Our Utah Thanksgiving Adventure

This year for Thanksgiving, Emily and her mom planned a trip for everyone to St. George. The condo they were able to get was in Hurricane, about 20 minutes Northeast of St. George.  Emily and I were excited about this because it gave us an opportunity to go back to St. George for the first time since our wedding.

I took two weeks of paternity leave to allow us some extra time for the trip. The way down was a little slower than we would've hoped for, mostly due to Harlow's feeding schedule. We usually breakup the trip down and stay in Baker City for the night, but decided to do it all in one shot this time. 

The girls were setup nicely with their little lap desk things that Emily found. They were able to color, eat, and watch their kindles. 

Or sleep. 

They were demanding at times, but overall pretty good travelers.

We rolled in to Bountiful late Friday night, in time to take Emily to her first BYU football game on Saturday.

Emily: "Are you going to make a joke on the blog about this being my first BYU football game?"

Nick: "No, I'm not sure what joke that would be."

Emily: "I thought maybe you'd make a joke about how you took my BYU Football virginity or something."

Nick: "I wasn't, but I will now."

We headed down in the morning for an early lunch, since it was an early afternoon game. We swung by Zaxby's so Emily could get a chicken sandwich, and then drove down to The Italian Place so I could get a steak and cheese.

Due to the subpar season, we were able to score super cheap tickets at midfield. It was a brisk mid-30's, but in the sun we felt fine.

Look at that view.

When the sun went down, it got a different kind of cold. The handwarmers Emily had were working hard to keep her hands warm. We grabbed a blanket from the team store, but it didn't seem to help much. 

The Cougs won, and now Emily can claim a next level of fandom. I said this was the first game of many, and she just laughed at me.

Saturday evening, Hadley started to complain about her ear hurting. Her temperature felt a little warm, but nothing crazy. By Sunday morning she said her ear hurt a lot, so we decided to take her down to instacare. 

Turned out she had an ear infection. After some rest, Motrin, and antibiotics, she started feeling better.

Harlow has really enjoyed the jumper we have at home, so imagine her excitement when she saw Meemaw had one in her basement.

Some of the cousins came over for some chaos.

On Monday afternoon, Dwight and I hit up the only open golf course in the area. 

Also on Monday, my mom called and I could hear Sherry in the background. This was how I learned that mom was also in Utah for the week. Sherry was having a Thanksgiving shindig at her house that night, and she called to tell us to go. Hadley was feeling better, so, we headed on down for some pie-themed dinner and dessert.

We each had to take something that we were thankful for and did a version of a white elephant exchange with them. 

The next morning we packed everything back up and made the 4+ hour trip to Hurricane. We arranged to meet up with Damon and Sarah, as well as Shannon and Ethan at a drive-in in Nephi.

It's easier to be able to stop at places like this now that Hadley is willing to eat chicken nuggets. However, this place didn't have mac & cheese for Cambri, but they did have breaded and deep fried mac & cheese bites.

We arrived to the condo to find Emily's mom still sitting in the driveway on her phone. Apparently she was never sent the code to get in and the owner wasn't responding to any of her calls or messages. She called VRBO and they couldn't get a hold of the owner either. 

Anyway, they couldn't do anything other than put us up in a two-star hotel for the night. Not exactly ideal, but the girls adapted well.

Meemaw ordered pizza for everyone, while all the food she had just bought earlier that day sat in coolers in her car.

Harlow keeps doing this hopping thing when we place her in her carrier, so now we have to strap her in even if we're walking down the hallway to a crappy hotel breakfast.

The breakfast was so disappointing, we ended up eating our own fruit from the coolers and the Costco muffins that Meemaw had.

We were planning on going to Zion National Park, and being in a hotel wasn't going to stop us. VRBO said there weren't any other places in the area that they could book us. They continued to say a hotel was the best they could do, and the two-star hotel we were at was the only one that had enough rooms to accommodate us all. Needless to say Meemaw was fuming. She was going to stay behind in an effort to get everything sorted out. Luckily, right before we were panning to leave, the co-owner of the condo called her and gave her the code to get in the hotel. It was shortly after this that we discovered the number VRBO had listed for the owner was incorrect.

So with higher spirits, we all headed over to Zion.

Hadley decided she didn't want to walk, and had an epic meltdown and there was nothing we could do to get her to walk. Not wanting to keep everyone waiting, I finally just picked her up and put her on my shoulders, where she continued to cry for the next hour. I'm not exaggerating, she legit cried on my head for an hour. To the point where she cried herself to sleep up there. 

