St. George (UFOP Conference, General Conference and just plain fun)

At the beginning of the month we packed up a rental car and headed to St. George. We spent a night in Vegas for some fun at our favorite place Sam's Town, then spent 5 days in St. George.

James looking out the window at Las Vegas

Walking around Sam's Town

Of course as with most of our vacations, it wasn't much of one for Tracy. He was attending the Annual Utah Friends of Paleontology Conference. They had an opening social on Friday night, Saturday was filled with presentations (oral and posters) and a banquet in the evening with a key note speaker, and Sunday they took a field trip to see some of the surrounding geology. Tracy had a good time. Met with some new people and visited with friends. He also gave an oral presentation.

Tracy's parents decided to join us in St. George, so it was fun for James to have his grandparents to play with. My little sister Kandace, who James absolutely loves, made the drive and spent the weekend with us as well. Then it happened that the Monday we were there, my other little sister Clarissa and her boyfriend were there for a friends temple sealing and my older sister, Sharlotte, was driving through after bringing her step daughters back home to their mom. So I had lots of fun seeing some of my family.

My goal of the trip was to take James to see some of the locations of this Piano Guys video. He loves their videos and this one is probably his favorite.



Thursday when we arrived, we took James to the Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson's Farm. He really enjoyed the sand box.

The car that got us to St. George and barely back home.

Friday, morning we all went swimming in the hotel pool. Tracy and I took advantage of free babysitters and left James with grandparents while we went to see a movie. Of course it just happened to be the day Jurassic Park 3-D came out, so why would we not take time to see it. It was awesome! That was about all the exciting things that happened that day. Oh, and the arrival of my little sister, Kandance.

Saturday morning, Kandace, James and I played at the splash pad he is playing in front of.

We went to lunch after seeing Cafe Rio on our way to a different place for lunch, we decided to eat there. I don't have Cafe Rio nearby, so I was happy to be seeing my good friend again. However, it just wasn't as good as I remembered it being. I just have found better restaurants similar to it, so Cafe Rio and I have now parted ways. Good-bye Cafe Rio.

Tracy attended the conference. His talk went well. Unfortunately, I miss understood him and didn't realize we could have gone to it. He also went to the banquet. He of course had a great time.

Giving his talk.

At the banquet

Sunday, Tracy's parents and Kandace left. I went and watched the afternoon session of conference at our friend, Brittany's house who just happened to live in St. George. We ended up visiting more the watching conference. James had fun playing with her son, Nathan, who is almost exactly a year younger. After conference we took the boys to the park to play. Tracy joined us after his day of hiking. Then had dinner at Brittany's when her husband came home from work.

On his field trip part of the conference.

Sunday morning was the first time in a very long time that I had missed home while on vacation. But by the end of the day I was glad I got to spend part of it with my friend and that we had one more day.

Monday, Tracy went to see some site for his thesis with the curator of the Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm. I met my sisters for lunch.

With my little sis at lunch.

My little sis and big sis and two of my nieces.

Then when Tracy was done, we hung out some more with my littler sister. After that we had dinner just the 3 of us at Ocean Buffet (from the video above). It was delicious. We showed James the Me and My Cello after dinner and asked him, "Did we just eat there?" His replied in his cute little voice, "Yeah." Now since then he pauses the video at the point you see the restaurant and says something about it. Can't quite understand what he says, but probably says something about eating there.

At the Ocean Buffet. He was pretty exhausted at this point of our vacation.

Then Tuesday we made the five hour drive back home. Stopped and explored a little in the Valley of Fire and had dinner at a In-N-Out. My first In-N-Out experience. Don't see the huge hype about it, but it was pretty good and easy to make a decision on what to eat.

Here are James' rocks. He collected these all along our trip. The top right he picked up at the Cafe Rio. The top left, I can't remember where it came from. The bottom right he picked up at the discovery Site. The bottom left he picked up from the temple grounds. (I didn't realize he had taken the rock till it was too late.)
Guess he is becoming like dad, collecting rocks.

We had a good week. Though I missed my palm trees and my home. St. George does have palm trees, but they look half dead and very sad. Of course Tracy says he misses St. George's red rocks. We need the red rocks here.