Oops! I did it again...

So this is the 2nd year in a row I have merrily sent my poor unsuspecting kids off to school without a stitch of green on them! Not on purpose, mind you. It might stem from some bad childhood memory that I've suppressed when I was pinched all day for forgetting to wear green myself, or it could just be that I think the holiday is ridiculous so it usually just slips my mind. Hard to tell. Whatever the reason, I am feeling bad again this year, hoping my children are not scarred for life.

St. George Road Trip

Paul had a winter golf tournament and PGA meetings to go to in St. George in Feb. It happened to be on a week when the boys were off track, so I thought we should take full advantage of that and go with him just to enjoy a nice little break and hopefully find some sunny weather! Well, it definitely was a great break! The kids were all really well behaved, and we had a great time!

We had several things planned for the week, but first and most important was the swimming pool! Isn't that every kid's most favorite thing to do when staying in a hotel? The kids wanted to hit that first thing Monday morning, despite the cloudy weather and slightly chilly temperature. Good thing the pool was heated and the hot tub super hot! We swam in the pool every day, sometimes more than once--rain or shine! Yes, we really were out swimming on the second day when it started sprinkling. These pictures were taken a few days into the trip when the sun actually came out, but it was still only about 45 degrees outside! Notice the steam coming off the water?

Despite being slowed down by a quick trip to the Urgent Care to check Eric's ears (sure enough, he had an infection), we made the most of the rest of the 1st day with a stop at the Dinosaur Tracks museum in Washington City. It was a huge display of dinosaur footprints, swimming drags, and other cool fossils. We got back just in time to grab dinner with Dad at The Brick Oven (Ahhh, the memories of college days in Provo!) before heading out to meet up with one of Paul's roommates from college. He was the best man at our wedding, but it's probably been almost since then that we've seen him! We had a fantastic visit with he and his wife and kids. All the kids had a great time getting to know each other, and we had a great time catching up! They have 3 beautiful teenage daughters, and when Justin found out we were going to visit them, he was completely bummed about staying here for school for the week! He's seen their pictures on Christmas cards. Anyway, what a fun first day!

The rest of the week was spent swimming, watching videos, going out to eat, going to Jumping Jacks, going to the Rec Center to (you guessed it) swim some more (they had water slides!), going to the wildlife museum, and finally making a stop at the temple and visitor's center.

We ended the week by stopping at my aunt and uncle's in Richfield on the way home. We had dinner with them Thurs. night and played a ton of games. After spending the night and enjoying one last delicious meal that I didn't have to prepare, we headed home. What a fun time we had! It was so nice to do some new and different things with the kids and get them out of the house and away from the Wii while they were off track! A favorite memory from the trip will be Eric calling our hotel home every time we talked about it or passed it on the road or whenever it was time to return after any activity! We stayed at the brand new La Quinta down there, and it was surprisingly really nice! But now anytime we pass a La Quinta, Eric always shouts out, "There's La Quinta!!"