Fastest SG Weekend Ever

Our cute cousin/niece Gracie was baptized in St George on November 1st. With Nanny and Grandpa Neil still in Texas we wanted to support Maggie on the LeBaron side and make it to this important event. As we planned ahead our kids begged us (like on their knees, tears filling their eyes kind of begging) to let them trick-or-treat here in our own neighborhood with all their friends instead of 1) skipping out on trick-or-treating altogether so we could drive south Halloween evening or 2) heading south even earlier Friday so we could trick-or-treat with Maggie and Justin's kids. Both options sounded good to me but they weren't excited about them at all. We are too kind and opted for the least ideal option: leaving here at 6:30 am the day of and driving basically straight to the 12:30 baptism. At least the roads were totally empty and the weather clear and sunny so it ended up working out pretty well.

Cute 8 year old cousins (for a brief window until February when Tillie is 9)

After the baptism we met at a nearby park where the weather suddenly turned pretty gray and cold, and then it started raining on us! We ended up in our cars eating all the lovely lunch Maggie and Justin's local family had prepared for us.

Later in the afternoon we went for a swim and invited our cousins to meet us at the clubhouse for cousin play time. Mary and Seth had come down earlier in the week to stay with Mag and Justin, and then Jim and Luci had done like we had—drove down the morning of to also stay with Maggie once they were there.

Of course exactly one adult actually swam while the rest of us watched :)
Luke was there too but didn't want to join this picture (no nap that day = slightly grumpy boy)

After swimming we met up at Maggie's for pizza dinner and a little hanging out:

 

Olivia and Isabel

 

Tons of happy cousins

 

We stayed over in my parents' SG house for exactly one night, went to church in the morning, played around for a little while and then packed up to head home. It felt way too short and way too rushed — especially since we hadn't been there since July right after LP when we only stayed one night then too. We quickly made plans to return in a few weeks and soak up some real playtime in SG.