Sand, Sun and Lots of Fun!

Spring break kind of crept up on us this year and when it came, we weren’t prepared. We hadn’t made any plans to do anything with the boys and even worse, once we realized that it was spring break, it was too late to make any plans. So even though we would have much preferred to go camping somewhere, we ended up spending that whole week right here at home. As it turned out though, we were none the worse off because it wasn’t a very nice week weather-wise and so we would have probably been miserable if we would have been camping anyway. We made up for our lack of planning for spring break though...we just made plans to go camping at the end of the month instead!

One of our favorite places to go camping in the spring is Sand Hollow, which is down in southern Utah near St. George. We take our trailer and our 4 wheelers and if we go in May, like we did this year, we not only get to camp and 4 wheel, we get to swim in the reservoir. We made our plans to go the first week in May and since we were slow making our reservations, there were no Friday/Saturdays available...so we decided to go at the first of the week instead! We would leave on a Sunday right after church so we’d be ready to go play first thing Monday morning and then come home Wednesday.

As our luck would have it, I ended up getting called to serve in our new Stake YW Presidency as the First Counselor the week before we were to leave on our vacation (which I was absolutely thrilled about) but my setting apart was scheduled for that exact same Sunday that we were going to leave…at 5:00! There was no way that we were going to be able to leave that day, and quite possibly, it had happened just so that we wouldn’t go on a SundayJ So instead, we made plans to leave early, early on Monday morning...like at 4:00, so that we’d still get there early enough so that we could play most of the day on Monday!

We're here...now Let's PLAY!

Everything went as planned, except that we left about an hour later than we had planned, but we still made it to Sand Hollow just shortly before noon and for the next 2 days, we kept incredibly busy 4 wheeling and swimming and just having fun together! I didn’t actually swim because it was still a little too cool for me, but that didn’t stop the boys! I was just happy to watch several people preparing for the Ironman that was going to be held that same weekend as they swam back and forth out in the lake. It got me kind of excited and I wished that we were going to be there long enough to actually watch the race!

When we first got out in the dunes on our 4 wheelers that first day, it didn’t take long for Hayden to get his 4 wheeler stuck as we ascended a steep, sandy hill. He only has 2 wheel drive so it’s not as easy for him when the sand gets really deep and when he got stuck, my first thought was that we were in for a long 2 days if he was going to get stuck that easily. I didn’t need to worry though because as soon as Hayden got a feel for how fast or how slow he needed to go through the sand, he didn’t have many more problems. In fact, there were several times that we approached rather steep hills that made me a little nervous thinking that I’d never be able to make it to the top, but Hayden, who was riding between his dad and I, would ascend it with no problem and I would have to rethink my fears. I figured if he could do it...there was no excuse for me! I ended up doing a lot of things I never thought I’d be able to do and we had a great time!

Taking a rest in some of the only shade for miles around!

The scenery is amazing...both to look at and play on!

Ready, set...jump!

Our short trip came to an end all too quickly because we only really had one and a half days to play...but we kept busy every single minute we were there and made the most of what little time we did have! We hardly even sat still the whole 2 days because as soon as we’d get up, the boys would want to go 4 wheeling and then as soon as we’d get back from 4 wheeling, they’d want to go swimming. I barely had time to prepare meals but fortunately we hadn’t planned anything too hard because we knew that we’d want to spend what little time we had playing and not preparing food.

As with all vacations, whether short or long, I hate it when it comes time to head for home! However, as bittersweet as that day is, it isn’t quite as hard to face when I know that we’ve used every bit of our time doing things together and having as much fun as we possibly could...and that’s exactly what we did on this vacation!