Fall Break 2025 - St. George Day 3 (& 4) - Ghost Town, St. George Temple, Swimming, Naps, Tuacahn, & Going Home

We decided to check out a ghost town after our fun hikes.  It turned out to be kind of lame, so we won't need to do that again.   

We then drove to get some lunch.  We wanted to go to In & Out, but it was super busy, so we just went to Del Taco that was close by and not near as busy.

After lunch we decided to walk around the St. George temple.  It was such a beautiful day and such a pretty place to be.  We ran into some friends from out home ward and took pictures of each other's families and that was extra special.  We then walked around the temple and visited the visitors center and chatted with the missionaries.  It is always such a special spirit when you're on temple grounds.  

After the temple we went back to the hotel to let Allie go swimming.  She is the only one that wanted to swim again.  Tony took her down and let her swim for as long as she wanted, mostly.  Some other kids came and swam, and she had the best time swimming with them and probably would've swum for even longer.  But she needed to get showered and changed so we could go.

I went down to see if Tony wanted me to relieve him, but he was out cold sleeping.  There were other adults there with their kids, so I wasn't too worried about Allie not having someone awake watching her. I then went back up to our room and saw that Lloyd and Margie were also both sleeping, so it was kind of funny.  I was able to get us mostly packed up while Allie was swimming.

Margie wanted to go extra early to the show so that we could eat at the Tuacahn restaurant.  It wasn't very busy, and we were able to order quickly and get our food pretty quick.  It was decent food, and we enjoyed eating in that beautiful setting.

We had plenty of time before the show started after we were done eating, so we walked around the store and then around the promenade area.  

The kids were accommodating and let me take some pictures of them with the show boards.  

We then got to our seats and hung out until the show started.

This was the night of the BYU vs U of U football game.  It started while we were eating dinner.  Tony kept us posted on the score throughout the evening.  It was kind of cool to see many people in their team's gear and the comradery that it created, no matter which team you supported.  You could see people checking the score at intermission and then the cheers of finding out the ending score after the show was over.  I was bummed to miss seeing the game, but it was actually pretty fun to have that kind of experience with so many fans.

The show this night was Wizard of Oz.  This was such a good show.  All the shows were so good, but this was super good.  The sets were all so good and I really loved the fireworks each night.  It felt magical.  We then got out without any problem and went back to the hotel.

The next morning, we ate breakfast and then went to sacrament meeting at the ward near the hotel.  After the meeting we went back to the hotel to get changed and packed up for the drive home.  We stopped and got ice cream at a creamery on the way home and then had a late lunch at the Cracker Barrell.  It was a great trip, and we had so much fun with Lloyd and Margie.  We are so thankful that they take the time and money to take us on these fun trips.  We are very blessed to have such amazing family!

Fall Break 2025 - St. George Day 3 - More Hiking

We decided to go do some more hiking this morning.  We found another park to go and explore that had some dinosaur prints and fun things to explore.

We first found the prints, which to me seemed like a stress to call them dinosaur prints.  They looked like someone just cut out marks in the rocks.  But I am sure others thought it was super cool.  

We then took another super fun trail.  About halfway down we noticed that we could her some music.  We thought maybe it was just from the campgrounds, but they as we continued to hike we found out that there was a man who was in a cove up on the side of the mountain playing different flutes.  He sounded so good.  Josh and Megan wanted to climb up to see him, so I followed them up.  

When I got there, he let Josh play the drum while he played the flute.  He offered to let Megan play something too, but she declined.  Tony, Allie, and Lloyd ended up joining us up the hill and we all got to watch Josh play the drum for two different flute songs.  It was such a neat experience, and I am so glad that Josh and Megan wanted to go up and see him play.  I regrated not recording them play together, but I did take some pictures.  It was super cool.

We then hiked back down the hill to Margie and then continued hiking on the trail.  This is where we found the water and the trail got a lot harder.  We were able to go a little further and we saw how people could keep going by climbing up on the rock hugging the side very carefully.  

One lady didn't want to come back that way, so she just jumped in the water and that was fun to watch. She told us that she knew she couldn't maneuver around the rock so took her chance in the water.  We turned around here and started to go back down the trail.  It was a fun and easy hike with lots of fun photo spots and rocks to climb on.

We then walked back to the car and decided to go check out a Ghost town.  On our way we saw a sign advertising a trading post with cinnamon rolls and ice cream, so we had to stop and check it out.  Most got ice cream and Tony, and I shared a chocolate mud pie.  All yummy.  Allie found her souvenir at this cute store.

