chilled in her parklike backyard.

Disrupting the peaceful neighborhood with a wild and crazy family water balloon fight. 

Of course we stayed up late chatting and playing games!

And ate lots of delicious food!! 

In this case Swig cookies and drinks ... 

We also got to watch cousin Porter play one of his HS baseball games, and then ate more yummy food. Shocking, right?
(The snow cone picture was actually on a separate outing with Aunt Jeanine.) 

One day before leaving town, Kevin and I headed out with Grandma to the beautiful St. George Temple. We loved being in the temple, as well as checking out the visitors center and viewing some really special paintings.

We also loved getting to have a nice post-temple trip breakfast with Grandma at the local Bear Paw Cafe (http://bearpawcafe.com)!

While we were on our adult outing, Aunt Jeanine picked up our clan and took them all to the St. George Children's Museum (http://www.sgchildrensmuseum.org).

Where Joseph was in heaven pretending to be a cowboy, a pilot, and who knows what else. The other kids were good sports and had fun there as well!

When they were done at the museum, they paid a brief visit to Town Square Park. 

Before checking out Judd's candy shop ...

What a great Aunt!!

One of our very last outings before heading back to Vegas/Seattle, may have been my favorite. Jeanine told us that before we left St. George we had to visit Snow Canyon State Park (https://stateparks.utah.gov/parks/snow-canyon/), which wasn't more than about 15 minutes from her home. And I'm so glad we fit it in!!

The beautiful rock formations were incredible. 

And I couldn't get over how quiet and serene the park was--we only saw maybe a handful of other people while we were there (big contrast of course to Zion's). 

It was definitely a hot day, but we had a great time taking in the views and exploring lots of cracks and crevices. 

We're so cool trying to look like we're falling off the side of the cliff, right?!!

It really was hot, so it was nice to have a water spout to cool off in before leaving the park. 

Snow Canyon was amazing, as was Zions and St. George and our trip as a whole. I definitely kinda fell in love with the sunshine, red rock, dessert foliage, and wide open space that the little town of St. George and its surrounding area have to offer. We were so grateful to Grandma for being such an amazing hostess and allowing us to invade her home and spend this perfect week with her. 

After prying ourselves away, we jumped in the rental and headed back towards Vegas. 

Where we spent the day touring around Circus Circus (https://www.circuscircus.com/en.html) ... 

Checking out a few circus acts.

Playing a couple of arcade games

And even spending a bit of time in their Adventure Dome (https://www.circuscircus.com/en/adventuredome/adventuredome.html)

Playing put put golf. 

(a couple of us did end up riding that roller coaster in the background)

The place was pretty overpriced, but we let each of the kids pick out one ride/activity. 

Then it was time to move on. Circus Circus was fun for the kids, but it really is getting old and felt a little grimy. Heading over to see the latest display at the Bellagio (https://www.bellagio.com/en.html) was definitely a fun change of scenery!!

Both inside and out!

We were able to catch the water show which I think we all enjoyed. 

As our final stop, we made one of Joseph's dreams come true and visited Houdini's Magic Shop:)!! (http://www.houdini.com/index.php)

He was obsessed around this time with a YouTube channel called Evan Tube (https://www.youtube.com/user/EvanTubeHD) and in one of his shows, Evan and family had visited this shop. The second Joe heard that we were visiting Vegas he asked over and over again if we could go to Magic Houdini's. I told him we would try but didn't know if it would actually happen. As luck would have it though, the store was practically right across the street from the Bellagio in the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood.

The older gentleman there was so great and, when he heard how much Joseph had looked forward to visiting, performed a few tricks for them. Joseph was pretty much jumping up and down with excitement the whole time!!

And after a quick bite to eat, we were headed for the airport to make the trip back home to Seattle--which is a story all by itself, but since this seems to be the post that never ends, I'll keep it to myself. Let's just say, we got back home around 2am and headed straight to bed!

Phew, that was long and tiring (the post, not the trip)! Definitely due for another vacation now:).