Hanna Family Trip to Saint George

For years my mother has wanted to go on a family extended trip all together.  It is sort of a weird desire because we are a close family and the rest of the family (besides us) are all together almost once a week.  Plus everyone often goes to flaming gorge together or to our family's cabin.  But she watned to do something different and will all of us, under one roof.  We often try to plan something a year or so in advanced but by the time the trip came someone was pregnant, just had a baby, or out of the job.  It just never worked out.  Well, her oldest grand child is graduating high school this year and no one had a new born - so I guess that made it the year!  

My parents booked a wonderful vacation home in St George that would fit all of us and asked us to come in April.  Everyone pulled their kids out of school (summer is too crazy with football and all the church camps).  It was the "hardest" for us (I say that but Daniel and Angie have the most amount of young children and I think they have it the hardest) - but ours was a 10 hour drive.  So our vacation was 2 days longer than everyone else for our travel days.  

Our drive was amazing.  We literally did the whole thing with only stopping for gas (while filling up the babies played in McDonald play place for about 20 minutes).  It was seriously amazing.  Jason read to us almost the entire time "Mornings on Horseback", it was heavenly.  We have a beautiful family with beautiful expectations and traditions.  Our "normal" isn't like anyone elses "normal" that I know.  I hope all of our children come to love our uniqueness and have a feeling of closeness, connection, and love throughout their childhood.  There is a risk (especially with 6 kids) that one or more of them will feel annoyed, controlled, or unheard - but we try SO HARD to walk the balance and so far it seems that everyone loves our "normal".

Anyways... didn't mean to go into all of that.  We stopped in Cedar City for dinner and I wanted to drive up to see the temple.  Nobody else thought it was as cool as I did, except for the babies (that is why Jesus says to be like little children) - it was freezing and windy, but they both wanted to get out of the car to see the temple and take a picture.   Jason also decided to be awesome and let everyone get for dinne rwhat ever they wanted!  We went to Wendys, Burger King, McDonalds, Pizza Hut (well... it was supposed to be Chick Fil A but it was in the college student center), and Panda Express. 

I didn't do a great job at taking pictures.  Several of my sisters and sister in laws were taking pictures and I assumed I would just get some of theirs - but I haven't yet.

On the first morning we went on a hike.  It was just supposed to be Daniel and his family but when I heard they were going I wanted to go as well, and then everyone wanted to go.  I am so glad we did.  We went up to a beautiful water fall that was so fun to play in!

Megan was full of questions the WHOLE TIME about how all of the rocks and layers were formed and she had Jason all over the place explaining things.

The older kids had just as much, or more, fun than the little kids.  Noah chose not to come with us and we were all so sad for him.  Noah would have loved the beauty and the rock climbing.  When we got home and told him all about it and showed him the pictures he agreed and didn't miss any more hikes.

Dane was most excited about all of the Cactuses.  He really wanted to see a really big one (with the arms up) - but I told him there weren't any of those in Utah. 

One of the purposes for the trip was to get a family picture (will post the pictures later)  But these are pictures of us hanging around waiting for our picture to be taken.

Megan had more rock formation questions.

It takes a lot of fruit snacks when you are taking pictures of toddlers!

These two are basically models.  I mean... look how handsome they are!!

Our picture location was beautiful and so fun.

On another day we went on another hike.  This once didn't have water - but a lot of cool rocks to climb.

If you can't tell, my mom got all the kids matching Hanna vacation shirts!

We also went to a cactus garden, well... we were supposed to.  In the first 30 seconds Dane and Eve both grabbed a cactus and we spent 30 minutes in the first aid room getting the pokies pulled.

On another day we went to "glitter mountain" to mine for "crystals".  

There were two different pools and they were the MOST fun. 

Noah and Brock spent a few hours throwing all the younger cousins off the water fall.

Brooke and Angie had a chicken fight.

The sad part about the trip was that it was over Brock's 16th birthday.  At first he didn't care but as the vacation (and his birthday) got closer he started to care more and more.   Rather than go all out and make his birthday great on the vacation and then go home and do ANOTHER party/"real" birthday, I opted for just one birthday and to not do anything on the vacation.  I guess i should have known better, my mom and katie felt bad for the poor kid and they got him a cake, hat, and streamers.   Technically they were celebrating all the birthdays in April, but brock was the only one with a hat and his name on the cake.  

 

And this is just hanging around the house.  I wish I had more pictures of this stuff.  Dane got to sleep like a regular big kid in the "bunk room" with all his cousins.  Eve slept in her "new closet".  The house was wonderful.  The babies ask every week when we are going back.

There was an arcade room

And a hot tub.

And a movie theater room.

We also had way too much good food!

It was a wonderful vacation and something we will all remember.  Our drive home was a breeze (well... we hit 2  hour traffic on the way home - but nobody seemed to care).