This last weekend Ry and I decided to take the kids down to St. George. We haven't been there in two years, and we love it down there. Plus, our friends Steph and Mike just moved down there and we wanted to go and see them. Ry came home from work early on Friday and we headed out. It seemed like I remembered two of just about everything, I thought I hadn't forgotten anything. It wasn't until I wanted to take a picture of our family on the big chair at the gas station in Beaver that I realized I had forgotten our camera! What?! I always have my camera, I guess just not when it really counts. I have some fun stories to tell, but no real pictures to go along with them unfortunately:(. We went to stay at my grandma's house in Mesquite. We took our time getting down there and finally arrived about 8 PM. We were going to stay in the guest bedroom, but as Ryan was bringing in the luggage we noticed a little surprise along the wall -- a scorpion (just like the picture above I found on the internet)! Holy crap, those things are scary in real life. They are now up there with my fear of black widows. Anyway, Ryan was too scared to step on it, so he went and got a butcher knife in the kitchen (don't ask me how trying to stab a scorpion is less scary than stepping on it). He stabbed at the scorpion once, but it dodged him, and those things are as fast as spiders! I have the chills just remembering this whole affair. He kept chasing it all over the carpet until he finally stabbed it, and then he stabbed it about five more times for good measure:). After he killed that scorpion and put it outside, we found another dead one on the ground. Because of this we decided to sleep in my grandparents' bedroom where we hadn't seen any scorpions. We all slept really well that night, but Ryan found another scorpion in the hallway the next morning and the stabbing scene repeated itself. Jax thought the whole thing was awesome of course, and that his dad was a hero:). Some random facts I learned - scorpions are bigger than I thought. These scorpions were about two inches long with their little tail curled up, and probably another 1 1/2 inches with it straightened out. They are aggressive too. They don't go down without a fight and they are quick to use their little stingers. Uggh!
Anyway, Saturday came and we did some shopping in St George and took Jax to Fiesta Fun, which he loved. We went mini golfing (Jax went through a few balls because he dropped them in the water). Future reference: mini golfing with an almost three year old = not so much fun. Apparently Ry and I weren't allowed to have golf balls, they all belonged to Jax and he would get mad if we tried to hit them. Whatev... Then a big storm started coming so we headed back to Mesquite. By the time we got back to Mesquite, there had been some flooding on the streets and the cops were everywhere and there were tractors trying to dig out the streets again (all the sand washed down the streets). It was still really windy at this point and my grandma's power was still off. We went to Casa Blanca to try and eat dinner because it looked like they still had power. We went in and the only things working were the slots. It was a million degrees in there. We still walked through to the buffet because we could still see people eating in there. It was steak night and Ry loves his steak. When we asked if they were still open and if they had full service, the cashier said, "Yeah, it's still a full buffet...but there's no steaks...and the food on the left is warm...but the food on the right is hot...and whatever is out there is out there...nothing else will be replaced." How is that a full service working buffet?! Eating there was a definite NO. We went to my grandma's and packed up our stuff because at this time it was 7:30 or 8:00 and we still hadn't eaten dinner and the power still wasn't on. I told Ry I couldn't sleep in a place without power when there were an unknown number of scorpions hanging out in the place. So we headed in to St George. Ry went in to Country Inn & Suites (nice, and cheap, by the way) and asked for a room. A man with an Indian accent named Pat helped him. Ry told him it was him and I, and they guy upgraded us to a suite, for, as he put it, "A little more leg room, if you know what I mean...". Ry didn't have the heart to tell him that with two kids sleeping in our bed, a "little more leg room" wasn't happening:). We went and ate at Texas Roadhouse and Jax entertained our whole section to a booty shaking dance to a Toby Keith song. Sunday morning we went and visited our friends and then hit the road back to O-Town. It was a really short trip, but lots of fun, and Jax was awesome in the car.
Monday we took Jax to Chuck E Cheese's, since he has seen the commercials and has been begging us to go. Their motto shouldn't be "Where a kid can be a kid." It should be "The dirtiest place on earth." It was so disgusting, but Jax loved it. Hopefully when the new one opens in Layton it will be cleaner.
Posting Edit
For the record, I was not afraid to step on it. I was in shorts and I had visions of this thing running up my leg, so the butcher knife was the "Rambo" way of doing it (even though my heart was beating pretty fast)! I pinned ferocious little thing with a piece of Beckhams Pack n Play and I stabbed the thing until my family was out of harms way. Jamie was the one who about peed her pants when she saw the thing. I wish I had a picture of her freaking out. It was pretty hilarious! - Ryan
