St. George Getaway-- Top 10

You all know how I LOVE top 10 lists, right? Well, I think it's high time we have another.

We spent Memorial Day weekend in (should be sunny, but was actually windy) St. George with two of my dearest friends from high school, Camille and Anneka. Anneka is actually my cousin as well and her sister (thus another cousin) Shawna lives in town, so we got to spend some time with her, too. PLUS- we also got to see Devin's sister Jana, her husband Karl, and their son Grady, along with Devin's grandparents who all live there, too. Whew. So many people, so much fun.

So, without further ado....TOP 10 Moments of the weekend in St. George (and a million pictures!)

1) Time with Grandma and Grandpa Maughan. Devin's grandparents are getting a little up there in years and we do not get to see them all that often, so the time we were able to spend with them was priceless to us. 

Grandma was Flor's instant newest best friend. This was the first time G &G met Flor and she took an instant liking to both. She kept going over to Grandma and wanting to sit on her lap, so she and Grandma rocked a while in the rocking chair. It was adorable.

Jace, on the other hand, was enthralled with Grandpa's feet and the wheels on his walker. I love feet (not) and wheels too, so that totally makes sense, right?

By this time our actual camera battery had died and we had no charger (good planning, eh), so the phone pictures will have to do. Not the best quality, but oh well.

And two out of five people looking. Great picture, right there.

2) Late night chats with the ladies. Oh man, some serious walks down memory lane here. Camille had found some old church programs from our single days in her scriptures that she brought along, which brought hours of entertainment. Of course during those days we couldn't just listen in church, so these programs were full of some gems of notes. The notes were mostly between Camille, Kylee, and I because Anneka was at a different college, but we definitely had some good laughs over our topics of discussion. Here is an idea of what we are talking about: 

  *Camille: What are you doing today? I have on my schedule: 12:00- read the comics 12:30- take a nap 2:30- make rolls 3:00- read 4:00- go visiting teaching 5:00- dinner. Are you going to kiss Devo today? (Devin and I were engaged at the time)

  Kim: No, not today. Let's consult Family Rule #47, according to Stef: "We do not kiss boys on the Sabbath day." 

Camille:  THAT's a family rule??? Ohhhh NO!!!!!!!!!

{The family rules were just a joke, but oh my did we have some funny ones. Some too inappropriate to name here-- but old roommates will definitely remember. Obviously Camille had broken family rule #47. :))

Or this one: 

*Camille: This guy is a good speaker. I need to make a new Top Ten list. I love this song. Speaking of love, I love syrup. I could use some right now. & a bathroom.

{What the??? She is the queen of the randomly interjected thoughts...}

We also spent a fair amount of time back in the day playing a game on the programs called "Date, Dump, Marry." {Yeah, sometimes our paying attention in church was not the best...} One person would give the other person three names of guys we knew (mostly in our ward) and the second person would then have to say which one she would dump, which one she would date, and which one she would marry. Verrrrrrry interesting. We have matured a little bit since those days. Kind of. 

We stayed up WAY too late every night just talking and chatting. Even after we had said goodnight one night, Anneka's husband pointed out that we congregated together to the bathroom, then we congregated out to the front room again, then we congregated in the hallway on the way to bed... because we just couldn't stop. Gotta love it.

NOT a picture of our late night chats because no one wants to see that...but Anneka and I doing our best to look like we got 8 hours of sleep the night before instead of the 3 or 4 we actually got. 

3) Temple trip: On Saturday afternoon we took the kids to the Temple Visitor's Center to look around and to see the grounds of the St. George Temple. One of Camille's friends from New Zealand is serving her mission at the Visitor's Center, so Mille of course wanted to stop by and see her. We saw her right away and while Camille chatted, the rest of us had a look around. One of my favorite lines from the trip came here...Camille was introducing us to her friend and she said, "This is my best friend Anneka. We have been friends since we were three. And that is her cousin Kim." Thanks, Mille. Not that we went to Elementary School together. Or Junior High. Or High School. Or slept in the same room for 3 years in college or anything... :)

Addy, Hals, and Hyrum having a look at the Christ statue

These three were great together. Nothing better than a five year old (Addy) explaining what is happening in the pictures to two three-year-olds. She did a great job as the tour guide!

This is what happens when you try to get a picture of six kids.

These three became fast friends though. Hyrum took a liking to Hals and it was the cutest thing. But, seeing as they are cousins, we are going to encourage the relationship to remain in the "friends" category. :)

That's cuteness right there.

Mille and Flor

Look at Hy and Jace looking at each other. Too cute.

"Come on Jace!"

4) Taking the kids swimming on Saturday morning: We got up early Saturday and since we all stank anyway (Camille and I went running first thing and then she and Hallie did a workout video. No pictures of that since I think Camille would not appreciate me posting them here...), we decided going to the pool first thing would be a great idea. We headed to Washington City Rec Center as they have a nice indoor pool. The only problem was that the kids were not allowed floaties and had to use their regulation life jackets. Even after I explained that Flor has a disability and putting her in a life jacket is a joke because she doesn't have enough balance and ends up floating on her face, they still wouldn't allow her to use her floaty. Boo. I was not pleased. Devin had gone golfing with his buddy, so Camille and I manned my three kids. She basically chased Hallie around and took her down slides and stuff, and I held Jace and For in my arms. Wahoo. There was a more shallow part with a splash pad type toy, so we tried to stick around there for a while, but Jace would take off crawling and go under water before he knew it, so we quickly decided that that was not such a great location for us. Devin eventually showed up after his golfing trip and helped, which was great. The kids had a good time, though the trip was a tad stressful for me at first, trying to keep track of three kids who can't swim.

