Merry Christmas, Dad and Karla!

You might wonder what Christmas has to do with July 15th, but we were heading to St. George as part of the Christmas present we had given them last year.  We had given them a choice of a number of plays to see and they chose to go to St. George to the Tuacahn Outdoor Theatre to see "Mulan" and "Thoroughly Modern Millie".  Despite being St. George in July (which is almost like being in AZ in June--Hot), it was a great trip and I think we all enjoyed it.

Gary, Jena and I left Syracuse Monday morning and picked up Dad and Karla in Midvale in our motor home.  We had a nice trip down which seemed to be quite short since Gary did all of the driving and I just talked to Karla and Dad.  We stopped at Cove Fort on the way down to eat lunch.  Here is a picture of the lovely hollyhocks along the picnic area.  I love hollyhocks and it made me determine to find a good spot so they can grow in my yard.  Mine is not doing well.

We arrived in St. George and dropped Dad and Karla off at their hotel and then we went to the Templeview RV park where we had stayed last October.  Jena and I got a quick swim in before we had to get ready for dinner (at Kneaders) and then off to see "Mulan".  Now since I am the one recording this, I could totally leave off the next part but Gary would tease me about falsifying the record so I might as well admit to my mistake.  When I got there to pick up our tickets from Will Call and order dinner for the next night, I grabbed them and headed over to join the others at the door.  ("Mulan" was being performed in their indoor theatre.)  It wasn't until I got to the door that I realized that I had only four tickets for the play....and it wasn't their error.  For some reason I had only ordered four tickets for each play.  I ordered them back in March but I must have been half asleep, because apparently I had forgotten about Jena although the plan was also that she would come with us.  I headed to the nearest box office and was able to get another ticket for each play (and in both cases the tickets had just become available).  Gary (the good sport that he was) got to enjoy "Mulan" from the back row (we were on row 2) and sat behind us at "Thoroughly Modern Millie".  We were so lucky that it worked out.  I would have felt really dumb if we couldn't have gotten the additional tickets.  Oh well, these things can happen!  Both plays were enjoyable and we enjoyed the buffet before "Millie" as well.

Pictures from Tuacahn:

The SHOWS!

Karla, Dad, Jena, me, and Gary
(names are for my descendants who might not know us)

Although the menu items don't change much from
night to night they have different names depending on
the production.

They are also doing "Mary Poppins".  I think Jena is
sad we didn't see it, but we recently saw it at the
Capital Theatre in a Broadway production so that was
good enough for me.

Some of the cast from "Millie"

We wondered about what to do during the day on Tuesday because of the heat.  We decided to head to Zion's National Park.  Even though we had just been there last fall, it was still enjoyable to enjoy the beauty of the park.  We mostly rode the shuttle and looked out the windows although we did get off at two spots and look around a bit.  I know I posted a lot of pictures last fall from Zion's, but here are a few more.  It is an amazing spot of the earth!

The rocks

The Virgin River which makes this all happen.

In the water

Karla (Nana), Dad, Gary and Jena

We did manage to swim three or four times while we were there.  We headed back home on Wednesday morning with the goal of beating the rush hour traffic in Salt Lake City.  We might have made it but we took an awesome side trip---next post!

And Merry Christmas, Dad and Karla!