Thanksgiving -- 65 degrees

Thanksgiving was spent in St. George Utah with my brother and his family.  It was our first time on that section of highway so it was interesting...most of the time.  Big...Huge mountains...stunning red, white and black rock...very impressive plateaus...and some flat land, too.

Palm tree by the front steps

St. George Temple

We visited the St. George Temple, Brigham Young's Winter home and Zion National Park. It felt like we went back in time a month and half.  The trees still had leaves and were beautiful gold and red. The grass was still green and it was about 65 degrees.  Not bad for the end of November.









 

All the kids on
 or by a huge tree

All together we had 11 children to keep track of - ranging from 16 years to 10 months. Are we crazy?  Maybe! They all played nicely together and they had a fun time.

View of the temple from the back
with an amazing old and huge tree.

The St. George Temple is the oldest operating Temple in the Church today.  It is stunning white and was very simply landscaped. The palm trees kind of through me off, but I love their look!

Kaylee, Kaleb, Sean, Josh,
Rachel, Emily, Reed, Kameron

Lower Emerald Pool

Beautiful Towering mountains in Zion National Park





Zion National Park--We drove through all that we could and then we stopped and took a bus to a trailhead.  It was a 3 mile hike, round trip, to an area called the Emerald pools -- lower, middle and upper.  We all made it the whole way with only Sean and Sarah needing to be packed.  We left late in the afternoon and so when we made it back down it was nearly dark. While we waited for the bus to come back through and pick us up a herd of deer walk past us--about 15 feet away.  The busses stop at 6pm, and after that you are stuck in the park.  We had a plan, if that happened,  Kam was going to run back to the Suburban and drive it back to rescue us.  The whole time the kids were amazing...little complaining or bickering...and it was pretty chilly in the canyon without the sun. 

It was a great trip!  We loved sharing the holiday with Reed, Jessica and the whole Gibb crew!