"Southern Utah is so much a part of our life, and it wouldn't be without the St. George house," Camille commented, as we spent Martin Luther King day weekend, January 12 to 15, 2018, in St. George with the Eberts. Jono was in Cancun with friends and Emilie is on her mission, but the rest of the gang was all there. It was actually a surprise to be together, since the Eberts decided to come to St. George at the last minute, after Dave and I had planned our trip.
The Eberts love board games and party games, so we whiled away the time with new games from Christmas. One evening we played a charade game, and we laughed and laughed as each team tried to pantomine words for its teammates to guess.
Camille and Steve also love the out-of-doors, so we took three hikes during our weekend.
The first hike, on Friday afternoon, was a short trail through Snow Canyon to a panel of names, scratched by Mormon pioneers in the rock during the 1800s. Dave had to wait for a TV installation team at the house, so I went alone with the Eberts.
No one can resist an eroded portrait hole in the red rock.
Moss growing on red rock is a striking sight.
"They sometimes grumble about going on a hike," Camille said of her children, "but as long as they can climb up, through, and onto things, they think the hike is great."
Sure enough, the Ebert kids made like mountain goats, scaling the slick rock to reach the panel of pioneer names.
Our family is developing good photographers. Camille is excellent, as are Annie and Mike, on SLRs, and Jonny on Instagram.
The Ebert kids climbed another huge boulder and did yoga poses on top.
The next hike wound through lava-strewn paths in Snow Canyon to a lava tunnel, through which hikers could climb.
Camille and I were talking, took a wrong turn, and lost the rest of the family. Camille's phone, with its flashlight, was nearly dead when we reached the tunnel, so we climbed into it, took a quick look around, and then trekked back to the parking lot, where Steve and the children awaited us.
Next stop was Pizza Factory for dinner,
Ezra loved the breadsticks.
We met Dave for a movie about P.T. Barnum, "The Greatest Showman." "This is a grandma and grandpa movie," Annelise assured us, and we loved the bittersweet, romantic story as much as Annelise did.
Saturday night, while Dave and I were in Vegas, the Eberts saw, "Jumaji." "That was not a grandma and grandpa movie," Annelise decided, and so Dave and I will avoid it!
On Sunday afternoon, after Church and a festive, home-cooked dinner, we took our third hike, to a waterfall north of our home at Coral Canyon.
It was nearly twilight as we began walking, a magical time for pictures.
Mia and Ezra crawled into the "head" of a tree trunk shaped like an elephant's head, with the trunk extending down the front.
Annie has a smile and happy personality that radiates to everyone around her. With Emilie already on a mission and Jono leaving on his mission this summer, Annie will be Chief Child, in charge of the littler kids when Steve and Camille are away.
Ezra is lots of fun. He climbed up a cliff above us and pretended he was a mountain lion ready to pounce.
Annelise and Sophia sat on a log and dangled their legs over the stream rushing below them.
Finally, we were there---to the first of several rushing, green pools, so welcome in the desert.
On the way back to the car, I couldn't resist climbing through the elephant's head myself!
