Sunny St. George

Oh sunny St. George - I maybe enjoy your company, ok I REALLY like to hang out with you, alright alright I admit it . . . I love you.
There, I said it - it's out in the open.
I especially love you when there is snow, wind and a lack of natural warmth going on in my home on the wasatch front.
Such was the case the last time we went down to St. Geezy for a nice weekend.
It was the first weekend in March and we went down for the WCC Conference Basketball tournament with our great friends Andrew and Caitlyn Bangerter
To sum it up, it was a BLAST! 

We drove down on Thursday night and were able to stay at a house that Caitlyn's parents have down there. The house was beautiful, it was so nice of the King's (Caitlyn's family) to let us stay there!
The basketball games we were going to were actually in Las Vegas on Saturday, which meant that we had all day Friday to play in St. George! It was a much needed break from school and snow for us all.
That morning I was able to go out on a nice long run...in short sleeves! It was glorious. Such a beautiful backdrop all the time. I seriously love St. George, for example:

Still trying to figure out why I don't live here.

Also a fun fact I ran past the Jacob Hamblin home, which we were going to visit because he was one of Andrews ancestors and a main founder/pioneer of St. George. We didn't make it there but I at least caught a glimpse.

5 points to you if you know what movie was filmed at the country
club behind us . . . hilarious.

Next it was time to head out on a bike ride! The King family has a bunch of Mtn/Street Cruiser bikes so the four of us decided to go out for a spin. There are some great bike paths in St. George and we decided to take one out to the Tuacahn Theatre - I had actually never been to Tuacahn (connected to Snow Canyon) so I was excited to see it! The bike ride was a huge distance...but with Russ and I being used to our fun and speedy road bikes this was a bit of a different ride! I hadn't been on a mountain style bike in a long time, or not being clipped in to the pedals etc - it was seriously quite the workout! We stopped and took some fun pictures along the way, saw great scenery and had a great time.

Finally we made it to Tuacahn - what a fun theatre! I really love plays/musicals so I really can't believe I've never been to Tuacahn, I'm thinking this summer we will have to go down for a show.
The final stretch of the ride coming up to Tuacahn and approaching Snow Canyon was GORGEOUS! Seriously I just love being outside and taking in all the beautiful sights (can't wait for summer!). Riding home was a little bit quicker since a lot of it was downhill...man do we love to go fast down those hills.

I think we've got a chance with auditions right?

Because Tuacahn is hard core .  .  . right? 

The rest of the day (well really the whole trip) we just kept saying, we can do whatever we want! No work, no school, no major scheduled stuff...everything was awesome (which we also couldn't stop saying ;)
The rest of Friday we watched movies we hadn't seen (Catching Fire and Gravity), made delicious homemade pizza; thanks for that Russ, and then went and played pickleball.
If you haven't played pickleball ---- you should. It's like a combination of Tennis and Ping Pong. St. George has a big facility for it, and it's so nice - it's even lighted! We went at night and played for an hour or so. Such a blast! Then we tried a local mexican restaurant, El Coyote Charro - next time you're in St. George, try it! It was way good and a great deal too! I love trying new local restaurants.

Saturday was game day. Man do we love basketball. We drive down early to Vegas (not my favorite city, but I'll go for basketball) and got the New Orleans arena for 2 games. The BYU game was second and was way fun! There is something about watching college sports in a student section that is always fun. This tournament really kicked off March Madness for us (one of our favorite times of year!). BYU won and then we headed back to St. George.

We love basketball and these people

That night we grabbed some dinner at another local restaurant, Players Sports Grill. Once again it's always fun to try a new place, and it was a good place but we probably won't be going back next time we're in St. George (although El Coyote Charro probably will  get a second visit).

Sunday we slept in and then went to church at 11. It's a small world and turns out that the ward we randomly went to was the Boyce family's ward! (The Boyce family is Russ' sister Emily's sister-in-law....confused yet?) Anyway they are the coolest family with 5 awesome kids. Exactly one year before this trip Russ and I had gone down to St. George with Linds and Kody planning to stay in our family condo, but there was a mix up with scheduling the condo, so instead of letting us go homeless Mindy and Brett (Boyce) let us crash at their place! We just love them. So it was fun to go to their ward and talk to them for a bit.

Overall it was such a fun weekend! Andrew and Caitlyn are some of the most amazing people we know and spending a few days with them was so great. They are headed to NC State for grad school in a few weeks and I am bummed they are leaving! Hopefully sometime in the next year we'll be able to go out and visit them. Thanks again for a great weekend guys! Everything was AWESOME! ;)