Worth It

Last Wednesday I was rushing around the house packing my bag for a trip to St. George with our book club friends.

And I wasn't very happy.

There was a lot of work to do to get ready.  I thought to myself, "Why am I doubling my workload, just so I can leave the comforts and convenience of home for three days so that I can come home to double my workload when I get home to get life back to normal?"

Once we were all ready to go on Thursday I was quite tired and thinking-- is this worth it?  Why do we even bother to have fun?  It is so much work!  Then the car wouldn't start because the battery was dead.  The trip was not getting off to a good start.

But then we got there.   And I forgot the stress and hassle of getting to that point.  Any work it took to prepare for the the time we spent this weekend was COMPLETELY worth it!

We had such a marvelous time doing such a variety of activities.  I'm going to put up a whole bunch of pictures so that in the future when I am dreading getting my family ready for a trip I can refer to this post to remind myself THAT IT IS WORTH THE WORK for the opportunity for my family to build such wonderful memories.

THE SWIMMING.
There was so much swimming.  There was an indoor pool and an outdoor pool at the house we stayed at.  Swimming in the morning, afternoon, evening.  A lot of clothing and towels strewn about, but no matter.  No need to wash or comb anybody's hair.

The weather was beautiful-- very warm but not too hot.

THE BOYS

LIZARD HUNTING for hours on end.  

They probably caught more than thirty.  Most of them were released back into the wild.  But not all of them.  Lucky us.

They hoped to catch the "big one", and they got close, but they just caught the tail and the rest of the lizard got away.

MORNING YOGA with our professional yoga instructor.

Loving the DOMESTIC MEN doing the cooking, baby care, and dishes.

The PING-PONG tournament.  I love ping-pong and I don't want to brag or anything... but I'm pretty good.  Or at least I thought I was, and yet I got beat a lot.  But it was really fun.  I think I need more ping-pong in my life. 

FOOSBALL was fun, but not as fun as ping-pong.  But, come on-- does it really take any skill to be good at foosball?

One of our families moved to San Diego last year and the daughter missed out on celebrating birthdays with friends, so we had a group BIRTHDAY PARTY.

RENAISSANCE DANCING.  Fun for old and young!

FAITH and A.

I'd like to introduce you to my future son-in-law. 

Darling.

They were dance partners. 

ZUMBA in the morning with our professional Zumba instructor.  Note to self:  get some Zumba DVDs from the library this week.

PUTTING on the green.

An adventure through a SLOT CANYON.

Cannon was the littlest adventurer.

REPELLING.  Abe and I aren't very big outdoorsy/adventure parents.  So we were very grateful to have friends share the opportunity with our kids.

He was cute and snuggly all weekend.  And since I didn't have laundry, dishes, cooking, etc-- I got to snuggy with him a lot.

Time for FRIENDS who have played together since they were 3 and 4 years old.

And looking forward to wonderful relationships in the future!