President's Day Weekend in St. George

Cora's soccer team had a tournament in St. George over President's Day weekend!  Along with pretty much every other soccer (and baseball) team within 500 miles!  The hotels were all completely booked months in advance, but thankfully we knew about the trip months in advance so we were all good, and happily paying the exorbitant rates they could charge since they knew we would pay whatever the asked.  We were lucky, one of Cora's teammates had to stay in Cedar City! 

The drive wasn't bad (piece of cake compared to Missouri!), and the weather was soooo nice.  We dropped our stuff at the hotel and started soccering Friday night, and had two games on Saturday.  Unfortunately, I didn't take any good soccer pictures.  Here is a bad one.  Cora is number 23.

This one isn't too bad.  But no one is actually playing soccer, just having a break during half time.  Cool scenery around the field though, right?

Cora's team did pretty good!  They made it to the championship game on Monday. 
On Saturday night, we also enjoyed a team dinner at a condo a couple of team members were renting.  There was a pool!  By the time the sun was going down, the temperatures were probably only in the 60s, but that didn't stop the girls from swimming. 

 Silly soccer girls:

It did stop the grown ups (and Arden) from swimming, but it was still fun to talk to the other parents.  Arden was pretty bored, but Dax decided he wanted to get in the pool too, so Preston ran and got his swim suit for him, such a nice dad.  It was hard to pry him out when it was time to go home. 

There was a running trail that was RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from our hotel.  How nice.  I took a couple of runs in the mornings while we were there.  So nice to not have to get all bundled up to run.

On Sunday, we meant to go to church but somehow slept through it.  Oh well.  We decided to take in the beauty of nature, along with everyone else.  Here are the kids climbing around on some red rocks on the hills above the city:

 Another beautiful day!!  We climbed all around the rocks and then visited the gardens at their base.

 Say cheese!

 Cora wanted me to take a picture of her blowing a bubble. 

After our rock climbing, we went for another hike, a little ways away.  However, we had poor planning.  About half a mile in to the hike, Cora declared they really had to go to the bathroom, and refused to water any bushes or anything.  So, we decided to just head back the hotel.  It was such a nice day, that me and Preston wanted to go for a walk, but the kids all wanted to stay in the hotel room and watch TV.  When we got back from the walk, Cora was fast asleep...at 4 p.m. in the afternoon.  With bright pink cheeks. 

Ruh-roh.

I felt her head, and it was very hot.  Of course I didn't pack a thermometer, so I sent Preston out to the store to get one while we stayed in and watched the dunk contest (Go Donovan Mitchell!)  I woke Cora up for dinner, and we took her temperature, and it was around 101. 

We decided to just get some food from the hotel restaurant, and Cora ate a little teeny bit and then went back to sleep.  I sent off a text to warn her coach that she wasn't feeling well, but we were hopeful she would be back to herself in time for the big game in the morning.

Morning came, and Cora wasn't feeling much better.  Also, a big storm blew in overnight, and it rained pretty much all night.  As soon as we got to Cora's game...the rain turned to snow.  In ST. GEORGE!

Remember that sunny red cliff from the second picture in this post?  Yeah...same cliff.  Not as pretty:

Me and the non-soccer playing kids stayed in the car until the game actually started.  Then I got out and went to the sidelines while Dax and Arden stayed in the car pretty much the whole game.  Cora still had a fever, but there weren't many subs so Cora went in a few times and tried her best.  The game was close, but the referee was the worst.  He called a stupid penalty on our poor little goalie because one of the other girls tripped over her hands as she was trying to grab the ball, and awarded the other team a penalty shot.  Our goalie took up about 1/50th of the space of the goal, so of course they scored and Cora's team lost.  It was a bummer.  Cora's coach is the chillest guy EVER, and I have never seen him complain to a ref in the 2 years Cora has been on his team, and even he decided the referee needed a little talking to after the game. 

Bummer all around.  We decided to skip the medal ceremony as a team, and instead we all got on the freeway as fast as we could, because snow was expected all the way home, and all of the other soccer (and baseball) teams would also be trying to get home the same time as us, and there is really only one road from St. George to Salt Lake. 

The roads were pretty bad, but we made good time...until the freeway was completely closed in Nephi.  It took FOREVER to exit and go around whatever was causing the trouble.  Cora mostly slept in the back;

We made it home okay, after 7 hours!  It was a rough ride home, but we had a fun trip despite some bumps.