Spring Break and Cooper's First Trip

Andy took off two days to give our family a four day weekend.  We headed to nearby St. George where we were lucky enough to stay with our friends, the Knights.  Andy had this idea of making a day trip to Vegas for dinner and climbing some red rocks, I was hesitant, but it ended up happening against my better judgment and hopes.  

Our photos are a bit of a cluster mess.. they're from my phone as well as Andy's.. but instead of sitting here and trying to put them all in chronological order, I'll just detail them with captions.  

We kicked off a lazy Thursday with running around and enjoying the Knight's toys.  This after a horrendous night of Dagny yelling that it was "good morning, not good night!" Jordan laughing hysterically, and Bubba eventually waking up to join the unapproved party.  Andy and I both knocked out before the kids did, so we're not sure exactly when they fell asleep - but we arrived at midnight, and they were up past 1 AM... so there's that.  

St. George's food options are basically every glorified chain restaurant you can think of, but we luckily found one of our favorite SLC joints there, Evens Stevens Sandwiches, where everytime you eat a sandwich, one is given to some organization helping others eat.  Awesome! 

 

Ava and Cooper - Ava is 7 months, Cooper is 3 months... 

All the kiddos together.  It's insane to me that not too long ago, Becky, Andy and I were all single, now we have a collective six kids!  Yikes! Time flies!

We heard about this amazing all abilities park, so we made our way there after lunch.  The sun was out, the kids wanted to do the splash pad, so we changed into our swimsuits, and upon exiting the bathroom, saw the clouds cover the sun.  Killjoy. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon with our friends the Bells, but between the windy sand at Snow Canyon and the hailstorm at Firehouse Park, the phone never made its way out.  We eventually ended up at their house chilling for a bit while the kids played or watched TV, and had some stimulating adult conversation.  I know, shocking... right?  Dinner was with the Bells at Five Guys where besties Jordan and Asher sat together doing who knows what, my back was to them.. but our kids ate well and that, as always, is a huge win.  

We started off Friday morning with a drive to Vegas.  We started off at Container Park, but apparently the gentrified park is quite worn down, the slides had cracks on them and were roped off with big bright yellow CAUTION signs, so we ventured around to the entertainment area after eating a packed sack lunch, one we were kindly advised is prohibited in the park, but since none of the restaurants were open yet, and most likely they felt sorry for our huge family of six sitting there eating our sacked lunches, they let it slide. Whew! 

It was a bit breezy, so after running around a bit and exploring the over priced toy store with lots of repeated, "No, we're not buying that" statements, we headed towards Town Center, a mall playground we had taken Jordan to when he was about Dagny's age (2.5).

It's a trip to see your grown up kids playing at a park they played in a few years ago at another age.  Yes, this is the theme of this post, time is a thief.

The weather started to warm up a bit while we were at the mall playground where Bubba and Dagny both had a massive tantrum in Gameworks, so we left, which triggered a huge tantrum from Jordan who was upset that he didn't get to play any games due to his brother and sister's bad behavior.  Welcome to your life in a big family of kids buddy.  Sorry.  We headed off to Red Rock Canyon, a National Park Andy had been raving about since before we got married.  He had gone for Thanksgiving the year we were dating (2009), and came back talking about how much fun it was and how badly he wanted to go back.  Well, we finally made it back.. with four kids.

Andy headed off with the three big kids while I nursed Cooper in the van.  Understanding that I'd have to go down no matter how long I nursed (yes, I thought about just nursing the whole time...), I put Cooper in the bjorn and headed off to meet them.  I'm not a big hiker  I had this horrific experience with experienced hiker friends back in 2008 and have not been especially fond of hiking since.  The sacrifices we make for our family...

It was pretty cool though, I'll admit it.  That is.. until I heard Cooper poop what sounded like something BIG.  About 30 minutes later, as we proceeded to change him on the side of the road, we realized it was not only huge, it had trickled up his back when we lay him on the lopsided seat to change him.  Oops  A thousand wipes later, we said farewell to the green onesie he is seen wearing above.  Everything went into a plastic bag that we disposed of later.

Dinner was at Fuku Burger, a joint Andy had found online with fusion Asian burgers.  Burgers two days in a row?  Done.

The kids had a loco moco and grilled cheese ($8).  In retrospect, we should have requested all the toppings on the side.. because that is a rip off.

We went to Chinatown for some Chinese bao for breakfast the next day.

Here's an out of order Red Rock Canyon photo

And then Saturday morning was Conference.  I got about 20% of it...I can tell you who spoke, but not what about.

Container Park video:

Town Center mall videos:

And then along with all the other Mormons in St. George, we headed to Subway and Panda Express for take-out to the downtown creek.

then made our way over to 25th and Main, a cute little cafe we took engagement photos in 7 years ago...

We headed back to the Knights' to relax, clean, and pack up, then headed to dinner at Viva Chicken, a new place in St. George that we will definitely be back for!

And then we headed back to Salt Lake City.  It was a great trip, a much needed break from my first three days with four kids on my own.  Though I'm dealing with an overload of laundry, I'm adjusting to life with four back home a bit better than last week.  Here's hoping I survive...