St George girls trip

Spring Break in my neck of the woods tends to mean vacation. A week off of school has families planning vacations to Bear Lake, Las Vegas, Disneyland, St. George, New York, etc. Some go all out and head to Hawaii or on a Caribbean cruise. If you stay home, chances are good the neighborhood feels very similar to a ghost town. And most of the time, we do indeed live that ghost town experience. But this year our family actually headed out of town for spring break. We segregated, interestingly enough...with Brandon and Bryan driving to Colorado Springs and the Olympic Training Center for Brandon's regional gymnastics meet. And Julianne, Lilian and I making our way down to St George with Alyssa and Liz in tow. Realistically, this was more of a girls trip with Lilian and I along for the ride...me being their wheels down and the one holding the wallet.

Maybe you remember Alyssa and Liz from our trip to NYC last summer? The four of us were roomies on the high school theatre trip in June and we had a great time. So this was a bit of a travel deja vu. Just with less Broadway shows. 

Because the weather was a bit on the chillier side (at least it wasn't snowing in St. George like it was at home...) we didn't end up being able to do as much swimming as we had hoped. Thankfully there is an inside pool and hot tub. But cooler temps and a bit of rain did not dampen enthusiasm for shopping, lots of movies, a trip to the temple for baptisms for the dead and some exploring in Snow Canyon and hiking up the famous St. George Narrows "Crack" and Dixie Rock.

Prom was the weekend after spring break so these girls spent a lot of time shopping for Prom make-up and discussing dress colors and hair options, etc.

 Lilian and I moved into the big pool when some cute boys came in and wanted to hang out in the hot tub. Didn't want to cramp anyone's flirting style. Granted, though the girls admitted the boys were very attractive, all three of them had boyfriends at the time and didn't go out of their way to do much flirting. So much for me being all helpful and considerate...

Elle, another close friend who also came to NYC with us last summer, happened to be in St. George with her family. She joined the girls at the temple, and also when we hiked up and around the red rocks above town.

Behold the many pictures we took of hiking the crack.
And yes, it is every bit as terrifyingly claustrophobia inducing as it looks.
...deep breaths, deep breaths....

"Hit the crack!!!" Inside joke. There is choreography associated with the phrase. And yes, I do have video. But no, Julianne refuses to let me post it.

Dinner at some noodle place that for some reason I'd never been to but Julianne insisted we must eat at because it was tradition whenever she came to St. George with cousins and grandparents. It was super yummy.

No trip to St. George is complete without a stop at the sand dunes in Snow Canyon. I wish we'd had more time to hike some of the trails, but Lilian was puking (due to the noodle restaurant the day before? I'm not sure) and we still had a long drive home that evening and some packing and cleaning to do before we left.

But hey, it was a fun spring break. These three are heading off in different directions come fall...SUU, WSU and UVU respectively. But we'll need to get together at some point and plan another getaway seeing as after NYC and St. George, clearly we make good travel companions. ;)