Don't we look good in our swimsuits? No...these are actually continuations from the Temple, but just wanted to break up the pictures a bit, ya know...

Hals and cute Hinckley. He and Jace are about a month apart, so it was fun to see them together.

5) Dinner out and a night away from the kids! Saturday night, Shawna and Curt arranged for babysitters to come to the condo where we were staying (which belongs to Camille's husband's grandma-- so nice of her to let us stay there!) so that we could go out. This was heavenly for us. We put our kids to bed before we left, thinking that it wouldn't be too big of a deal for these girls. Since Anneka's three kids were there too, we got two sitters. Well, we had a great time at dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. We took our time, ate great food, laughed a lot, played silly games, and just generally enjoyed a night out. 

We came back to the condo and the first thing one of the babysitters said was, "Umm...Hallie is yours right?" Oh dear. I was quite nervous to admit that she was. The babysitter said that Hallie had come crying out of bed shortly after we left saying that Flor had pushed her out of the bed (note to reader: yeah, right.) They thought all was fine and went to put Hallie back in bed when they noticed a lot of blood. Apparently Hallie fell out of the bed (or was trying to get out, more likely) and hit her leg on the table by the bed. She had a huge gash in her leg and there was blood all over the sheets and comforter. Yikes. Just what you want in a condo that you don't own! No worries, though, the girls were resourceful and found a band aid to bandage her up and we were able to successfully clean the bedding. Whew. Never a dull moment. 

Shawna's face illustrates how hilarious we all thought we were. Which, in case you wonder, we were.

We had a good laugh about this picture too. Devin is a like a mile away and refused to come any closer. Fine, suit yourself husband. By the way, Buzz, Camille's husband, was in Mexico for the weekend, so he was not there in case you wonder why there are no picture of him.

6) Late night games. And food. And laughing. We played a lot of games during the trip. Saturday night and Sunday night were dedicated to games. Games are fun most of the time, but when you play them with really fun people, they are even more fun. I am pleased to announce that Camille didn't even try to cheat. She is a notorious cheater, but kept herself in line this time. Good job, lady. While we played, we ate and ate and ate. Camille made her famous Congo bars and we pigged out on those the whole time. Mmmm... I could use some now....

7) The sleeping situation. Okay, when I say Top 10 moments, this has to fall under "Top 1 Worst Moment(s)." Yeah, I just made a new category. We had all of our kids in one room in the condo, which worked out great as the girls were in the huge bed and Jace in the walk in bathroom area in his pack-n-play. No problems there. Devin and I slept on the air mattress in the living room. We thought it would be great fun to have a slumber party with the others there, which was great fun, except for that the first night, Hallie woke up crying for some reason, so I tried to sleep with her and Flor for a while to calm her down. Well, Hallie allowed me approximately 2 inches of space, so I was basically hanging off the side of the bed. Two little children and one adult should fit quite easily in a king size bed, you'd think. But, not so. The second night I thought I would fall asleep right away because I was so exhausted, but we stayed up late again and got wired, then someone who shall-not-be-named but who happened to be sleeping in the living room too has taken up snoring, so that kept me up for a while longer. :) 

8) Visiting Devin's sister Jana and her cute family. Jana had us over for Sunday lunch at her house, which was really fun. We had a delicious meal, great company, and the kids enjoyed playing with their cousin Grady. Jana also was kind enough to teach me to cut boy hair. She demonstrated on Jace and though her professionalism intimidates me, her teaching must be fantastic because I gave Devin a haircut once we got home and it doesn't look too bad if I do say so myself (except for the bald spot in the back. But it's hardly noticeable! ha!)

Grady did not like the idea of having a posed picture taken, so we got some candids instead. Well two, before the camera died.

Grady and Uncle Devin

9) Eating Breakfast. "What?" You say, "Eating Breakfast?" Yes, eating breakfasts definitely deserves a place on my top 10 list. Why? Well, first of all, we had 3 pounds of bacon. That's reason enough. 2nd, pancakes the size of our heads (Thank you Curt). 3rd, a serious reminder of our growing up years and weekends/summer days spent at our family cabin in Island Park. Seeing as Anneka, Shawna, and I are all cousins and Camille an adopted member of the family, this type of breakfast brings back some strong memories together of good ol' fashioned family craziness. Gotta love that.

10) Attending church together. We were nearly zombies by Sunday due to lack of sleep, but we all managed to get ourselves up, showered, and to church by 11 am. I know, I know, 11 am is not that early, but it was a feat. We were even on time. We went to Shawna's ward and had a really great time together. It was fun to look back to the bench behind us (yes we took two) and to see all of our kids sitting together and reading stories together during Sacrament Meeting. The talks were superb. Jace took a nap (unheard of). The adults got sugary treats in Sunday School to stay awake. The Relief Society lesson was really, really great (best I've heard in a long time- and one I needed to re-hear). Camille and I got to play with Anneka's flannel book/scripture stories. Hyrum and Hallie went to Sunbeams together and appeared to be the only ones in the class (thank you teacher who knows neither of them for teaching our children!) All in all- a great day at church.

And that concludes our horrendously long Top 10 list. Sorry everyone. I better go put a disclaimer at the top. Who knew that I had so much to say?

And...it appears that I have one straggler picture. I feel bad that I didn't get any pictures of all of Shawna's kids, but this one has Alia in it. The kids loved playing together, which was so great. Hallie doesn't know these cousins very well at all since we don't see them that often, so it was fun for her to get to know them.

Addy, Alia, Hallie, Flor, and Hyrum playing dolls