A little road trippin'

My friend Kari's birthday was on Sunday and she invited me to go on a road trip with her down to St. George in celebration. She had never been to Zion National Park and wanted to check it off her list. So Friday afternoon we packed up and headed out. We had a nice drive down talking about whatever we felt like. About an hour before we arrived I got really excited to see The Little Mermaid at Tuacahn and we decided we should sing the rest of the way. Not sing songs, but sing our conversation. It was very entertaining.
We stayed with our friend Blaire at her family's house in St. George. We dropped off our stuff and then piled in the car to head to Tuacahn. Blaire's brother in law works there and scored us some free tickets. Since Kari's third person she invited couldn't come at the last minute we had an extra ticket to the play so we took Blaire's 4 year old niece Anya with us. She was shy for about 37 seconds and then proceeded to tell me everything about everything since I was sitting in the back with her. By the time we got to Tuacahn we were the best of friends.

The play was fantastic!! I had heard the soundtrack to the play before on the way home from my mission in Spain. It makes for a very long flight when the person next to you is asleep, you can't play the games on the touch screen in front of you because they make you sick and you can't watch the movie; A. because you're a missionary and B. because it will make you sick just like the game did. That leaves listening to music provided by the airline, so what else is a poor missionary to do but listen to Disney. I loved the added songs and was excited to see how they played out. I was not disappointed. It. Was. FABULOUS. I really just loved it so much.

The next morning Blaire and I snuck out to the grocery store to get some flowers and chocolate for Kari's birthday while she was still sleeping. When we got back we headed into town for some breakfast at The Bear Paw. I decided to just go with the pancakes. Kind of boring. In my head I was thinking IHOP so I ordered the large stack because I was feeling very hungry. Holy cow! The pancakes were bigger than my face! I barely made it through 2 and gave the last one to Blaire since her French toast was so little.
Then we were off to Zion. I've been there a few times, but I forget how HUGE those rocks are. It's amazing to me the talents of God. I know that sounds a bit ridiculous, but seriously! What an artist! The colors and just the size of those rocks is so amazing.

Kari wanted to hike the narrows so we got on the bus and headed in. It was a pretty warm day, but once we got down to the water it was the perfect temperature. Being down in that canyon provided shade and the water was pretty cold. It worked out perfectly.

After the narrows we headed to the emerald pools. It had a beautiful view that has provided a nice new lock screen for my phone.

Saturday night we went to Anasazi, an interesting steak house in St. George. They brought you your meat on a hot stone and you cooked it yourself. It was very different, but fun.
Sunday morning we went to a local ward and it happened to be the primary program. It was very entertaining watching those little kids say their parts and sing the songs.
We finished up the trip with a stop at Blaire's house for lunch. Sloppy Joes, my favorite! And then headed out to Snow Canyon. It was SUPER hot so we only got out for one hike to Jenny's canyon which was only half a mile round trip.
It was a really fun weekend with Kari and Blaire and I'm glad I got to go.