The trip

We finally got out of town at about 4:30 Friday and drove up to St. George with out any event. This after Doug and I totally disagreed about Joey's ability to take care of himself and stay home alone. We actually had a bet that Joe would end up at Moody's by 11 pm. Doug won that bet by the way, and Joe stayed the entire weekend at the house. He enjoyed himself immensely, cooked up a a storm and watched TV well into the night. Not to worry, we had all sorts of watchful neighbors in case he ran into any problems, including Uncle Tom across the street and John and Di next door...plus the usual Moodys, Ellsworths and Fonbuenas. How lucky we are to live in this great neighborhood!

The entire ride was filled with Doug and I laughing and talking, with out any interruptions. What? What is that like you may ask yourself. Well, I will tell you it is heavenly. No one asking for food or rides or sleepovers or help with projects or merit badges. Doug only got a handful of calls, work and bishopric type, that he was able to get through quickly. HEAVEN I tell you! When we got to the inn we checked into our room and I immediately set out to find my entry in the room's 2002 guest journal. There it was all sweet and newlyweddish! I added and entry for 2008 in the new journal and got a little nostalgic over how quickly these past 6 years have gone.

We set out to find dinner and ended up eating at the worst place in all of St George, but it was okay because the company was great and Doug can make anything tolerable. We sat next to a huge group of very rowdy couples. One of the men kept clapping after every comment at the table was made so it was like a constant applause on one side. One the other side we had a double date going on. One couple was surely responsible for fixing the other couple up. Well the girl half of the couple that was on the first date was cute as can be, but she had a laugh that was more annoying than the laugh of Fran Dresher from the Nanny. Really. The guy who was with the 'normal' date kept just looking at his friend and nodding his head as if to say"Dude, I am so sorry". The other guy kept looking at his date, the horrible laugher, in disbelief. It was so funny that Doug and I amused ourselves watching them through out dinner. The poor guy on the blind date saw us sizing up the situation and looked at us as if to say, "Help me, please".

By the time we finished dinner we were ready to come back to the inn and soak in our car/tub. No joke the hot tub in the room is built right into an old model T. After hot tubbing the night away we snuggled up in the comfy bed and drifted off to sleep.

Saturday morning the smell of bacon cooking woke us from our slumber. That's right, no alarm clock, no kids screaming, no dog barking, the smell of bacon! We lounged around and sat on the inns porch and talked and read. An hour or so later found us eating a yummy breakfast in the inn's dining room. After that we took our time getting ready and headed out to the St. George Visitors' center. We took a tour and viewed the Joseph Smith movie which had us both crying even though we have both seen it before. Yes Doug is a crier when it comes to church movies, although he will deny it. We walked around the temple grounds and took a few photos. The Temple grounds were very dry and did not look the way I remembered but I guess they just re seeded. Since our reservation for dinner was early we headed out to the outlets to do a little shopping and finally came back to the inn to get ready for dinner.

We always try to eat at the Painted Pony if we are up in St. George with out kids. So we have been there twice including Saturday. It was exquisite. Delicious food and the best atmosphere. And, of course, excellent company. We had time to run back to our room before we headed out to Tuacahn for Les Miserables. Also wonderful. The theme of love and forgiveness permeates the entire show. The weather was perfect and the performers were excellent.

We got back to our room late and stayed up half the night talking about the show and each character.

Sunday we woke again to the delicious smells of breakfast cooking . And it was a joy to have Doug in bed with me until 9 am on a Sunday. We ate and got ready for church with out anyone needing help locating shoes or ties or hair clips! Again, HEAVEN. WE ended up heading out after 11:30 to find a ward to visit, but found that like Vegas, the meetings are generally, at 9, 11 and 1. So we took a long drive and talked some more. We ended up in a friendly little ward and , yup, it was HEAVENLY to have Doug sit with me. Now I can not even remember the last time that happened! After church we changed and headed back to Vegas.

Believe it or not, on the way home, even after all that heavenly alone time, we both admitted we missed the kids and are glad that in two weeks our next weekend getaway will include all six of us as we make our way up to General Conference in SLC.