Vacation

Our final stop before we headed back to Las Vegas was Brigham Young’s Winter Home in St. George.

I love visiting homes-turned-museums like this.

And it was neat because not only was it free, but we had our own little tour guide to tell us about the home (had another group of people arrived around the same time that we did, we likely would have had to share our tour, but lets just pretend they gave us special treatment because we are just cool like that).

Lest you think all of Brigham Young’s 53 children somehow fit around this table, apparently only one of his wives regularly came to this home with him. And she had no children. I wonder if the other wives were resentful that she got to go to his get-away home and get away from the frigid cold of Salt Lake City during the winter months.

I had asked the tour guide a couple of questions. He didn’t know the answer. So I stopped asking questions because I didn’t want him to feel embarrassed. Besides, he still had interesting information to share.

Like the fact that Brigham Young supposedly had “helpers” but would never call them “servants” and treated them like part of the family. I don’t know that I believe that. Not sure if the tour guide just said that because he didn’t want to offend us brown folk.

I also learned that Brigham Young was a short, yet hefty man. I had always wondered why Joseph Smith had no facial hair, then all of the sudden Brigham Young comes along with a full beard. I am now starting to think that he just didn’t want anyone to know that he had a double chin.

They had all sorts of crops growing in the yard. I would love to have a yard that looks like this (though I do not see it in my Las Vegas residential future).

And who wouldn’t want to have a wrap-around porch? I would, that’s for sure.

After relaxing at the hotel for a little while, we met up with our friends. We arrived at the St. George Tabernacle about 30 minutes before the recital was set to begin. They have a really nice little park next door so we took all of the kids over there to get out some of their energy.

This was where Graciela rode a carousel for the very first time. All of the other kids were going to go, and Suzy didn’t want Graciela to be left out. So Suzy’s daughter graciously offered to ride with her.

(I’ll be honest, watching that thing go round and round was making me a little nauseous).

After playing for a little while, we headed back to the tabernacle to take our seats.

One of the things I find fascinating about these old buildings is just how thick their walls are.

There is cute Bella playing her pieces. At the age of 12, Bella was by far the youngest performer. I think the next youngest was in his 30′s and the rest were all in their 40′s and 50′s.

Graciela only stayed quiet during Bella’s performance (I think maybe because she probably heard those songs on a daily basis at Suzy’s house), so then I took her outside so she could scream as loud as she wanted.

And after a quick run to get me a milkshake and grab a movie at Redbox, we concluded day 1 of our St. George Trip. Next up, day 2!

Instead of a birthday present, I told Luis that I wanted to go on a trip. We have a few different options in mind, but wanted somewhere relatively close so that I wouldn’t have to take the day off of work. When we found out that Suzy’s daughter would be having an organ recital in St. George, we decided that was where we would go. So we started our trip by going to Zion National Park.

We parked at the visitor center and then hopped on the shuttle to make our way up the canyon.

I did a little bit of research and found a really easy, 1 mile hike that the 3 of us could do.

These three little old ladies even attempted the hike, though they only made it about 1/4 of the way.

After the hike, we stopped at the grassy area in front of the lodge to let Graciela do a little crawling on the grass.

And then it was back to wait for the shuttle to take us to our car.

After such an eventful morning, Graciela slept the entire drive back to St. George.

I have no idea what this is exactly or what it is for. If any of you have been here, please enlighten me. From what I could tell, it was a gift shop/ice cream shop literally in the middle of nowhere. It had a little play area where kids could pretend to be in the old west. Each of those buildings are probably only about 8 or 10 feet tall. They were super cute. Too bad I couldn’t convince Luis to get out with me (he said he didn’t want to wake the baby… likely excuse).

Then it was back to St. George for part 2 of our trip.