Spring Break - Day 1

we have been planning this trip for about 2 years and when it finally came, we were all excited. we are headed to utah to visit with jay's brother and his family. and along the way, we plan to stop and see as many temples as possible!

we set off today for st. george, ut. we went through las vegas and were looking forward to driving over the newly finished mike o'callaghan - pat tillman memorial bridge. this bridge is the first concrete-steel composite arch bridge in the united states. and it stands 840 feet over the colorado river. amazingly enough, we would have missed it if we weren't paying attention! you could hardly see over the sides, you definitely couldn't see the hoover dam and the road never felt any different but it did it's job at getting us to our destination sooner.

our first temple to visit was the las vegas nevada temple. it was right at the base of the mountains and the six spires shown brightly in the sun.

the temple grounds are a place of reverence and peace. a place where i enjoy spending time with my family. a very nice place for our picnic lunch.

alexis and dad stretching their legs.

time to get back on the road, but not before one last shot of the family.

i suggested to the girls that they should rest before we reached st. george but they all insisted that they weren't tired. who was right?! oh yeah, mom 1 - kids 0.we made it to st. george! jay drove us around and pointed out some places he would play when he used to visit his grandparents there. then he took us to the mini narrows. i had been once before and couldn't wait for the girls to see this place. their faces may all look happy, but ariana definitely had some reservations about climbing in.

the mean parents.notice how ri ri is lagging behind....wanted to make sure the people ahead of her didn't get stuck!alexis and caprice practically ran through and were peaking in on us.ariana made it all the way to the end and was then excited and wanted to do it again!look at us being brave lol!exploring the beautiful red rocks and found some nice photo ops.they love to see the temple!checking out st. george's first jail.

then we were off to tour the winter home of brigham young. the almond trees lining the walk way were blooming and so beautiful. to show that this was a real piano, the sister missionary that was guiding the tour asked the girls to play something on it. alexis, being the oldest, spoke up first. she ended up to be too shy to play so caprice stepped in and plunked away. i'm sorry i wasn't quick enough with the camera to catch them sitting here.

after the tour we headed to see grandpa jay. we talked for a while and he wanted to know how each of the girls was doing and what their interests were. he has been losing his eyesight and caprice was amazed that he knew who each of them was despite his disability. grandpa jay wanted to take us out to dinner while we were visiting so we went to one of his favorite places, chuck a rama! dinner was yummy grandpa, thank you!

we all enjoyed our visit with grandpa jay....great grandpa to these ladies!

one last outing for the day. and what a good one! the st. george utah temple.