Our Trip to St. George

We took a trip down to St. George at the end of May. The reason we went down there was to attend Emma and Wesley's Wedding. Wesley was one of Danny's YSA bishopric counselors and Emma was his YSA Relief Society President. Because he knew them both so well we decided to make a little vacation out of it. We stopped in Cedar City on the way down there so that Tyler and Ashley could go to the temple. They have made a goal this year to do baptisms in as many of the Utah Temples as possible so we are trying our best to help them with that goal. Danny went into the temple with them and Camden and I hung out in a nearby park with Lula.

We stayed at a Condo in Las Palmas Resort while we were in St. George. The kids like staying there because they have so many pools.

On the first night that we were there, the boys went to the Ninja gym that is right next to Las Palmas. Kai Beckstrand, their favorite ninja warrior, just happened to be running the gym that night. His family owns the gym. So they were pretty excited about getting to meet him and get a picture with him. We have been watching the new season of American Ninja Warrior every Monday night and we are rooting for him to win it all. 

We took a day trip to Sand Hollow and Zion one of the days. The sand was hot on the beach and we went totally unprepared, with no blankets or shade canopies. We didn't even really have food, just a couple of snacks. I had pictured sand hollow to be different, with more rocky cliffs that you could cliff jump off of. But then I realized after we were there, that we weren't even prepared for that since we didn't have life jackets with us. We were able to find a picnic table in the shade and just took turns wading in the water.

We left around noon, grabbing lunch at Arby's before heading into Zion. However, we had to make a quick detour to a splash pad in town when Camden started complaining about itchy skin while we were in the drive thru. We did a quick google search and learned that Sand Hollow is known for causing swimmers itch. What? How are there not warning signs posted for that? The other kids started feeling it too after Camden mentioned it. So we gave them each a wet wipe to rub down their skin. It didn't seem to help, so we took them to the splash pad and had them rinse off as much as possible in the water there. Then we had them change out of their swimming suits. Camden said it got a little better after that, so we headed into Zion. We mostly just drove through the park enjoying the view as we went. We stopped at the end of the road before exiting the park to climb up this rock formation.

Zion has a really long tunnel (about a mile long) on the road through the park. Usually the traffic only drives one way through the tunnel, so you can get stopped for a little bit of time before you are allowed to enter. As we were driving up to the tunnel on the way back, I wondered aloud about how long we were going to have to wait to go through. As we got closer, we noticed that there was no line, so Danny stuck right to the tail of the truck in front of us. We were actually shocked when the park ranger turned his stop sign just as that truck got to him. Danny ignored him and kept driving even though he waved the sign at us and held out his hand. We totally get it if there was a long line of cars behind us, but there was no one within sight behind us so we don't know why he wanted to stop us. We all laughed about it, especially when Ashley mentioned how her daddy just doesn't like to obey National Park Rangers (his conflict with the park ranger on the bus at the Grand Canyon when she was like 9 really stuck with her). The weird thing was that the tunnel had cars driving on both sides at the time that we went in. Because there was no one behind us after we left the tunnel, we pulled off at a look out point. Tyler and Ashley didn't want to get out of the car though.

We headed back to the condo after that. We couldn't go into the main part of the park with Lula, so there wasn't really anything else to see. The kids were all worn out anyways. 

I took Ashley and Tyler to the St. George Temple that evening. They loved the unique feel to the decor inside that temple.

On Friday, we left the kids at the condo and spent a good part of the day at the wedding. It was just the sealing and a luncheon. The kids opted to have lunch in the condo rather than coming with us. The sealing was beautiful and it was fun to catch up with some of the YSA's that are no longer in the ward. We also met a couple of Wesley's childhood friends.

We didn't get a picture of Emma and Wesley at the wedding, but here is one of them probably when they had their living ordinance interview with Danny.

That night, I drove Danny to the airport so he could fly to San Diego for his grandfather's wedding. We swam so more, watched a movie and then headed home the next morning around 10. We made a short stop on the way out of town so that Ashley could meet Danielle's puppy. (Danielle is her cousin and has an 8 month old Golden Retriever. She lives in St. George, so we thought it would be a good time to meet the puppy). It was hot out and the boys got bored quickly, so we only stayed for about 30 minutes. The trip home was uneventful. Here is a picture of Danny and his sister at the graveside for the funeral. 

Danny's mom wasn't able to attend the funeral, so Danny read a talk that she wrote. I listened in on Zoom during the drive. It was a good service and I'm glad that we were able to make it work for him to be at both the wedding and the funeral, even though they were just one day apart from each other.