St. George Getaway

I have been itching to get out of town for awhile now.  Sometimes you just need a change of scenery and the Nintendo's turned off, you know?  So we took off to St. George in southern Utah this past weekend.

We've found now with three kids that hotel rooms are tricky.  Going through and making a quick stay (like on our way to Disneyland) 2 beds is not a big deal.  But for a fun vacation?  Who wants to sleep on the floor?  

A few friends recommended a site called Vacation Rentals by Owner (VBRO) and we found an amazing condo at Coral Springs Resort.  

I am now ruined for hotels - this place was nicer than our own home!

(and no, no one is paying me to mention this site, I just wish I had known about them sooner - thanks Melissa for filling me in!)

 First stop?  The Dinosaur Discovery - very cool little museum for my dinosaur enthusiasts!

 Greg LOVES all things dinosaur

 Largest slab of dinosaur prints found

 Fun little fossil dig outside.  We lasted about 10 minutes in the 106 degree heat!

 Next stop, the Pioneer Museum.  We looked in books there and found a few of our relatives that lived in the area.

 

The docents were SO sweet there, letting the kids go behind the ropes to look up close at items and then giving them a bag of honey taffy on the way out.  The kids really loved the scavenger hunt that they had there as well.  

We stopped for lunch at Twenty-Five Main.  

 

Cute little place!

Graham loved the homemade pizza. I loved the gourmet sandwiches.

 

The kids noticed this right away..a cupcake schedule? 

 Greg thought we should have one of these at our house.  

(He wishes!)

 The coconut creme was my favorite - YUM!

 Sillies

 We spent the majority of the time in the pool.  Lauren was a mermaid ALL weekend long!  Dan may or may not played along as a MerMan.  I'll never tell.

We drove out to Zions National Park to see a ghost town - what made it even more exciting was that Dan had us almost running out of gas and there were road signs everywhere saying "Unpassable when wet."  

Which was fine, except when the kids started hearing loud thunder and freaking out.

 

 Sad little town - but very cool that some buildings are being maintained and restored!

 Gorgeous views like this were all around us.

 The schoolhouse and church

 Little homestead down the road

We made it with gas still in the tank and no rain!

   Right past the Flyin Zion ranch!

 We did manage to find a shoe tree - the boys thought this was SO cool!

 Sunday took us over to the St. George LDS Temple and Visitors Center to look around.  It was really weird to see people picnicking here...a bit disrespectful to us.  Maybe not...? Just odd. 

 I don't think I could stop to have lunch on the lawn of any religious temple. 

 My great-great grandfather, John Harvey was a stone cutter for this temple.  So it was really cool to the boys to look at some of the tools they used to build here and look up close at the building. 

 It was back to the condo for more swimming and lunch before we headed home.  Our little fishies were exhausted but we had a great time!