What could make the scenery at Zion more beautiful? Emily in the foreground, of course.

Oh yeah, I was also pushing Harlow in her stroller. When I took that hat off, it was covered in snot and tears.

Meanwhile, Cambri troopered right along with Meemaw. She was a great little hiker.

It didn't matter what we did, we weren't getting any smiles out of the girls right now.

Finally, at the end of our hike, and a nap, Hadley was willing to walk. 

We caught the bus to take us up to the Lodge. Everyone else decided to go on another hike, and we decided it was in our best interest to just go back and pack up our stuff at the hotel and unload it all at the condo.

As you can tell, Cambri was worn out and ready to get back.

The condo was a much better situation for us, and it gave us all a common area to hangout and play around.

And start a band.

Uncle Dwight became pretty popular with his Switch.

Uncle Ethan helped setup some couch cushions on the stairs for the kids to slide down.

There was a heated pool in the complex, but one by one, each kid started to appear under the weather a bit. The girls went with Emily after dinner on the first night, but that would pretty much be it for the week. Cambri started to get it pretty bad, and was super lethargic and lost her appetite.

Aunt Andrea came down with strep, and Uncle Dwight spent a few nights up in their room throwing up. Pretty much every kid would either throw up or be sick in some form. That didn't stop them from gaming together (although it probably should've).

On the second to last night in the condo, all the cousins put their pajamas on for a photoshoot. You can tell Cambri just has no interest.

Poor girls just wanted to sleep. Emily and I took turns in the room with her while she rested.

Meemaw hired a photographer for some family pictures. Emily had mentioned to her that on Sunday we were planning on heading down to St. George to take our own family photos at some of the red cliffs. So, Meemaw decided to tag along and make that the spot for all the family photos. 

It turned into a little hike, but we got up to a pretty neat spot for some photos. Although, we won't know how they turn out for another week or two. I can tell you already our kids did not cooperate either due to feeling sick or being too cold (pictures were taken in a mini-slot canyon thing in the shade).

In the sunlight she was fine, and enjoyed jumping up and down on all the rocks. It was a cool spot that overlooked the valley and the temple.

After Emily and I got married, we wanted some pictures among some of the red rocks, so we drove up the hill and found a spot. When we originally posted this picture, it was mentioned that the rock looked like a crab about to eat us. So now when we refer to that place, we refer to it as Crab Rock.

After everyone left to head back to the condo, we went over to that same spot to get a family picture of our own.

Even though the girls were tired and worn out, we wanted to drive around to see the St. George Temple as well as the Red Cliffs Temple, both of which were currently under renovation/construction.

Even though she wasn't feeling well, Cambri wanted to take her picture in front of the temple. She always gets so excited when she sees a temple, and it always makes us feel good.

This is how Emily found Harlow when we arrived back at the condo.

We were set to leave Monday morning to head back up to Bountiful. It wasn't the trip filled with tons of activities that we were hoping for, but it was fun to be down there. We finally decided to get Cambri looked at, and Emily took her to the instacare that was close by. Turned out she had RSV. Each day her breathing was becoming more labored, but they said there really wasn't much we could do.

We made the drive back up to Bountiful, where Pops was waiting to see the girls.

The forecast for the drive home was kind of mixed. It snowed the night we got to Bountiful, but the following morning looked like the best day to leave and travel through Oregon. It was Washington that looked to be getting a lot of snow. Our van is only FWD, and so we kind of wanted to avoid snow if possible. Our plan was to get over the Blues and then reevaluate. The Blues weren't actually bad at all. Since we had made decent time, we decided to just go for it instead of driving to Portland and staying the night with Emily's aunt. We knew getting over Snoqualmie was going to be our biggest hurdle, and even though we knew it meant some slow going, we just wanted to get home. 

The conditions worsened the closer we got, and by the time we got to the pass we had to chain up. There was snow all the way home, which meant a 2.5 hour drive turned into 6 hours. 

But we finally got home. None of the girls were feeling well, so it made for a lot of cuddles and napping. 

Harlow has been really smiley lately, so it's been nice to see that again after she was coughing a lot.

 All in all, it was a good trip and a good time spent with family, even though the last half was spent isolating Cambri and trying to stay away from other sick kids. It didn't turn out to be the trip we were hoping for, but it was a memorable trip, nonetheless.