We just got back from a great vacation in St. George. We stayed in the ORE condos near the Southgate golf course in St. George. My parents and younger brothers were in one condo, and we stayed with my sister Becca and her husband Lee and their two boys in the one next door. That worked out well for the most part, except when Andrew or Audrey cried in the middle of the night. (The first night, when we had Sarah’s two nieces from California who had been staying with all of the Utah relatives for a few weeks, was a little more crowded.)

On Saturday, St. George hit 117 degrees. Sarah and I had to go to Mesquite to drop off the Durkee girls, and all of us were boiling while we waited for Lynn in the park. Lynn called after a few minutes and told us to go cool off in a nearby grocery store, which we thought was a great idea. We had creamies and enjoyed the air conditioning inside the store, then chatted with Lynn for a few minutes before heading back to St. George.

We hit a local ward on Sunday, where I got out of priesthood meeting by taking Audrey to Nursery (it was only fair for me to take her, after all the weeks that Sarah’s had her alone in church while I’ve been working weekends), followed by some serious lazing around the apartment and a trip to the playground with Audrey and Andrew.

On Monday morning, we did a bike ride (if you could call it that) down a giant hill on Highway 18/Bluff Street into town. It was the most athletic thing I’d done in months, and I made sure there was photographic proof.

Later that morning, we went to the Fiesta Fun Center to play some mini-golf and ride go-carts and stuff. We all had a good time, but it was really really hot. Audrey’s favorite part was when I played with her on the indoor jungle gym — she rode on my chest down the slide and just laughed and laughed. I also took some swings in a batting cage (the first time I’d done that in years — the athletic opportunities just kept popping up!) and hit as many balls as any of my brothers or Lee.

Tuesday was our big road trip within a vacation. We went to the Grand Canyon, the first time I’d seen that monster hole in the ground. The trip there was about 3 hours from St. George, and I was a bit car-sick by the time we stopped for lunch. There were lots of great views, and we stopped to take the requisite photos.

On Wednesday, we did a hike and picnic lunch at Red Cliffs Campground near Leeds. It was another sweltering day, and the kids (Audrey, Andrew and Tyler) were all very red-faced, even while we were giving them drinks constantly. We were all looking forward to playing in a river and some fun wading pools that we remembered from our childhood. The only problem with that plan was that we had always gone in the springtime before; when we finished the desert hike this time, there were only a couple of disgusting black-water pools that we wouldn’t dare touch. So we went back to the campground and did a little bit of wading in the water spigot there. (We drank from the water until Lee saw a sign near the bathroom that said there wasn’t drinking water. We thought we’d all get giardia, but this Utah.gov site says the campground does have drinking water. Whew!)

That day was also Sarah’s and my anniversary, so we left Audrey at the condo with my parents and went out on the town. We went out to a fancy French restaurant called La Soiree, where we ate fun cheesy fondue and cooked our own entrees on super-hot lava rocks. (We were too full to get the fondue chocolate for dessert, but that was all right because we ended up spending $50 on the meal anyway.) We also watched Mission: Impossible III at the cheap theater and then went to the Dixie to make out in the dark. Happy anniversary!

Thursday was another day trip, to Springdale and a river-running good time. We bought three cheap floating turtles and a pair of Spiderman air mattresses, so we had to split into two groups to go down the river. First, Sarah and Lee and my brothers took Tyler down, while the rest of us ate lunch. We thought it would be about an hour for them go get down to where we were waiting with the food. We were long done with lunch and were really worrying by the time they got down after an hour and 45 minutes. Tyler had a really rough time and told me it was “not fun”. But despite that warning, Mom and Dad and I trekked back up to the entry point and started our trek. We had a great time for the first half of the trip, but then the wind started to blow. We were about 3/4 down the river when the first rain started to fall, and we spent the last 25 minutes ducking lightning and paddling down to get out of the downpour. I was freezing, but as I look back on it now, it was quite a fun adventure. Sarah had trouble of her own: she didn’t put enough sunscreen on, and her back and legs got extremely burned.

Finally, Friday we had to check out and drive home. It was another long drive, but I was just glad that I didn’t have to work again that day. It was a good vacation all in all.