Today has been another fantastic day full of adventures. This morning started out calm and quiet with family devotional and a nice cooked breakfast of eggs on toast. Then the boys had a blast playing pillow fight with the tootsie roll pillows that we have in the condo. The boys took some time to complete their education for the day and Michelle put together some lunches and then we were off to see the world.
We decided to first go and see some petroglyphs that were located just a few miles outside of St. George at the Black Mountain Petroglyph site. However, there was no "Google maps" directions to get there and the two different written directions I found were not the same.
So...I missed the turn off of I-15 and we found ourselves in Arizona. Oops.
Actually, to be honest, the petroglyphs are located in Arizona, just across the state line. But the dirt road to the petroglyphs is not on my map but once I made the correct turn off the highway we were able to find the site fairly easily.
The site was out in the desert and we almost drove past it because it wasn't what I was expecting to see at a petroglyph site. In fact, the "mountain" looked more like a solitary butte and all of the petroglyphs were on big rocks that were no longer attached to it. There was no explanation but it seems that the petroglyphs may have been attached to the butte at one time and have broken off and fallen to their current locations. But however they got there, we thought they looked pretty cool.
It wasn't all just sight seeing. There were some cool looking rocks next to the trail and the boys just couldn't resist. And our boys are starting to get good at identifying some good picture opportunities.
More petroglyphs...
After walking around the Black Mountain Petroglyphs in the cold November breeze we jumped back in the suburban, ate our lunch and headed back to town. While we have been driving we have been listening to the audio book "Inkheart". David and the others have become deeply involved in the story and every time we've been in the suburban David has practically flown over the seat to turn the story back on, even if the drive is only 2 minutes down the street.
So with Inkheart playing over the speakers we headed back into St George for our next adventure stop. We were heading to the Children's Discovery Museum when we notice this historical site that advertised free tours, so we thought we'd stop in and check it out.
The St George tabernacle was just down the street from the museum and we thought it would be a fun and interesting visit.
There was a senior missionary, Elder Fuller? from Idaho, who was there to give us the tour and to tell us about this building and some of it's history. It was such a peaceful feeling and the architecture and decorations were really neat. It was all we could do to keep to boys from running through the place at full speed (but they did run a little...how else are you supposed to cover enough ground to see everything in such a short period of time!).
The all seeing Eye of the Lord. The three crowns underneath represent the three Godhead. The finger pointing up was to remind the saints to always remember Him. There are two hands clasping (kind of hard to see in the picture) that represent faith and union.
Elder Fuller thought it would be fun to have a private concert. He had just explained about John Schmidt, of the piano guys, who was one of many performers who had recently been in the tabernacle to perform. Elder Fuller turn the microphone on and the boys sang "Army of Helaman" from the pulpit!
After the song Elder Fuller had to turn the microphone off because the boys were getting a little excited about all the sounds you can make in a microphone! We managed to slow the boys down for a few more pictures inside this historic tabernacle.
The balcony
These chairs were actually quite comfortable
One of the coolest features of this historic building was the two spiral staircases at the front of the building. The boys made a few trips up and down these stairs.
We got to see some of the tools that were used (or tools like them) to make this historic building. We also discovered that Michelle's Great, Great, Great Grandfather David H. Cannon was the person in charge of bringing the glass for the windows for the tabernacle up from California when they arrived there after a boat trip around the tip of South America. The tabernacle still has much of this old glass in place.
After the tabernacle tour we headed down the street to the Children's Discovery Museum. But in the middle of the block there was a splash pad that was still running, much like a fountain with a changing spray display. The boys thought it was great and we paused to watch.
Then we noticed more of this city park's water features and the boys were off and running. After having to stay on the path at the petroglyphs and being "quiet" at the condo we had to let them just run and have fun.
The boys spent a few hours exploring the Children's Museum. It was not crowded, probably because all of the kids were in school. Lucky for us!
At the store
Milking Maggie
Gidean working in the farm kitchen
In the post office
Loading the plane
Piloting the plane
Creating bubbles
This was a fun game that was projected on the floor. We don't know what it is called, but there was soccer, football, pop the balloons, one like whack-a-mole only it was rats, and many other games. David is in the background trying out what it is like to be in a wheelchair.
On this one you had to create the track (the black tubing) that went from the basket back to the bottom where you then turn a wheel which engaged the mechanism which brought the balls back up to the top like an elevator.
Gidean is in the tree house and Aleky and Quinten are at the wishing well.
Here we have some boys working in the mines. It would have been perfect if we had all of our Halloween dwarf costumes for this room, HAHAHAH.
Michelle really likes the paintings on the wall throughout the museum and in the castle room especially. She is getting the itchy painting fingers and thinking about painting some murals on our walls at home.
Four handsome princes and two strong knights to protect them
"The dragon is coming who will save us?"
"Never fear SIR GIDEAN is here!"
This young prince is cowering behind the mighty knight.
"So Prince David, what should we do now that the dragon has been defeated and all is well in the land?" "We should have a Victory Ball of course Prince Donovan, bring out the ladies!"
We had a fabulous time exploring and instead of having a ball we decided that dinner would suffice (no ladies, except mom of course). So a quick shopping spree at the store and we had our food for the rest of our stay in St George and we headed to the condo.
Michelle whipped up a quick dinner of tacos. Then we had a family movie night with brownies and ice cream for dessert. Finally, the boys were off to bed and it was only 10:00 pm!
We have the BEST FAMILY E V E R!!!
