Family Vacation

In order to save money, the last few years we have vacationed in St. George where Doug's family has a condo. This year we had 5 days to spend together as a family. We had a great time, did a lot without getting stressed and just had fun together.

Day 1: We took the kids to the local fair in Davis County before driving south. They got to ride the carnival rides and ride on an ELEPHANT! Oakley thought this was especially cool. Dakota loved it and Ryden cried most the time. I think he was nervous being so high up there and with strangers. Doug and I stayed on the ground to take pics and be with Taylor. After fair fun, we headed to St. George. We stopped at DQ on our way and had dinner and ice cream. After getting settled at the condo, we got some groceries for the week and just relaxed. I was pretty sick with croup and Taylor was still sick as well, plus I hadn't slept in over 24 hours from working the night before, so we soakd in the big jetted tub and went to bed early.

Day 2: We slept in a bit, ate breakfast at the condo and then headed to the theatre to see Disney's Planes. The kids loved it. The boys ran around a ton, but Dakota says this was the best part of our vacation. After naps, we went to the condo pool and had a fun time swimming for a couple hours. Then we picked up dinner at Irmita's for the adults and Mc D's for the kids and went home to enjoy. I chilled at home with the young ones and Dakota and Doug attempted a trip to Sportsman's Warehouse. It was closed so they went to Albertson's instead and Dakota came home with a princess crown! She wore that crown pretty much the rest of the week! Doug and I stayed up to watch a movie.

Day 3: We slept in again and then I took Dakota (and Taylor) Back-to-school shopping. We got some new clothes and all the pencil box essentials. She had a great time picking out her new goods. We came back to the condo and packed up and headed to Veyo pool, just north of St. George. It was a beautiful pool inside the canyon with mountains surrounding it. There was also a little stream where the kids could catch crawdads. We ate poolside and then headed home in time for bed. We got yummy snow cones on the way home and ate them in the backyard. Taylor had been pretty upset all week so I finally took her to the Instacare that night. She was having a bad reaction to the steroids given to her for the croup, so we were advised to get her off of them and use something different in the future. After everyone was in bed, Doug and I watched the movie, Skyfall.

Day 4: We slept in and had an easy morning. Doug and Dakota finally made it to Sportsman's Warehouse. Our friends, the Coulson's, came up from Las Vegas to spend the day with us. We went to the condo pool for the afternoon and the kids had a ton of fun swimming together. When they were tired out, we went back to the condo and had an amazing BBQ with SO much good food! Then the girls played Barbies the rest of the afternoon and Oakley played nintendo while we visited in the living room and watched Ryden dance to music! :) Eventually we all went out back and played on the grass and chased little frogs around the yard. They even caught a few! We had one scary moment where Ryden wandered out of the unfenced yard and none of us noticed he was missing for quite some time. He made his way down the street and got confused because all of the houses look the same. We all took off looking for him in a panic and Jason found him behind another house identical to ours, at the back door knocking and crying. Poor kid thought we'd all gone inside and locked him out. Those neighbors weren't home and thankfully he hadn't wandered over to the pond across the street. This is the most scared I have ever been since I've had children. Both Doug and I were sick to our stomachs when we realized he was missing. We are so thankful that he wasn't far and that Jason could hear him crying behind that house! Besides the scare, we had a really enjoyable day and evening!

Day 5: We mainly spent the day relaxing, packing and cleaning up the condo. We left for home that evening and got home late. I think we all had a wonderful time! The kids passed out in the car and Taylor finally seemed to be feeling better.

We did a lot of swimming on our trip and Dakota has become quite the swimmer! Oakley is also starting to swim on his own between us and can hold his breath under the water for a long time! Ryden was more interested in running around the pool and feeding ducks than actually swimming, but he did like jumping into the water, into our arms. Taylor loved the water, even when it was cold and was the most relaxed in the pool of anything else we did all week. All in all, it was a GREAT trip and great memories were made!