St. George

So here we are in St. George at the end of a fabulous long weekend with family.  Ready for a recap?
Friday, June 28
We rolled into St. George around 5 in the evening.  We got here in time for a family dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's clubhouse.  Nine out of 10 sibling families were there, we were just missing Ryan's family coming from Wisconsin.  It was pretty awesome.  Many of the family we hadn't seen for five or so years - that means K was a baby!  The kids took a few minutes to warm up to cousins but once they did it was awesome.  D is fortunate to have 4 cousins about his age - three of them are boys!  This is nothing short of remarkable when you consider that out of 33 grandkids only 9 of them are boys.  The odds were not in his favor but there was a rash of baby boys when D was born.  Yea!  K and A aren't so lucky.  Most of the cousins are older by 6-8 years.  K has one cousin her age and he's a boy!  So those two mostly played with each other except when they would tag along with the boys.
Anyway, back to the story.  We ate dinner and swam in the pool Friday night.  There was much talking and catching up.

I was trying to get a shot of Roy talking with his brothers (minus Ryan) and dad. There's not a real good way to take a picture of a circle!

Here's the cutest little helper I could ask for!  She loved the baby.

Saturday, June 29
We slept at Tara's house last night.  Tara's been generous enough to open Hotel Hadley for several of us to stay.  It's fun to be able to stay with family and be in the center of the action.  Today we headed back over to the clubhouse for more swimming action.

Baby C and Uncle O

 Funny story from last night, K was standing near the door with Uncle O walked in.  He used to play professional basketball in Portugal, I believe.  He's something like 6'7" (family check that fact for me will ya?).  So when O walked in she started about knee level and just kept sliding her eyes up until she was nearly tipping over!

How does a WA girl survive the St. George heat wave? Tank tops and lots of swimming!

This evening was the big party -- the reason we all got together.  My in-laws celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this year.  Roy's oldest sister put together an event in their honor.  We are so glad she did!  It was at the Dixie Center.  We started with family pictures.  Hopefully I'll have some to post on here soon.  Then had appetizers in the ballroom with visiting and celebrating.  The evening concluded with a great photo slideshow put together by my brother-in-law.  It was a lovely evening.  Roy was the impromptu MC.  There was time for several members of the family to get up and share thoughts, stories and feelings.  There were grandkids running wild in the halls.  All in all, a very successful event.

Sunday, June 30

This is how the young ones slept at Hotel Hadley.

Today was a nice casual Sunday.  We went to church and had another family dinner with everyone.  Many of the family were leaving today so it was a day of good-byes.  We're sticking around for a few more days.  Apparently the heat (113F!!) hasn't killed our spirit yet!

Monday, July 1

We went out to Sand Hollow Reservoir today.  Really it was fun but it was desperately hot.  Fortunately Tara had a canopy we could at least get some shade under.  The water was really fun.  The kids played and played!  D even tried his hand at rock jumping but found he really didn't care for it too much.  The older cousins did though.  We hardly saw them until it was time to go.  A had a life jacket on and swam all over the area we were at.  K also got a lot of swimming in with her arm floaties.  There were a couple of small inflatables that D enjoyed rowing around.  As for baby C, he did his best to stay cool.  I took him to put his feet in the water and he napped like a baby.
Today was K's actual birthday.  After the reservoir, we went back to Tara's house and made the cake K wanted, a flag cake.

 We sang happy birthday to K (and A since her birthday is so close).  This was pretty cool for her because by now there are 25 people staying at Hotel Hadley!  The girls got presents and even a few fireworks thanks to Uncle Chris.  "Best birthday ever!"

Tuesday, July 2
For some crazy and possessed reason we decided yesterday wasn't hot enough so we packed everyone up and headed off to Zion's National Park.  I really love Zion's and was looking forward to going on an easy hike since I would have the baby and younger girls.  Roy took D and headed off to Angel's Landing with the older crowd.  The not Angel's Landing group headed to the river walk where we could hike up the end of the Zion Narrows and play in the river.  Hiking was hot and unpleasant even though it is just an easy walk.  It was worth it though when we found a shady bend in the river to play in the water.  The girls were so excited when I said they could go all the way in the water with their clothes on.

I love these two characters!

Even baby C got some water action thanks to Uncle Chris!

It was absolutely beautiful where we stopped!

 After playing for a while we knew we needed to hike back out and meet up with the other group.  There was only one kid who made it to the top of Angel's Landing.  It was D's cousin who is less than a year older than he is.  All the other kids turned back.  It was way too hot to hike on those rocks but Mason is a trooper!
After Zion's, we took just our immediate family and went to visit Grandpa and Grandma Jones.  It was the first time they've met baby C and I have kicked myself repeatedly that I didn't get any pictures of C with his great-grandparents.  I'm blaming sun, hunger and sleepiness for the omission!  We had a nice visit though.  The kids played while we got to talk to grandma and grandpa.  They fed us dinner which was great since we hadn't eaten lunch.  It is always so pleasant to connect with family.
There was a movie night playing when we got back to Tara's house.

They are watching Despicable Me in preparation to see Despicable Me 2 tomorrow.  D will go with them but the girls, Roy and I will go visit with Grandma P.  We've had all the fun we can handle so we'll be leaving tomorrow afternoon.  Time to go to Delta for some quiet rest and relaxation!