Rach got to travel to St. George with the marching band for a big competition and as soon as she found out they were going I knew I needed to go too! I originally signed up to be a chaperone and then they sent me the e-mail of what I'd have to do as a chaperone and I totally back out after the 1st sentence "You will ride on the bus with the kids....." and then about sentence 3 where it said "You will share a room with other parent chaperones." Don't get me wrong...I really like all the band kids. They are great. And all the band parents have been super nice. But I wanted to have a car and to have a little space. So I convinced Kate to skip a day of school so she could come with me and it was definitely the right decision. We had the BEST time!
We had a ton of time to ourselves and to explore St. George and since Kate was my only kid there and a willing participant...I took a million pictures of her! First, we went to see the St. George temple. It's under construction so this is as close as we could get but fun to see anyway.
We raced hopping over the metal barriers in front. Kate was insanely good at it!
We then took a tour of Brigham Young's winter house. It was really cool!
This is the best picture we got of the 2 of us this weekend because the cute missionary took our picture.
We then went to this really cool park that we know we need to take Will and Jonah to when we go back. It was amazing!
Everywhere was super crowded when we were ready for dinner but this pizza place did not disappoint even when they ran out of ham so Kate and chicken and pineapple pizza.
That night it was off to see the band competition. I was terrible taking pictures there but they wouldn't have turned out anyway. The bands were SO good! It really was incredible to see how different they all are and to imagine how many thousand of hours were spent making these productions. It was amazing! I think Davis ended up in 3rd place in state. They were by far the best. It was totally rigged and my opinion is totally unbiased....or not.
I decided that I loved sharing a hotel with all the band kids. I was a little worried originally but also wanted to be close to Rach (who we only saw for a split second and from our balcony the first day). But the band kids all took buses so we were one of the only cars in the parking lot. They had to leave early in the morning so we got the breakfast room to ourselves. It was great!
Kate and I did more exploring today. Kate was thrilled about all the cactus'
We did lots of rock climbing and jumping.
We saw this lizard and instantly fell in love. He was struggling because he hadn't warmed up yet so we were kind of standing guard in case other people came by and didn't see him. We were just waiting for the sun to get to him.
A few minutes later these teenagers/college kids (they all look so young to me) came by and we warned them not to step on him. The last guy in their group didn't hear the announcement and totally stepped on him, squished him and he died! It was so sad! Kate and I were both ready to cry but knew we gave him kindness his last few minutes on earth.
We did some more exploring at a local garden
Then we found the BEST place for lunch! Judd's. The soup was amazing and they had a wall full of fun candy.
Then we drove up to Snow Canyon and first stopped to see the Pioneer names. Some people were rock climbing right by it which was pretty cool.
Then by Kate's request we played in the sand dunes!
And made a sand Pippin because someone was missing her kitty.
While there I got a text from Rach saying they had an hour break at the hotel and wanted to see us. We hadn't seen her the whole time because those kids were SO busy! So we went back to the hotel, shared some candy then went swimming before Rach had to head back to the stadium.
It was so good to see her and she was having the best time!
Dinner at Black Bear which was next door to our hotel..
And back to the stadium to watch some bands. We were there until midnight and the bands were incredible. It really was so much fun to see. Davis' performance was the best they've ever done. It was the last time to perform this show so they put their heart and souls into it and it showed. At the very end (like 30 seconds from the end) one of the flutes tripped when walking backwards and it started a domino ripple effect and they all started falling! Rach was the last one to go down. There were about 5 of them and I was so worried she got hurt or was disappointed or so many things. Mama bear wanted to run onto the field!
About 20 minutes after their show Rach was coming in the stands to watch the rest of the bands and came to sit by us. I could tell she'd been crying so a million worst case scenarios went through my mind but when I asked her what was wrong she said she didn't care about the fall (which she didn't get hurt thankfully) or their performance that got botched up at the end but she was so sad it was over. How wonderful to be a part of something so great that you cry when it's over. I'm so proud of her and all her hard work. And I loved that I was able to be there and see it all. And I LOVED having Kate there with me through it all. It wouldn't have been nearly as fun without her there.
Watching the bands wait for their results from across the stadium. Davis was by far having the most fun! They ended up in 5th even with the Domino fall.
Such a fun weekend to be a part of!
