San Diego Trip Day 1

Nat's mom and dad!

Natalie's Dad wanted to do something special for their 40th Wedding Anniversary in January. We had a great idea that they would go on a cruise out of San Diego, and when they got off the boat, all their progeny would be there to surprise Grandma. As it worked out, Grandpa would pay for and arrange hotels, several activities, and even dinners. The catch would be that Randy would have to take off 2 days of work-- a real sacrifice for him!

But he was able to get out at 2 o'clock, and Natalie had the car all packed and ready to go. We were lucky to have Natalie's sister, Brittany, with us for the ride down, because we knew 10 hours in the car was going to be a struggle. Luckily, we were able to break up the drive. We'd drive 5 hours to Las Vegas the first night, stay with Natalie's other sister, Tiffany, and then do the final 5 hours on Thursday.

The boys loved having Aunt Britt in the van with them.
Seth even wanted to hold her hand of a little while. 

This first day wasn't too eventful. There was a lot of driving, but the boys were great in the car. We planned to stop in St. George for dinner, and we made it just before sunset. This was lucky, because none of the boys have the St. George Temple in their Temple Books. (Mom and Dad do, they did a session in St. George on a trip to California before the boys were born.) So we stopped and took pictures. It was a beautiful evening, and again, we were lucky to have Brittany along to take pictures.

Here we are as a family in front of the St. George temple.

For dinner, we stopped at Roy's Pizza (formerly Fat Jack's) in St. George. This is the best pizza place in the world, or at least we think so, and the restaurant where Randy worked in Ephraim in his younger days. His friend has opened this location in St. George, so we were all excited to try it, even though it took longer than a fast food place would have taken.

There was only one more stop that night. After passing through the Virgin River Gorge, we pulled off an exit and looked at the stars. With no light pollution and a clear, moonless evening, you could see the Milky Way, and the boys loved pointing out the winter constellations.

We made it into Las Vegas just after eight, playing car tag with Bob and Stephanie over the last few miles. At Tiff's we let the cousins run wild for a little while, and then everyone collapsed into sleep. We planned to leave plenty early the next day!