A Weekend Away

This last weekend, we went away to St. George. I had Friday off, so we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to take a long weekend and get away. Joel was supposed to take one day and go hike Zions, but they couldn't get passes. Apparently they only give 30 passes a day to go into the canyon and the passes were all gone by the time they tried to get them. That's okay, though. We had fun anyway.

We drove down on Thursday after work and got there around 9. We got settled in and spent the rest of the night swimming.

Friday, we went shopping. We've been to the outlet mall down there before, but never for a great amount of time. Since we had no time constraints we decided to make a day of it. We were done after about an hour. They had a few good stores, but not many. They had all of the major children's clothing stores so we were able to hit some of the clearance sales and get some clothes for Jenna to wear in coming years. We also got a head start on Christmas/Birthday shopping by picking up a couple of toys, too. Joel bought some new socks, but that was about it. It was kind of depressing.

We went back to the hotel and spent a couple of hours swimming. The hotel we stayed at had two pools so we got our fair share of swimming. We went out for dinner later that night at Q4U. We have one up in Salt Lake that we have always wanted to try, but never have. It was good food, but a lonely place. We were the only ones there. It was kind of depressing to see the workers just sitting around.

After dinner, we went over to the Fiesta Family Fun Center to play on their toys and hit the arcade. We had a lot of fun just watching Jenna play. They had a big play center with a slide. I think Jenna got dizzy running to go down the slide again. My favorite part was finding out that a 16 year old girl was not pregnant. I took Jenna into the bathroom to change her bum when I hear "Not Pregnant!" come from a stall. Two girls continued the conversation about if she peed on the stick correctly while I changed Jenna. I am so glad she chose the Family Fun Center to determine that.




You will never guess what we did Saturday. We went swimming! We also spent quite a bit of time on the playground at the hotel. Jenna sure does love swimming and slides.

Later in the afternoon we headed down to Vegas. Don't judge me for taking a one year old to Sin City. I felt pretty dumb doing it and a little slimy, but she was by far not the only one. I would look around thinking, "Why would they bring their infant to a casino. Oh, yeah, I brought Jenna!" Anyway, we went to Circus Circus and rode the Merry Go Round for $4 (what a rip off!). Jenna absolutely loved it! She cried when we got off, but there is no way I was going to pay for another ride..


After that we headed down to the Mirage and went through the Secret Garden. They had dolphins, lions, tigers, and some other animals. Their main atraction was the dophins, so we sat around and watched them for awhile. It was peaceful to sit around the pool and watch them jump and play. It was hard to believe there was a nude bar on the opposite side of the wall from us.





For dinner, we went over to Treasure Island and hit the buffet. It was an okay buffet. I was looking forward to a nice big salad, but they didn't have a salad bar. The salads were made for you. It was kind of odd. They also didn't let you put tips on your credit card receipt. That was really dumb. Needless to say, they didn't get a tip. Sorry about that! Jenna loved the place. I am sure they were sorry they didn't charge her for her dinner. She ate so much (and no, she didn't throw it all up)!

Today, we got in the car and headed home. We stopped in Fillmore for Jenna to play on a slide we saw at a gas station. She did not want to leave, but we finally got her back in the car. We also stopped in Nephi to go to my Grandpa Tolley's grave. I don't remember ever going there, so I thought I would take the opportunity. We weren't sure we would be able to find it, but we coincidentally parked right next to it. We only stopped for a minute, but it was a nice place to take a pit stop.




It was so nice to get away for a few days and not worry about anything. We were able to eat too much, sleep too much and spend too much money. What a weekend!