Desert Travels

What did we do in the desert for a week, one might ask?

Actually Emily asked me when we got home and if truth be told, we did a lot of eating, ice cream consuming, shopping, swimming, reading, relaxing, and sweating.

South on I-15

Monday afternoon we left the monsoon weather of Utah county and headed toward St. George.
Dan had work he needed to do in southern Utah and Las Vegas, and so all of us, (except Emily), decided to tag along.

We checked into our hotel in St. George and headed out on the town. When we got back to the hotel, we were greeted by 3 fire trucks, fellow hotel guests and thoughts of our luggage and other valuables going up in smoke before our eyes. Gratefully, they cleared the building, our floor was unaffected and we enjoyed the rest of the night.

The same day we left, I had my new I-phone 4 in possession and Instagram all set to go and proceeded to annoy the family the rest of the trip :) I liked the fact that I didn't have a big camera to lug around.

Priorities in Las Vegas included shopping at the world's largest H&M and Forever 21. The girls

got a lot of school shopping completed and even Dan expanded his wardrobe.

Trying to look cool and calm after walking a lot in the "mild" summer heat Las Vegas was experiencing

This picture serves as a reminder to me to take photos before we walk all afternoon in the horrific heat, nearly sweating to death. I would have made a lousy pioneer!

We got some serious sun time and some of us sunburns. A family experiment in sunscreen and sunburns resulted in Julia walking away browner while the rest of us girls had varying degrees of vibrant, painful pink exposed on our shoulders and faces.

 Dan and I decided we needed to do something that resembled "learning" on this trip so we drove the kids to Hoover Dam and walked across the new bridge. There was a high wind advisory in place, helping us appreciate the guard rails along the bridge even more! It is truly an amazing engineering feat!

We took our time coming home and stayed an extra day in St. George. I love historic downtown with the  alabaster white temple and red brick tabernacle.