I initially wrote everything down that we did so that I could send it to JJ. I decided to blog it as well, because it is too long for a facebook post. Pictures will follow. Still cleaning up the aftermath.
Saturday: After the kids each said goodbye to the computer, we drove south until we got hungry. So, we stopped at Spanish Fork for lunch at the Cracker Barrel. Each of the kids picked out a toy and none complained about no fast food yet. Got back in the car and continued on. Decided to stop at Cove Fort where we used the restroom, did the tour, played some pioneer games, and took some pictures. So far, we are loving our vacation! Wanted to go to the movies, so I looked up where the closest movie theatre was. Richfield. Well, we wanted this trip to be spontaneous and relaxed. Go where we want to, when we want to. So, we went to Richfield purely to go see a movie. We saw Ice Age Continental Drift at possibly the only movie theatre in town. It was (to quote Gregory) wickedly awesome! Then we found a hotel that gave us a military discount and had a pool. Kids were happy. After the movie, we did some swimming. Kids went to bed tired and happy, so I was happy.
Sunday: Wanted to arrive in St. George sometime today. On the way to St. George it rained three different times, but I wasn't worried. This was St. George we were going to, hot, hot, hot! Sometimes it was as low as 68 degrees outside though. Saw some mountains that were blackened by fires. Very sad. We arrived in St. George by noon and stopped at a Chuck A Rama for lunch. Called Kirt, my brother in law, to let them know because we were going to stay with them a couple of nights. Found out he was still in Bountiful! Yikes! Well, he still gave us his garage code so we could get in. Well, it was so nice outside, I decided we would find a park to play at for awhile. On my GPS, trying to find the park, we got a little lost for the park, but noticed we were near Kirt's place, so we went ahead and went there. I figured we would unload the car and then go to a park. As soon as I got done unloading all the stuff in Kirt's place, it was down pouring and there were warnings of flash floods. Well fine then! Instead we hung out in front of the TV. During a lull in the rain, I went to Jack In The Box to bring home dinner. The streets were rivers! But, going slowly, I made it to the restaurant and back before the next torrent of rain started. Shersti said that it hadn't rained in two months. Kirt and Shersti finally came back around 9PM. They were nice and tired and the kids were nice and excited to see them! We talked for awhile and went to bed probably around 10 or 11.
Monday: Gregory woke up around 6AM and decided it was his mission to try and wake everyone else up. If you didn't know, Gregory is definitely a morning person. He wakes up early and happy! Kirt and Shersti still had school and work, so they handed me the pool key and said they would meet us for dinner and Tuacahn. Everyone got a bath that morning and then we went to Denny's for lunch where it rained again. Patrick got pizza, Gregory got macaroni and cheese, Melanie got Spaghetti and I got nachos. All of our favorite things. Then we went to the community pool there. Luckily there was an inside and outside pool because it rained again. Gregory was reluctant to get in and was just happy to throw things in the pool. But, being the mean mommy that I am, after awhile of swimming to myself, I tricked Gregory. I motioned him closer so i could "fix" his swimsuit and grabbed him and swam with him in the pool. He screamed for awhile, but then realized it wasn't too bad at all. We swam for three hours. Afterwards, we were hungry, but dinner wasn't for two more hours, so I stopped at a local gas station, let them pick a treat, got gas, and inquired about umbrellas. They didn't have any. Don't usually need them I guess. Got back, got cleaned up barely in time to go to dinner with Kirt and Shersti. We went to the Olive Garden that they work at so we could get a discount. Patrick and I had the Lobster Cannelloni. Melanie had the five cheese ziti. Gregory had macaroni and cheese! Melanie got a little sick, but she wanted to keep going. So, we then went to Tuacahn where it did not rain (phew) and it was a very pleasant 80 degrees. Gregory fell asleep on the way. Uncle Kirt was sweet enough to carry him in. He woke up in time for the show, Aladdin. It was amazing! There were even parts that were in 3D! Live camels too! Intermission came and moppers came out to try and get more water off the stage. Up until now, the cast has been rolling around in the water still. One actor commented on how this it the worst desert he has ever seen! Got some roasted nuts and water. During the second half, Gregory fell asleep again on the daddy pillow we brought and through the fireworks at the end! Kirt carried him out again, even though Gregory drooled all over his shoulder! We got back around midnight. Everyone went straight to bed. Gregory woke up enough to ask "where are we going now?" I said, "To bed", he said "Thank you, mommy." and fell back asleep. Cuteness.
