This past week Brandon had to go attend a Director's Meeting in St. George. We decided to tag along with him. Since we had a free night hotel stay to use up before May, we drove down an extra day early.
This time I made a list of things I wanted to do while we were down there. Brandon also came up with a few things he wanted us to do. It made for a very enjoyable weekend where we did many things that we have never done down there before.
On our way down we stopped at the LDS church site - Cove Fort. Since we have been learning all about rocks this month, I knew it would be a great way to reinforce some of the things we have been learning. Sadly, it was very windy and cold when we arrived, but we made the best of it and it was nice to get out of the car for about an hour.
The boys thought it was pretty cool that the rocks they used to build the fort were made from a nearby volcano - in other words, they were igneous rocks. Living in the West, it's difficult to find this type of rock, but today we checked them off our bucket "rock list".
As soon as we arrived at the hotel the boys just wanted to go swimming. We know from experience that if you want the boys to have a good time staying at a hotel, it's gotta have an indoor pool since you never know how warm it will be. Brandon was a good sport and he got them ready for swimming literally 30 minutes after we checked in.
This next school year, we are planning to enroll both of the boys in swimming lessons so they can manage their own way across the pool. I grew up terrified of water (and I sometimes still am), and I'm hoping to prevent that with these two. Plus, Peter needs to learn how to swim for one of his cub scout requirements.
Sunday morning we took a drive to the city of Toquerville. It's a tiny town about 20 minutes from St. George. My great-grandmother was born on the family farm here and I have many fond memories of her telling us stories about Anderson's Ranch. While we weren't able to find out precisely where the family farm was, we found a little stretch of road called Anderson Junction in memory of my 2nd great-grandfather (Peter Anderson).
It was fun to walk around it a bit and look at the scenery. I might have even gathered up a rock or two and some dirt from the area. I'm really am quite sentimental, and you never know what you might want to use for a craft.
Then, we headed into town and managed to find a cute city park just off the only main road in that town. The boys were thrilled to be able to get out and play at this play area. I was excited to see a very nice park bathroom. We even found a darling brown fuzzy caterpillar while we were stopped.
The next morning Brandon had his meeting at the University. While he was gone I took the boys to the Brigham Young Summer House. What a crazy time. We were 20 minutes into the tour when Luke loudly announces he needs to go potty. So we sneak out, sneak back in, and it went downhill from there. Luke just isn't willing to sit nicely and listen to anyone, at anytime. Peter was upset he wasn't able to see the upstairs area of the house, but I promised him next time we go down to St. George Luke will stay with Daddy and he and I can go on another tour.
We also went up to the "hill" in St George and played around on the red rock. The boys loved hiking all around the rock. I might have freaked out just a little bit when Luke decided he wanted to climb a huge rock with a precipitous on the other side. After my freak out, we all had to go back to the car and calm down. I do not do well with heights, and it gets even worse when Luke is around to scare me with his antics. It was fun though to talk about what it might have been like back when the Native Americans were the only ones here. The boys found some great holes that would make a perfect bed.
We also spent time at the Children's Museum, the Thunder Junction park on the west side of St. George, more swimming, walking around the Temple, riding the carousel, playing in the splash pad, playing at another city park that had a sandbox (extreme joy for Luke).
