For the past, well … forever, we have never had a vacation that has just been our family.

We have gone to family reunions, gone on trips to see extended family. All of these are good things, but sometimes you just gotta’ be your own selves.

The past few summers have been difficult to do this for a couple of reasons: first, Adam has been coaching, making for time away to be very minimal. Second, I don’t teach preschool during the summer, so things get pretty tight around here during the summer months.

We really wanted to get out, and had saved a little money so that we could do this. We thought about going out of state, but didn’t really feel up to the drive. So, we decided to go to St. George. It is about 4 hours south of us, and a place we are familiar with.

Adam and I spent the first 4 years of our marriage down there, where he worked as a patrol officer for the SGPD, and I commuted to college, and then taught kindergarten. We actually had our first 2 kids here! We really liked it down there.

Here are pictures of 2 of our houses that we lived in and the school I worked in:

The first house we ever owned. We put in the landscaping and painted around the windows. Still looks good!

Our first house we built. Loved this house!

Coral Cliffs Elem.

Although, it isn’t on the top lists of vacation get-aways, especially in the dead of summer, but for us, it was perfect.

We were able to get a condo for a week, courtesy of my mom’s side of the family, who has some fantastic time shares. My aunt, Julie has taken over my late grandpa’s job of booking the condos, and has done a great job!

All we asked for was a place to sleep, shower and if there was a swimming pool, we would be oh, so happy!

The place we got was above and beyond! We had 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a fully-stocked (speaking of utensils and utilities) kitchen and a pool just a 2 min walk from the house. It was at the Canyon Villas at Coral Canyon Resort. It was fantastic!

Our little escapee immediately located all the exits. I snapped this right as she was about to head out and find some friends.

We wouldn’t know how glad we were that we asked for a pool until we got there. As luck would have it, this just so happened to be a week that the entire state of Utah had a massive heat wave. Northern Utah was at 100 degrees, so St. George was right about 115. SO HOT!

We ended up going to the pool 2-3 times a day. They all got to be such good swimmers!

Here is a youtube video of the kids playing an flipping at the pool :).

Rides on Dad’s back were a must!

They had the coolest little waterfall/cave!

One of the days, my family came down to swim. The kids love them so much, and it was nice for them to play together for a night. My mom brought some new shirts for the kids, which they were very excited about.

Aspen and Uncle, Rand

His shirt that he left at the pool. If you want to hear more about this, feel free to read the article I wrote.

Azure with grandpa! She loves him!

The kids and all “The Uncles” under the waterfall.

I actually had a few columns due that week, and I ended up writing about a lesson learned, that had a little something to do with this. Here’s the link: Listen to children; they may surprise 

Speaking of writing, I was able to meet one of my editors for the first time! He was actually my first editor who took a chance on little old me to write for the Spectrum. He brought his wife and kids, and we really hit it off! It is so nice to meet couples that you have a lot in common with. I hope we get together again.

On one of the days, we did brave hiking at Zion National Park. It was fine, but it was very hot. The kids were troopers, though. There were some complaints along the way, but really, it was just fine.

A nice lady offered to take a picture.

Yes, there was carrying involved, as was expected 🙂

They were so tired, but I was so proud of them.

If you haven’t been to Zion, you MUST!

When we were done, Adam took the kids to wade in the river. I was feeling a little heat struck and felt a little cramping in my stomach, so I sat out the river. Good thing, because who would have taken pictures?

Such a good daddy!

I wasn’t able to get any good runs in because of the extreme heat. We did swim a lot and get a good hike in, so all is good :).

It was such a great get-away; something we plan on doing more often. I love my little family!