Birthday Trip--St. George Part 1

For as long as I can remember, my Mom has always tried to make my birthday special. Growing up I remember her making my favorite meal and cake. When I was in college and even now, she makes a special effort to come down for the day and we go to lunch or dinner and shopping. So this year, being a big milestone for me, she thought it would be fun to take me to St. George. So off we set on a birthday adventure with me, Ben, the 2 girls, my Mom and little brother Cole...

We were able to stay in this awesome condo that had a pool, playground and lots of other fun sporty things to do...there was even a miniature golf course in the clubhouse!  When we first got there, Jade had to scope everything out...we thought the closet would be a perfect sleeping place for her, it was just the right size...

Unfortunately, this "cool" bed did not last long as she got scared and had to lay by our bed with me of course by her side on the floor.  Overall I was grateful with how well the girls did sleeping-wise on this trip. This was their first trip away from home for an extended period of time.  My wonderful mom was so gracious to let Kiera sleep in her room! 



We got there late on a Saturday so the next day being Sunday, we headed for Jade's favorite place...the Temple!  She is such a sweet, tender hearted little girl and when she saw it as she was walking across the street to the temple, she said in the sweetest voice:" oooh, the Temple, I'm going there someday!" 

We even got a rare family photo...

We had lots of fun taking photos on the Temple grounds, here are just a few good shots...

Walking with my girls...

Kiera loves to wave to everyone...

I loved the blue, sunny skies down there and it made for this fun shot looking up at the Temple. Someday maybe I will get to live my dream of being a photographer, but for now I just like to have fun trying new things!

What a special moment...I did not want to forget it!

After the Temple we drove up on the bluffs above St. George and hiked around a bit.  It was like 105 degrees so after about 10 minutes of walking, we called it quits!

But the view was well worth it!

Had to get this little princess Leia! Her hair had been in piggy tails all day. I love that her hair is long enough for me to finally get creative with.  She still wiggles around and by the end of the day she ends up with frizz anyway, but hey while it lasts we get some cute hair!  Grandma has some more cute hair pictures I will have to post when we get them from her.

On Monday, we decided to hike around in Snow Canyon since hiking is one of my all time favorite activities.  The girls had a blast playing in the sand dunes here.

A fun shot of the guys and Jade crawling. Don't really know why she wanted to crawl but that sand was super soft and she must have liked the feel of it on her legs, cute girl!

A Sillouhette of our family. Ben and I went to St. George for part of our honeymoon and we had taken a shadow shot of the 2 of us way back then.  So we thought it would fun now almost 6 years later to get the 4 of us now.  It kind of turned out..just ignore my hand in the bottom left corner!

Next we hiked into this really cool canyon that echoed. Jade had a blast yelling "echo" and hooting like an owl. Don't ask me why the owl sounds, other than her Daddy was hooting as well!  Here she is with Uncle Cole. These two had a lot of fun together, Jade followed Cole everywhere!

 Mr. Cool...

Mom went to the very end of this canyon where you can reach out your hands and touch both sides at the same time.  It was quite narrow down there.

Cheese! If we ever catch Kiera looking at the camera, we consider it a small miracle!

Jadee really enjoyed hiking around.

And climbing up the rocks into small caves with her Papa!

 This little monkey (Kiera, not my Mom!) had a blast crawling and climbing all over the holes in the rocks.

Ben never really reads the signs before he wanders off the trail...so we had to get a shot of him "breaking the law."

Wouldn't you know it...this fun little canyon was named after me!! Just kidding! It was fun though to get a shot next the sign and pretend for a minute that I was famous.

Here we have Ben sporting the Kiera backpack.  She did not like being in it at first but got used to and rather enjoyed hiking around with us.  The other picture I loved because it shows the Cole and Jade.  If she keeps growing, she should be able to catch him in a few years, right??? ha ha!

 And finally, I wanted to capture a rare sleeping moment from Kiera.  She is not a great car sleeper, but apparently we completely wore her out.  And Jade had the backseat all to herself. She loved sitting back there watching her movies every chance she got.  I think we all have Cinderella memorized after this trip!