Our weekend "camping" trip

Nate had last Friday, Saturday, & Sunday off, which is an extremely rare thing.  We decided kind of at the last minute that we wanted to head down to the St. George area and go camping.  We wanted to go to Zion's National Park.  So I checked online and all the campsites that you can reserve were full.  There are about 150 walk up campsites that are first come, first served.  After calling down to the park information people, we were reassured that if we got there first thing in the morning, we'd likely get a place to camp.  
So we loaded up the car and headed down the road at about 4:30 Friday morning.  Yes, we took the car.  It gets twice the mileage that our Jeep Commander gets.  And yes, Nate fit everything in that trunk including our tent, four sleeping bags, our cooler, two backpacks, one suitcase, one box of firewood, one big box of camping cooking gear, and a port-a-potty.  Impressed?  You totally should be.  That man is a packing genius!  
Anyway, the drive down went smoothly enough until we got to Zion's and lo and behold every single camping space was taken.  It was 9:30 in the morning for crying out loud!  I guess that's what we get for not calling ahead.  We decided to drive through the park since we were there.  The scenery was absolutely beautiful!  We drove through the long tunnel.  The kids loved that part.  They yelled things out the windows to hear their own echo.  
After the drive we decided we'd better get going if we were going to find a camping spot anywhere else.  Well, after driving to 4 or 5 different campgrounds and being turned away at all of them, we threw in the towel.  It was now about 4:00 in the afternoon and we were all hot and tired and hungry.  It's a good thing that Nate has relatives in St. George.  His aunt and uncle were out of town for the weekend and let us sleep  at their house.  They live next door to Nate's Grandpa Barnum and take care of him.  Nate's sister had been staying there while they were away, but she had to go back to Las Vegas to take an exam and decided that since we were there, she didn't need to come back.  It was good to spend time with Grandpa.  We took him with us to get shakes at Iceberg and took him to lunch at Chuck-A-Rama.  We spent our weekend playing in the yard and at the park, seeing a movie, visiting the St. George temple, and napping.  
While it definitely wasn't the relaxing, nature-filled weekend that we had envisioned, it turned out nice.  I especially enjoyed reading some of Nate's grandparents' personal histories.  His grandmother was an excellent record keeper.  She kept journals and wrote down hers and her husband's life histories.  We didn't get to read them all the way through, but it was fascinating to read about Grandpa's experiences in WWII and Grandma's life and challenges and both of their faith.  

Loading up bright and early.

Lilly was just so happy to finally be out of the car!

This is what Jayne was doing by the time we finished driving through Zion's.

Lilly thought Grandpa's flowers were so pretty that she just had to have her picture taken by them. 

Jonah showed off his Frisbee skills at the park.

Swinging the day away.

St. George Temple

We're planning another camping trip in a few weeks.  This time we've got reservations.  =)  Wish us luck with that one!