Olsen Family Vacation 2015

The first weekend of October found us in Sunny St. George! Now that Tanner was home and our family was all together for the first time in years my parents planned a weekend getaway to St. George. We stayed at a family friends daughters house so we could all stay together and the weather was perfect!

Russ, Taylor, Alli and I left late Thursday night-the rest of the family left early Thursday but we waited for Russ to get off work, and Taylor to get out of class. It was a late night finally rolling in to the house in St. George around 1 am but luckily we'd had a very hyper Taylor to keep us entertained.

Friday morning after breakfast we went hiking around the red rocks.

Later that afternoon we had a pool party back at the house. (meanwhile Jake who hadn't been feeling well had gone to the instacare for some abdominal pain-come to find out they had sent him to the hospital for further testing...)

 At the end of the pool party Ashlee came outside to say that Jake had just called and they were taking him back to surgery to have his appendix out. She took off to the hospital and we got the kiddos dressed, ate dinner, and went to Tuacahn for the evening. Russ had never been to Tuacahn so it was fun to show him that, as well as enjoy a night out with the fam under the stars in the beautiful St. George air.

 Beauty and the Beast was amazing and we went back to the house after to crash after a long day-where thankfully Ashlee and Jake were waiting for us after having been discharged from the hospital.

Saturday was Zions National Park day. Jake and Lexi stayed back at the house as his activity level was limited. I had been told by my OB prior to this trip to not get my heart rate over 140's so I opted to spend the day on light duty hiking around with my mom and the kiddos while the rest of the family hiked Angel's Landing. Luckily they took lots of pictures for me as I was pretty depressed to be missing out on Russ's first time hiking Angel's Landing.

It was still a beautiful great day and after hiking we enjoyed a picnic under the trees and then hung out and explored a little more of the park and visitor center before heading home to get cleaned up. The plan was initially that the boys were going to go to the Priesthood session of general conference that night after dinner-but with everything that had happened with Jake and having it been such a long day we decided to go out to dinner and then head back to the house.

Funny pregnancy story from dinner: As we walked into the restaurant the smells overcame me and I realized too late that I had waited to long to eat (at this point in pregnancy I was needing to eat every 2-3 hours to keep the nausea at bay) and had not drank enough water that day. I held it together until we got to our table and then I just started to get really hot and kept thinking it wouldn't be long before I was running to the bathroom. Well they brought out drinks and getting some water helped but next thing I know they bring out the kiddos food. Sitting right across from me was a big ol plate of Mac-N-Cheese. Suddenly, that's all I could think about (Mac-n-cheese had been a huge craving as well), and all I wanted. The thought of eating what I had ordered suddenly made me more sick. So, Ashlee who could see me eyeing Lexi's food told me to just go ahead and eat it all seeing as how lex wouldn't. Say no more! I devoured that plate of mac-n-cheese and boxed my meal to take back to the house for someone else to eat : )

Back at the house we had one last night of pool partying. We played music and took turns dancing as couples, or as mom and Tanner haha, and others that weren't pregnant or recovering from surgery hot tubbed. It was the perfect last night!

Sunday morning we ate breakfast while "watching" (I slept) conference all crammed into the living room together. Shortly after we were packing, cleaning and loading up vehicles to head home.
It was such an amazing trip and so fun to finally have our whole family, plus new additions, together again.  Thanks for the trip mom and dad!!