Fall Break 2025 - St. George Day 2 - Lunch, Swimming, & Tuacahn

After our hiking, we had a good lunch at the Pizza Factory.  They had a couple fun things to see outside of the restaurant, like an old phone booth and an old firetruck.  The girls liked exploring those things.

We then stopped at got some ice cream at Nielson's Frozen Custard.   Everyone liked that.

After that we went back to the hotel to let the kid's swim. It was not super warm, but it was warm enough.  The pool seemed to be at least a little heated and the hot tube was nice and hot.  I was on the tail end of a cold, so I thought it wouldn't be wise for me to go swimming, so I watch and took pictures.  

Most of them mainly did the hot tub.  Allie stayed in the pool the longest and had the best time.  They others slowly got done and went and showered and Allie was the last one out.  

After showering and getting ready we tried Black Bear Diner again.  This time we had a some of the group go over first to get our name on the list while I stayed back to help Allie get ready.  Luckily the wait wasn't quite as long, and we were able to walk over and met them quickly.

After eating we went back and got our stuff to head back out to Tuacahn.  Tony decided to park on the opposite side of the parking lot and at the very bottom by the exit.  This proved to be a good spot, and we were able to get out much quicker than the night before.

This night we watch The Little Mermaid.  They had some really cool water that came and then went throughout the whole show.  It was another really good show, and we all really liked it.  Our jackets and blankets worked well each night, and we just bundled up whenever we got cold.

Fall Break 2025 - St. George Day 2 - Hiking & Exploring

We got so lucky with the weather in St. George over Fall Break.  It was chilly in the morning and then warmed up nicely.  It was perfect weather to go hiking in the morning and not get too hot.  We started with our hoodies on and then quickly took them off.  

We started our adventure this first morning by going by my Grandpa Willis's house.  We drove by the front and then we drove down around from his house and parked so that we could walk behind the houses and see the lava rocks.  Well, we walked down behind his house (and took a picture) but then we didn't really get to the lava rocks.  I remember us hiking all around there as a kid, but I didn't know how to get to those trails.  So, we decided to go to a stake park and do real hiking. 

The park wasn't too far away, and it was nice to have a map to tell us where to go and which trails would be good for us all.   

These huge red rocks were so fun to climb all over.  We just let the kids go pretty much wherever they wanted and explore the land.  These hills were easy to climb, and I wasn't too worried about the kids falling off a cliff.  

We saw that they had lava tunnels, so we hiked in to go check them out.  Once we got to the big one, we found out it was just a large hole in the ground that went down really far, and it was all dark.  You would definitely need to have climbing gear and skills to go down into tunnel, so I just took Tony's picture by the big hole.

We then went on more hikes all around the park.  We saw a large turtle rock thing, and we climbed more big hills and rocks.  We also stopped by the visitor's center and got a Jr. Ranger badge for that park.  It was a lot of fun, and we all really liked that state park.

Fall Break 2025 - St. George Day 1 - Travel Day and Tuacahn

Margie and Lloyd picked us up at our house and after we packed the van, we headed out towards St. George.  We decided to make a stop at the Red Barn in Utah County.  They advertised donuts and that is what made us want stop.  They didn't have very many donuts and the ones they had didn't look very good.  So Megan asked if she could have ice cream instead.  Tony said sure, and that's when some had ice cream for breakfast.  Josh still had a doughnut, but the others had ice cream.  I just had a couple bits of others.

We then continued onto Beaver where we stopped for lunch at the Mexican Restaurant that Margie liked.  After a yummy lunch we then drove the rest of the way down to St. George.  We stopped at Costco to get gas before we checked into our hotel. 

After we got all unpacked, we decided to walk to Black Bear Diner to have some dinner.  It was super busy, so we walked next door to the Denny's and ate there.  

We then walked back to our hotel to get all the stuff we needed to go see Newsies at Tuacahn.  Lots of blankets for everyone and some waters and snacks to take it.  

Tuacahn was about 20 minutes from our hotel.  It was a pretty drive and a lovely property.  We got there and waiting in line for them to let us in to get our seats.  This night was a sold-out crowd, so it was busy.  

We found our seats right in the middle section and waited for the show to start.  We all love Newsies, so we were most excited to see this show.  It was really good.  The actors were all really good and the scenery and sets were great.  The dancing was the best and most fun to watch.  At the end of the show, they had fireworks and they were so cool and echoed in the canyon where we were.  I loved that part.  

At the end we quickly walked to the car to try to beat some of the traffic.  We didn't do a great job of that.  We got stuck trying to go out for a good chunk of time, but we did finally make it out.  It was a good lesson for us to park differently the next night.  

We then made it back to the hotel and all showered and went to bed.