The Bensons ... and our Journey: Home away from Home

St George has become our home away from home. We are able to stay at my parents vacation home so we can really do some living, not be guests at a hotel.
We drove down on a Thursday after Dustin got off of work and came home Tuesday morning. It was over 100 everyday, as high as 110 degrees.

The whole Alley family was together, so I dubbed this the 1st Annual Alley Reunion.

Let me just say, my kids were DREAMS in the car. This picture of Parker was before we even left the driveway to head down. Yes! He slept until Salt Lake. Then they played SO well together! No whining, no "are we there yet?" no crying. The drive felt like a couple hours.

Grandma and grandpa's house.

Yummy food is a must on vacation. We did some cooking at the house, but we also went out to eat a lot. The crab bake at "The Patio" was super fun!

This was our first time to Zion National Park. Dustin and I have already decided we are going back next spring to spend a lot more time. We didn't have time to see everything there. Our pictures do not do the scenery justice. We went to the Emerald Pools, and the next day Dustin, Jeff, Michelle, Dan, Mike and some of their friends hiked the SUBWAY. It was quite an intense hike. Swimming, repelling and 7.5 hours

We stopped by Pioneer Park that we accidentally found on the way to the house. Kids loved it!

We took a lot of walks, morning and evening. Daytime was just too dang hot.

I think St George is gorgeous. I love the red rock and palm trees.

Uncle Dan

Ella was such a "pre teen" and slept some mornings away.

We celebrated our cousin Zoeys very 1st bday! We did dinner and swimming

Grandpa is the coolest. He spent so much time getting down and playing with his grandkids. Fort time!

Turns out Parker does not like his cousin. She is too cute and therefore gets a WHOLE lot of attention. That makes Parker sad. He vied for Ellas attention the whole time.

Of course we had to do some shopping. Ella is at that age that she loves to shop. And guess what we found at the outlets? A JUSTICE store. O happy day for her.

Grandma is super fun. Her, Ella and I played Girl talk. Ella got to do grandmas hair however she wanted. She got elastic ponytails and blue hairspray. Grandma also had to dance for us :)