St. George Tradition

Every year my family takes an historical trip to St. George Utah. Well, we try to make the trip and usually the planets align in the mystical, perfect way which allows all us busy folk to be in the same place at the same time. This tradition started a while ago, while I was still having Spring Breaks. My Aunt A and Uncle M sort of started the whole thing and we have only escalated. Back then, while I was in Jr. High and High School, my parents were pretty much in charge of deciding. They said, or more specifically my mom said, "Hey, we are going. Get packed." Then all us kids would hop to. Now we all text back and forth ten thousand times to find a date and time that all of us can go. This year we overlapped a little with Mom and Dad going in early week and Spence and I showing up end of week, but it still worked out great! 

 

Here you see the park we like to visit--Pioneer Park. The petrified dunes are up on this hill side right close to town and right close to where we usually stay--the Ramada Hotel. I swear the manager there is on a first name basis with my mother.

   

The cousins make the experience all the more exciting. We are so lucky to all be such good friends--despite the distances between us. This trip my uncle Ty brought his girls from Canada making us all the more rambunctious.   

Uncles make it pretty fun too, but sometimes the things they do make you wonder whose family they really belong to. Case in point, above is my uncle Ty climbing the side of the mountain without ropes, clips, climbing shoes. Ok, Ok, just around the side is a ledge he walked around to, but still--it looks pretty crazy!

 

Then there is this kid. Lil', ahem!, I mean "big girl" Alaina. She had us all rolling off our pool chairs. Some of the bigger kids started a game of Marco Polo in the big pool. Laina watched from the hot tub with unabashed curiosity on her face while the kids in the pool would stick their heads underwater and hold up their fingers to count. Suddenly we sideline adults look over and there is Laina, floating on her side, head in the water, lifejacket bobbing, while she sticks one arm straight in the air and holds up three fingers. Then she decides to join in the fray. She gets into the big pool and watches while one kid closes thier eyes and the others shout "Polo!" to the seekers "Marco." Then she starts wagging her hands and sing-songing, "Nah! Nah! Nah! Na Nah Nah! I'm over here!" If any of us were in the water we would have drown from laughing. She is the cutest thing!

Next we found something hiding under a rock that caused quite a stir. Take a look and see if you can find it in these pictures first. Here's two hints: my brother L thinks he's the croc hunter and my cousin Hal is a pro at catching these things. Any guesses? Can you see it?

Ka Blam! This guy was about 20" long according to my brother and we could see it from the pavilion we were eating lunch at. It was probably the biggest lizard I have seen aside from those in pet shops and the 'Guanas in Mexico.

All in all a very fun, eventful trip--as always. Yes, St. George, you will always hold a special place in my heart. You are the place I discovered Spring Break meant a little flirting with boys, where I first saw my boyfriend make his infamous camel face, then he later asked my father permission to marry me (go figure that), and it is the place I spend lots of money on cute clothes. Until next year my darling.