We finally made our annual family trip to St. George!

Taylor and I spent time here on our honeymoon back in the day. Since then, we’ve taken the kids once when they were pretty small, and another time to Cedar City. We tried to go back in the past couple years, but weird events kept stopping us. Like a global pandemic was happening or somethin idk. In any case, Taylor and I have been daydreaming of our return. And by the time we finally got to go, the kids were convinced that St. George was magical, mythical, and the happiest place on earth.

And, well, are they wrong?

But let’s back up to the beginning.

Our trip started out with a few roadside attractions. This was a smart choice because 1) our little compact car is cozy. Little people needed a break from being packed in like sardines:

And 2) because you can’t pass up places like this!

PAROWAN GAP

Parowan Gap is a rad off-the-highway thing to check out near Cedar City, UT. Here you get 2 incredible historic sites. The first site is my favorite. There are years of Native American petroglyphs inscribed over each other on the vast boulders. Several of which that tell of a devastating flood and the resulting relocation of a Piute tribe.

Here’s some possible translations provided by tribal descendants and archeologists (on the left).

Fascinating form of communication. There’s a book on the Parowan Gap written by one of the head archeologist that I really need to get my hands on. Here’s the Amazon link for anyone interested.

A quick picture of the vast fields of openness. Incredible to think of the Piute and Fremont peoples before us who saw this same view.

A couple pics of my cute babies. Arrow was pleased with this photo she got of Sander!

The next site over is hunting ground for dinosaur footprints!

The duck billed dinosaur prints left behind on some of the rocks…

Incredible to think of these massive creatures roaming the land before any of the peoples were around.

After soaking in our fill of Parowan Gap, we finally made our way to St. George, where we were lucky enough to stay with some friends!

Mrs. Hansen was my high school counselor back in the day. We’ve kept in touch over the years and they kindly let us use a couple rooms while we took the kids romping through the desert.

Also their dogs were adorable.

RED HILLS DESERT GARDEN 🪴

Our morning started with a visit to a desert botanical garden. I do not care that I already live in a desert and keep cactuses at home. I will always want to visit a garden especially if it has pokey poof poms.

BEHOLD. A GLORIOUS FLOOR OF POOF POMS.

Picture with our favorite cactus: the Saguaro cactus!

The Saguaro is a Jacobs favorite wholly based on this book we read all the time. It’s a children’s nonfiction story called “The Cactus Hotel“. It’s about the lifespan of the Saguaro cactus and its symbiotic relationship with the desert creatures.

Sander’s Ice Cream Wish

Sander and I broke off from the group to do some of our own exploring. We came across a little waterfall / pond. Sander flipped in a nickel and said aloud “I weesh… for ice cweam!”

A few minutes later, I heard the echo of a familiar jingle.

The Ice Cream truck had arrived per Sander’s wish!!

At this point, Arrow & Archer are convinced Sander has magic wishing abilities and were sweet talking him into wishing for all kinds of goodies.

Pioneer Park

Pioneer Park is right next to the botanical garden. Note, this is not the same pioneer park downtown salt lake city where you can hustle drugs from the slide at the children’s playground. The St. George location is just a bunch of rocks.

Really, really big rocks.

See those people dotted in the distance? They look like ants. Which is a disgusting mental image to conjure.. I’m sorry. You don’t look like an ant. Your mom, sure, but not you.

I just realized we didn’t see a single bug out here. Weird. Grateful.

From his perch at the arch (in the photo above), Archer captured this stunning landscape on camera (in the photo below).

Nice work Buddy!!

We took off from the park just after lunch. Which was good timing, since the entirety of Utah was starting to swarm in. But we couldn’t leave before the kids accomplished “The Ultimate Test”, which was climbing up this massive rock formation.

Can you see them waving from the top there?