Tuesday: Noticed that the area where Kirt lives has golf cart crossing signs. I found that funny for some reason. After cleaning up, we left St. George around 9am to head for Vernal. In my infinite wisdom, I figured that was a good idea. We passed a sign that said last rest stop for 100 miles and I asked the kids if they needed to pee. They all said no, so I kept going. Well, stopped after the 100 miles at a small town called Joseph because Patrick had an accident. Sigh. Gassed up in Salina, made everyone go potty because of the next stretch to Vernal. Went in the mountains and got stuck behind two trailers and a herd of cows! Seriously? Cows in the mountains? Apparently. So, it took us 9 hours to get from St. George to Vernal. I have never driven that long in my life! I was so tired! How does my husband do this? Thank goodness for the portable DVD players or my kids would have been whining. Finally got to Vernal, checked out a hotel... no vacancy. Check six different hotels... NO VACANCY. By now, I was tired of driving and we were all starving. Stopped at McDonald's, even though I didn't want to do any McDonald's on this trip. Glad I did. It was the most awesome McDonald's we have ever been to. Gigantic play place with a rock climbing wall. There was a computer station and a video game station and small tree house looking thing. The kids were in heaven. I decided to do the smart thing and call hotels nearby to see if there was a vacancy. Two hotels later, we had a place to stay. No pool, no military discount and twice as much as the previous hotel, but it was a place to stay. I was content. At this point, I figured, let's just go home early, but I think that was just my tiredness talking. So, we slept on it. Melanie was really sick that night.
Wednesday: Gave the kids the choice. Should we continue on the the dinosaur monument, which will take six hours round trip and I cannot guarantee a hotel to stay at when we get back, so we might have to keep driving to find a hotel, but we would get to see the dinosaur monument. Or should we drive to Thanksgiving point or Ogden for the dinosaur stuff out there. They chose number two. So we carried on to Thanksgiving point. We stopped at Park City. I expected a place like Park City to have a McDonald's similar to the one in Vernal, but instead it had no play place at all. Extremely disappointing. Plus, they messed up our order twice. Oh well, it was just for lunch. We went to Thanksgiving point where we did the Dinosaur Museum there and the kids loved it! We should have done that in the first place. Silly me. Then we saw the movie BRAVE. Kids loved that too. Ended up getting a hotel in Orem. They weren't too bad. They had a pool and offered a military discount. They were really friendly too. But there were some issues. All of the lamps were taken apart. I had to ask them to put them back together again. They did that while we went swimming. There was no Disney channel, which upset the kids a bit. We went swimming (it was around 6:30, but we weren't hungry yet) and Gregory and Melanie made some friends in the pool. The couple there were really excited we came because they only had one child, a ten year old girl, who was pretty bored swimming by herself. So, she was excited to have people to swim with. After we got done swimming, it was 10PM, now we were hungry. Had Dominoes delivered. We had one a half pizzas that night before we were full. Found SMURFS on the television and stayed up until midnight watching it.
Thursday: Day intended to come home. Decided to get baths today. However, there was no stopper for the tub. Had to put a towel in the hole and hold it down for the baths to happen. Also, the toilet was continually running, unless I opened it up and plugged the stopper myself. As we were packing, Patrick noticed that his dinosaur egg that he got at the dinosaur museum was missing. We looked everywhere because I knew we didn't take it out of the room. Finally went to the front desk to ask about it. The guy said he did see it in the back. He will find it and bring it to us. He did later. Our theory was that the person who ended up fixing the lamps while we were swimming accidentally took it with them when they were cleaning up. That is the theory at least. As we were leaving, we spotted a birds nest on top of the security camera with three baby birds in it. That was exciting to the kids. The friends that we made yesterday at the pool saw us loading up and helped me finish loading the car. That was sweet. We left around 10:30am and decided to go to FAT CATS in Provo. We bowled two games. I won both times, but it was against three kids, so it doesn't really count. We got food there, which wasn't too bad, but they gave us tons of condiments. They also got Bowling Pin shaped sippy cups with soda in them. They loved those! I then got 100 tokens for the arcade (which, by the way, everything was 99 cents and even the tokens were cheaper than normal, so i spent way less than I thought I would, except the food). The arcade was nothing to get really excited about. Melanie wasted most of her tokens on those stupid claw machines. Oh well. Patrick is awesome at the motorcycle game, even earning a spot on the leaders board! Melanie is pretty good at the dance dance revolution game. Gregory was awesome at the punching bag game. Surprise, surprise! We finally came home around 3PM and Ryker was there waiting for us at the front door. He claims he just barely checked to see if we were home yet. Melanie's room was messy from Phantom playing in it and Jack does not want to leave my side. Looks like we brought a rain storm with us. The kids jumped out of the car to play. I unloaded the car, cleaned the car, swept the garage, started some laundry, and returned some phone calls. Now it is back to life. Still have some unloading to do and some groceries to get and all that.
Today is Friday, just sent Patrick to Cub Country and trying to get some order to the madness that is cleaning up after a vacation, but I think everything we set out to do was accomplished. It was mostly relaxing, except for that trip up to Vernal. It was laid back, spontaneous, no real schedule and I think that is what made it fun for both children and me. It was really nice, but I am happy to be home.
