Windmills, Orange Orchards, Zzyxx Road
On Monday, since my grandparents were doing a bird count all day, we took the opportunity to drive around the St. George area to show our kids some of the awesome sights and eat some good food. I must say, it kind of weirded me out, though. It seems that whenever I dream about childhood places, it is almost always the St. George/Bloomington area, so there was a lot of weird deja-vu-ness. Anyway, we started by driving around the neighborhood, since that is where I used to live. My, how it has changed in the short time I have been away! Then we drove to where the last Mrs. Powell's used to be, and then we drove up on the hill right behind it, and on the way down drove by the dinosaur museum. I forgot they had put that in, and I had never been inside before, but we had to make a stop and check it out. It was pretty small, but still pretty neat.
St. George
Dinosaurs
Afterward, since we were close to Washington (where Kellen used to live), we decided to make a stop at his old house and see if he could find some things he had misplaced a long time ago. First we had to grab some maple donuts, but then Kellen dropped the kids and I off at Nisson Park (where Kellen and I had our wedding reception at) to play while he went to his old house and looked for stuff (his mom still owns the house and his older brother Camron lives there, although he was out of town for the day). The kids and I had a ton of fun! We played on the toys, and there is a little stream at the bottom of the hill we had to check out. We walked around on the little trail there, saw a real life cat-woman, threw rocks in the water, and climbed on the rocks. After that, we all went to Kellen's old house so Kellen could show Shade where he used to live, etc. Then for lunch, we went to the Frosttop! I LOVE their piccadilly chips with fry sauce and glaciers (icees with ice cream), then we headed up to the Red Hill. We hiked around the new garden thing they have up there, but then took to hiking up some of the big rocks. Shade and Olive both did really well and loved it! It was so fun and gorgeous! Then of course we couldn't have ended our day without visiting the St. George Temple (where Kellen and I got married) and the Visitor's Center. It was so beautiful and peaceful! Then we went home and had a quick dinner with the grandparents. What a great day!
Nisson Park
Kellen's House
Red Hill
Temple
On Tuesday, we got to spend the day with the Grandparents. Unfortunately, Shade ended up being sick again. He puked on their floor, then puked in a trash can 3 more times before he was finally able to hold any liquids down. It was too bad, too, because we really wanted to take him around to see more stuff. But I suppose it is getting more difficult for my grandparents to get around, so it was nice for them to get the day off from walking around too. My kids did get some cute gifts from their great grandparents - some colorful bowls and a plate. Too fun! Unfortunately, they had also gotten rid of all of their toys, so it was a full time job trying to keep my kids away from destroying their Christmas tree and nice things! At least we were able to take the two youngest kids to the Tonaquint nature center and pond and let them feed the ducks.
Other Fun Things at the Grandparent's House
Presents!!
Drawing with Grandma, Grandpa Roundy Jewelry
On Wednesday, Shade was finally feeling better, so after we had a nice breakfast, I took the older kids to the nearby Bloomington Elementary School (where I went to school from 1st-5th grade) to play. It has a lot of things that were still the same (green doors, ramps, field, basketball hoops), but also a lot of things that were different (toys, mobile classrooms, track). Grandma Davis brought us over a lunch and we played for a bit longer. Then we tried to beat Grandma home (she had driven), and we almost did! We made a pit stop to feed the horses next to their house. Olive loved it!
That day was also Eli's first birthday! It was cool to be able to celebrate that event with family for a change :) It happened to be cousin Ava's 4th birthday the next day (my brother Doug's girl), so we arranged to have them meet up with us. First we met at the Bloomington park where the boys got to fly Doug's remote controlled helicopter (Doug's friend Levi was there with his son too). Then we were going to go to the Pizza Factory to eat, but after calling and being told we may not be able to get a table, we decided to order to-go from there and eat at Grandpa's house. That actually worked out better anyway, because the kids were pretty rambunctious! They were running around and going up and down the stairs having a blast playing with each other. After pizza, Grandma and I had made a milk chocolate chip cake with maple frosting, and the two birthday kids got a song, candles and cake. Then we had a few presents to open. Doug was nice enough to get Eli something pretty sweet that fit in our luggage, and his girls also got a couple of gifts from dad. And to top it all off, Eli took his first steps (more than one at a time)! What an awesome night!
Birthday Dancing with Grandma, Walking!
Birthday Party at Grandma's
Family Pictures
The next day, Thursday (also New Year's Eve), we very slowly said our goodbyes, and headed back to L.A. We found a cheap-ish last minute hotel room about an hour away to stay at near a Costco. But we didn't really think about it being New Year's Eve, so we slacked on dinner until almost everything was closed and we ended up with a 7-Eleven pizza. But we got to watch Arachnophobia together and stayed up as late as we could (9 pm California time, which was midnight Gerogia time)! Happy New Year!
Then on Friday, we got up early, had the extremely crappy continental breakfast the hotel offered (sorry for ruining the whole vacation...), and drove to the airport. We didn't want to have the same issue we had had at the Atlanta airport - we got there over an hour early, as recommended, but if we would not have had a stroller with us and been able to go through the shorter security lines, we would have been late for sure! But nicely enough, there was NO TRAFFIC that morning! So we had very smooth sailing to the airport, dropping off the rental car, and getting through security. It was VERY nice! And I must say, our kids traveled GREAT! Especially on the planes. Sure, they had their moments of boredom and disagreements, but especially on the way back when we had the boys sitting together and the girls sitting together (for some reason they had us separated on both flights even though we had purchased our tickets all together several months before!), the kids were angels! No arguing, earaches, crying, fighting, etc! It seemed to take forever to get back to our car and then drive home (we used "The Parking Spot" airport parking because we had a pretty good coupon), but we made it safe and sound! It seemed like our kids adjusted pretty quickly to the time change in California, but it took us several days to adjust back to Georgia time. But even though I LOVE visiting family, it is good to be home!
No comments:
Post a Comment