First Official Family Vacation

We took advantage of Jeff's free week off from busy season being over to make a trip down to St. George for our first official family vacay! Everyone was giddy with excitement.

Eli was hilarious basically the whole trip. Luckily, I had a little notepad and documented a few of the funny things he said. Two particularly funny conversations happened on the way down:

(About halfway through our drive)

Eli: Oww! Oww! Oww!

Me: Eli, what's wrong?

Eli: Wanna kiss grandpa.

Another time, the sun was in Carson's face so we were trying to hang Eli's blanket up against the window. After a few failed attempts, we ended up rolling it up in the window to get it to stay in place. Eli looked at it concerned and then said, "Whoopsies. Mommy stuck my blankie outside."

We finally arrived to St. George, happy to be out of the car. We stayed at a home Jeff's parents have down there. Eli remembered just where all their toy cars are and played with them immediately.

On Tuesday we went to Sand Hollow and wished we would have brought a boat because NO ONE was on the water. It was perfect weather, perfect scenery and perfect company.

Let me back up for a minute because I just remembered this is where we had another funny Eli quote. We went to D.I. before going to the lake to get some sand toys for Eli. As we pulled up, this happened:

Jeff: "Eli! We're going to D.I.! This is a RICH D.I."

Eli: does an exaggerated sniff. "My can smell it!"

*This isn't some game we do or something we commonly say. He came up with that all on his own.*

Anyway...back at to the lake...

We risked giving Carson swimmer's itch to let him have his first dip in a lake.

This is our only family picture of the whole trip. Ha.

We went back to the house to get cleaned up and have the kids take naps. Then Eli and Jeff wandered outside to look for the lizard that hangs around out back.

Tuesday evening we made a trip to the temple. Eli loves having his window down in the car, and he "ate the wind" the whole way there.

Walking to the temple grounds. Eli loves pushing Carson.

I asked him to sing "The Temple Song" on the way in and this was his production:

After the temple we went to Nielson's to get ice-cream. In the parking lot we remembered we didn't have our wallets. We drove back to the house to get our money. (It was already about 8:30 by the way. A.k.a. bedtime.) Twenty minutes later, we arrived to Nielson's again and went up to order. We ordered wrong. Then we ordered right and handed them a credit card. Only to find out they don't accept credit cards. Then we realize the only cash we had we used at the lake a few hours earlier.

We left a little embarrassed and settled for a frozen yogurt place where you choose your own toppings. As we were eating our froyo, Jeff said, "I actually saw this on the way over and wanted to go here more." I laughed and told him I thought the same thing. I guess outside forces were helping us go where we really wanted to go. Here are the pictures from our 9:00 ice-cream adventures:

Jeff read the boys a few stories when we got back. I love when Jeff reads to them.

On Wednesday we went to Cedar City. We weren't going to give Eli a nap, but after our late night the day before, he had plans of his own.

He found a watering can decoration right before dinner and insisted on going outside to water the garden before he would eat.

After dinner, we went out back to play a horseshoe type game that Ben and Tana had set up.

Had to pose by the sunflowers.

Austen and Carson.

Thursday morning we went to the splash pad.

Carson got a foot bath again. He enjoyed it more than it looks like he did in this picture.

I'll interject another Eli story here. I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but this is what was said:
Eli: "My did it!"
Me: "Say I did it."
Eli looking confused: "My did it, too!"
Me: "No. You say, 'I did it!'"
Eli: "Eli did it."

Thursday night Jeff's parents came down to watch the kids for us so we could go on a date. Eli got a ride in "Grandpa's Truck" to go out to dinner.

We snuck away to see a play at Tuacahn. I had never been, so I was excited to see what all the fuss was about.

Sometimes if you take pictures of each other on opposite sides of a picture, you can kind of mash it together to almost make it look like you were both in the same picture. The play was awesome. We loved it. They had real camels that I couldn't get over. It was so nice of David and Mary to watch the kids so we could escape for a bit.

Here's my last Eli quote. It happened while we were driving somewhere. Carson was sleeping. Everyone was being quiet.

Eli: "Don't wake up Carson, Jeff!"

Jeff: "Call me Dad."

Eli: "Only Mommy call you Jeff?"

Jeff: "Yup."

We decided to leave a day early so I could get some laundry (and blogging) done today. We had a relatively uneventful ride home. Although...I did get an opportunity to prove to Jeff that peanut butter gets gum out of hair after Eli decided to put "sweet gum" in his hair along the way. That kid.

Such a fun vacation. It was nice to get away and finally spend some good, quality time together after surviving another busy season.