A trip back to St George

The renters at our St George house reported that the dishwasher was leaking and one of the window blinds was malfunctioning and the kids were all begging to go see their old friends.  So we drove down to St George for a couple days.  The weather was forecast to be rainy and cold down there (and the forecast was true but thankfully we did get a little sun our last day).  Ashton had his first boy scout campout on Friday night so we couldn't leave until Saturday and it would be a long drive for a short time down there.  And I  have SO much Power of Moms work to do right now.  But there wouldn't be another weekend when we could make the trek for quite some time so we bit the bullet and made the trip.

And I'm so glad we did.

I needed to see that our house was well cared-for.  The renters are keeping it up beautifully and the issues they were having were quite easily remedied.  It was so weird to see our house full of other people's stuff though.  We built that house.  It's always been our house full of our stuff and our family.  But we couldn't have found nicer, more tidy and conscientious renters and it was great to see it looking good.

We all needed to see friends we've been missing a lot.  We love love love so many people in St George.  We cram-packed Sunday with visits and re-connections and had a great time seeing people at church.  Then today, the kids were delighted to go to school for a while at their old school and see their dear friends.  And I have to admit, visiting the school was pretty fun for me as well.  I got about 100 hugs from all the little friends I cultivated over the 5 years that I was a pretty constant volunteer at that school.

Isaac with one of his best friends, Micheal.  This is an older photo - not sure how I didn't capture any shots of Isaac with friends this trip.

Liza with her best friend Olivia on the school play ground.  These two girls played together almost every day from the time they were 2 until we moved.  Olivia felt like part of the family.  We all miss her!  Olivia's family treated Liza to a sleep-over and Olivia's mom did cute matching hair-styles for them and Liza got to go to school with Olivia and all her old classmates.  It was perfect.

Ashton with best buddies Wesley and Dallin in the cafeteria

Silas with his best friend Jason and Oliver with his best friend Kaylee.  It was so cute seeing them all fling their arms around each other when they saw each other!  Kaylee always calls Oliver "Best Friend."  Kaylee was excited to show Oliver the brace she wears to correct her tip toe problem on one foot (cerebral palsy) and Oliver was totally excited to tell her that he has braces to wear on his feet too and that he can now walk on "flat feet."  Quite a reunion.

I loved spending time with my dear friend Becky and going on a little walk with her in memory of all the great walks we went on together early in the mornings and late at night as great walking and talking partners.

It was so great to see those red mountains and that blue, blue, blue sky again.  I don't know if there will ever be anything quite as pretty to me as the deep red-orange of those mountains against the brilliant blue of the sky in St George.  We did a quick hike at Dixie Rock and another quick hike at Castle Rock - and even though it was kind of muddy and quite cold, it felt so good to drink in some of that scenery again and enjoy some favorite places for a bit.

We hiked up on top of Dixie Rock - an old favorite - can you tell it was freezing by looking at Silas and Isaac?  But seriously, those rocks and that sky - could it get any prettier?

We also hiked Castle Rock and the kids found all their favorite little caves and cubby holes.  

St George will always be home in many ways.  But a great side-effect of our trip was that when we arrived back in Ogden last night, I had a true feeling of "coming home."  This is really feeling like home now.  Even though Jared's job isn't turning out to be what we'd expected and there's a lot to miss about St George, we're seeing unexpected reasons unfold about why we needed to be in Ogden at this point in our lives.  For reasons we know and reasons we're sure we'll be discovering, we need to be here and it just feels right.  I'm so grateful for that.

This is home now.  And it's a good home.

Oh, and on a totally different note, there are like 5 spots left at our April Retreat (out of 100) in the Park City area and I wanted to make sure anyone bothering to read this blog gets a last chance to get one!  If you're interested, click here to snag a spot before they're gone.  This is going to be one POWERFUL Retreat and it's been exciting to see how quickly it's filled up!