St. George Trip

At the end of June, we made a trip down to St. George to visit Matt's paternal grandmother. Momma Kimball made the trip with us which was awesome. I was a little nervous about the trip because Nicole does not travel well. She has a lot of anxiety about going to new places and being with new people and she doesn't like to be in the car... so there were a lot of reasons why it could have been a very difficult trip, but, surprisingly, she did fairly well in the car and after a little bit of anxiety when we arrived, she calmed down and adjusted faster then I thought she would.

We left on a Monday, right when Matt got off of a 12 hour shift at work. The plan was that I would drive and Matt would sleep on the ride down. Alas that Nicole was very needy during the trip and Matt did not get a lot of sleep on the ride down. Also, we had Momma Kimball's dog in the car... which made for an interesting trip.

Dano is an excellent little traveller

We made good time on the way down to St. George and got settled in to Matt's Grandma's house. She has two guest bedrooms, so we were all able to stay there. We just hung out the first night and desperately tried to get the kids to fall asleep in a new place. After trying to put them down in the same room and having them fight for thirty minutes, we separated them and put Nicole down in Momma Kimball's room. Then, after two hours, she finally fell asleep. At which point, we picked her up and brought her back to our room for the night. We continued with this sleep routine for the three nights that we were there. It was not ideal, but at least it worked. Bedtime has always been an issue with Nicole.

The next day, we went to a Dinosaur Museum and it was an epic fail. It was suppose to be this attraction for kids and it was just very lame. I thought that there would be like dinosaur fossils, but there were just fossils of dinosaur footprints. It was very boring. The only sort of good part was the dig sand pit, but because it is St. George, it was like 103 degrees and we were just roasting as the kids dug in the sand. Waste of money, never go there.

Later that day, we went to Matt's uncle Kevin's house for dinner. For some reason, going to another person's house that she didn't know was too much for Nicole. She cried almost the whole time we were there. We thought that we were going to have to just leave because she wasn't able to handle the situation, but then we finally got her calmed down enough that we were able to stay and eat dinner. Sometimes, if there are too many changes, Nicole's anxiety is just too high that she can't handle it. I always feel bad when she gets upset like that because it isn't her fault. Once we found out that Nicole had Aspergers, it was a relief to know that she wasn't just unhappy or acting up all the time when she cried. Now, I am much more understanding and calm and I try to be comforting when she has a melt down or a tantrum. I just hope that other people understand too and don't judge Nicole for crying and screaming or me for my parenting and comforting rather than scolding.

After dinner, we went over to a park to play. It was like 8pm at night, but it was still sunny and blazing hot. That is St. George for you.

Signature Dan, all he wanted to do was swing.

Matt's cousin, Sage, and his aunt Teresa

 All Nicole wanted to do was fill her hat with water and then dump it out. Silly girl.

Dan caught on to the hat game and he started playing too, you know after he swung for an hour.

The next day, we went to a splash pad on Main street in St. George. It is this amazing splash pad and a river running through the square that the kids can play in. It was packed the day that we went, but I imagine that anywhere with water is packed in St. George because it is a million degrees.

Dan turned his clog into a boat and then started freaking out when it actually started floating down the river.

Here is a good shot of the river water feature, but the river ran down quite a way from where Dan is standing.

Matt's Grandma (GG) and Momma Kimball

After an hour or so in the blazing sun, we walked over to the carousel that this park also has. Matt took the kids on the carousel because I get sea sick on those things. The kids loved it. They cried when they had to get off. This park was amazing and so much fun, definitely the funnest thing that we did while we were there. I definitely recommend it if you find yourself in St. George.

That night was our last night there and we just hung around Matt's Grandma's house and made our homemade pizza for dinner. Matt's family really likes our homemade pizza.

Nicole enjoyed looking at birds through the binoculars at Grandma Kimball's house.

Grandma Kimball had this little trampoline and the kids just loved it. They just jumped and jumped and got their wiggles out. It almost made me want to get one of these, but I wouldn't want to store it.

We went home on Thursday and the ride home was a lot more challenging then the ride there. Nicole had a hard time, and I had a hard time. I was in the back for some of the trip and my car sickness kicked in and it was no good. When we finally got home, we all took long naps.

It was a fun little week trip. We travel during the week so that Matt can work on the weekends. We are the opposite from every other working person out there.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was playing board games with Matt and Momma Kimball every night. I finally had people to play with me! Ever since Sarah and Mark moved, we haven't gotten to play games like we used to because we can't find people to play with us. But, since we were all together every night with nothing to do and so they were easy to convince to play games with me.