Trip to St. George - Day 1

Friday, November 2

We decided to take the family down to St. George to see M&M's band perform in their competitions.  We kept the kids home from school so that we would have plenty of time to get down there and get to the competition in time.

MJ sporting some cool sunglasses!

Once we got down to St. George we checked in to our hotel and then headed downtown to take a tour of the St. George Tabernacle.  It is a very pretty, old building and the tour guide did a pretty good job of trying to keep our kids engaged.  We also found out that she is from the city we live in and still owns a home up here.  Her kids all graduated from the high school that M&M marches for.  (Small world!)

The kids on the spiral staircase at the tabernacle.

After we toured the Tabernacle, we noticed that there was a park next to the parking lot so we decided to walk over to it and explore a little.  Well, first we came across a water park and then a little bit of a grassy area and then there was a carousel.  MJ and Kay were in heaven and they couldn't see anything beyond the carousel.  We tried walking past it and told the kids that we would ride it on our way back to the car, but MJ couldn't take her eyes off of the horses.  So we decided to pay right then for the kids to ride on it.  It ended up being fairly cheap - $5 for me and all 5 kids to ride on it twice.  At first when the ride started MJ wasn't too sure of it but after a minute or so she realized that it was fun and started smiling!  The little ones were sad when the second ride was over!

Luke having some fun posing for the camera.

After the second carousel ride we walked back through the water area of the park and let the kids play in the water for a little bit.  I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that they ended up getting soaking wet - especially MJ and Kay.  Luckily I had packed a few extra clothes where we could get to them easily so I could change them before we got in the car.

MJ thought it was fun to get her hand wet and then slurp the water off of her hand.  I'm amazed that no one got sick...

After the water park we went and ordered take-out at Burger King and then found a local park with picnic tables to eat at.  After that we made a stop at the bathrooms and then loaded into the car to drive to the band competition.  After one wrong stop, we finally found the stadium and found a parking spot on the side of the road and walked over to it.  The stadium was somewhat small but it was tall so we were able to get a good vantage point up top - although we were pretty far off to the side.  The stadium was all concrete with large walking spaces in front of each bench.  MJ thought that it was great fun to run around and entertain everyone around us - although I don't think everyone appreciated it...  I finally grabbed a hold of her and just held her tight in my lap and she was not very happy at all.  After wiggling and fussing for several minutes and then realizing that I wasn't going to let her down she yelled out, "I just want to go to bed!"

I think M&M's group finished 5th overall in their division, but got 3rd in the state which is pretty good.

After the band competition we went back to the hotel to crash for the night.  We had enough beds for all of us this time but without M&M there I tried having MJ and Kay sharing a bed.  They thought that it was all fun and games though until I got tired of it and threw Kay into bed with her dad and I slept with MJ.  MJ is a very restless sleeper at night and I did not get a restful sleep at all...  At one point she was flopping back and forth in the bed so I grabbed her to try and calm her down and she started hitting me and called out, "No, Luke!  Stop it!"  I whispered to her that it was mom and she opened up her eyes and saw that it was me and then she settled down and went back to sleep.