They were so pleased with themselves. It’s the little things, people 🙂

Utah Tech University Campus & Sears Art Museum

We took a tour of the newly-branded Utah Tech University (formerly Dixie State University). I had this tiger-mom-esque idea that we should plant the seeds of a post-secondary education to the kids really early.

The kids were hoping to see “a real-life college student”. I think they were under the impression that college was just as hyped up as the college from Monsters University lol. Understandably, they weren’t inspired by the harried young adults rushing around.

They were impressed with this odd blue fountain, though.

Like… how? How is it so blue?

Passed by the LDS institute building (aka Mormon Seminary College). Tay & I met in the University of Utah’s institute, so it was fun to see a replica of that same building. Happy memories from that place 🙂

Our main purpose in visiting UTU was to take the kids to the free art gallery on campus.

But, whoopsie, it was already packed up for the end of semester.

Still, we pivoted and “toured” the permanent fixtures in the hallway. Realistically, that’s about how much the little people wanted to see anyway 🙂

Look at this amazing bronze statue entitled “Over Easy”. The bronze of the cowboy and horse are joined only at the knee. I can’t even imagine how the artist supported the clay to do that.

This horse head & tails painting puzzled / disturbed Arrow.

A bust & acrylic painting that I liked:

And a case of rad battle armor:

Overall, the kids’ favorite part of the art museum… was the water feature out front.

Not sure that was really meant to be an art fixture but, hey, it’s the little things 🙂

As we left, Arrow told me that she was a little disappointed she didn’t get to see a live class with adult students. She was also disappointed that her school doesn’t have coke machines on campus 🙂

Thunder Junction All-Abilities Dinosaur Park

The crème de la crème of St. George:

Sander & Archer had the time.of.their.lives exploring and climbing and running and zooming and doing it all over again!

Arrow loved the swinging rides the best:

I love that this park is for adults & kids alike and accommodates those with handicaps.

I think all of northern Utah and northern California was at the park this week. Taylor ran into the office secretary from his work, and a couple of his students as well! We also briefly befriended a dad of three from California. (Hercules, if you ever read this, it was a pleasure meeting you!)

Arrow got great practice in working out her “delayed gratification” muscles. At the start, she had a hard time with waiting in line, which there was plenty of since the park was packed. Eventually she noticed Archer & Sander were having a blast and didn’t mind waiting in a line of kids for an activity. At first, this made her even more grumpy. With only a little encouragement, Arrow figured out sitting out the rides was worse than waiting in line with all the other kids 🙂 Arrow also got practice in speaking up if a kid butted her in line. That’s a big deal, because she does not like confrontation. Really proud of you Arrow, for being brave, and flexing those development muscles!

Okay, back to pictures. We took a train ride:

It’s just a basic ride around the park but Sander could NOT contain his excitement. CAN YOU BELIEVE HE GOT TO RIDE ON A REAL LIFE TRAIN WITH DINOSAURS CAN YOU?!

Taylor and I took selfies to distract us from the couple making out in front of us on the train. (I can see where Arrow gets her hesitation in confrontation lol.)

Ahhhh I love these kids and their love for each other ❤

Picnic Lunch at a random Park:

Never underestimate what an afternoon at the park can do. Our “quick lunch” turned into a few hours of napping in the sun and making sandman angels.

Amazingly, we had to drag the kiddos from the park to the final activity: indoor swimming!

Washington City Community Center Pool

This pool is AWESOME.

Archer & Arrow were surprisingly brave by going down on of those tall-giant-slides-that-exits-the-building-and-coming-back-inside water slides. Normally they’re not too keen on heights, but apparently it’s not so scary if confined to a tight, enclosed space with fast-running water and nothing to see but the insides of the tube.

We wrapped up our vacation with dinner from Cafe Rio. The sky view from the parking lot was gorgeous.

Ugh, St. George is so, so pretty.

We said goodbye to this beautiful city and departed with the sun.

Such an awesome trip.

Thank you again to the Hansen family who so graciously hosted us for a few days!! ❤