Cedar City Utah – Stephanie Richey Art

I love visiting my family! I am late tonight and my post will probably be short, but I thought I would share a couple of things we’ve been doing.

We flew down on Tuesday, started at around 1:00am. The flights were full and crowded, but typical and uneventful which is always nice. My sister and oldest daughter came to Las Vegas to pick us up and the 3 hour drive home was a great time to catch up with both my sister and daughter. We stopped for In n Out Burgers in St. George and then made it to Cedar City by about 2:00 in the afternoon.

We had a little bit of time to run to the store and then we went to a unique exhibit of a lifesize replica of the Old Testament Tabernacle. That was a fascinating tour and we learned some interesting details about the Tabernacle and the rituals and ceremonies performed there. The one thing I found most interest was that the Holy of Holies is 15x15x15 which represents perfection.

The evening was spent visiting with family and having dinner at one of my favorite restaurants – Costa Vida. I dream about that place sometimes. It was fun to catch up with the nieces and nephews as well as siblings and their spouses. The only people I didn’t get to see were my brothers.

Today has been much more relaxed. Many of the family members left early this morning for Disneyland so the house was pretty quiet. We did some shopping and touring around Cedar to see the changes and development since my last visit, and of course we drove up to see the temple while we were out and about. This evening we had another great dinner, this time with just my parents and siblings and just 2 nephews. It was so fun to just catch up in with just a few, and I finally got to see my brothers as well.

I love coming to visit, we have really busy days and then really relaxed and quiet days and I appreciate both. Also, apparently I brought the inclement weather. It’s rained and the wind has blown since I got here and tonight it’s snowing. Oh well, good thing I came to visit family not get a tan!

I am not a big traveler, preferring to be at my own house with my own stuff, my own bed, etc. But I haven’t been home to see my family in almost 3 years. I thought about going down last summer, and really probably should have, but we were busy, as always, and I just didn’t feel like I could leave. But, that is an excuse I could use just about any time, so I decided to make it a priority.

I am going down mainly to visit family. I love spending time with my parents and siblings, their spouses, and my nieces and nephews. We don’t get to see them a lot, so when I go down we try to spend a fair amount of time together. That is my main draw for going, but there is a lot of other things that I enjoy about Cedar City that I am looking forward to.

The first one may sound funny, but it’s the food. There are a number of restaurants unique to Cedar City, or to the Southern Utah area that I find myself craving once in awhile. So I’m really excited to go down and have some really great Mexican food and pizza, as well as some great desserts that I haven’t found anywhere in Alaska.

This winter in Alaska has not been super cold, but there has been a lot of snow and a lot of clouds. We’ve had weeks when we never saw the sun and it snowed everyday. So, I am excited to go down and be in the sun. However, they have had a lot of snow in that area as well, and my daughter says don’t get too excited about the sun yet, you never know from day to day. But it’s warmer generally speaking, so even that will be nice. Although, I am hoping there’s a lot of sun as well!

Cedar City changes every time I go down there, so in some ways I am excited to see the many changes. I know it’s grown just in the last 3 years, but I always find it interesting see all the changes and growth. There are parts of town that haven’t changed since I was a kid, the older parts, but the edges of town just keep expanding, so it will be fun to drive around and explore a little. It’s interesting as well, all the new unique businesses, maybe not new I guess, but unique places to go and shop. And, while I’m not a big spender, I do enjoy going and looking around, getting ideas and seeing what’s out there and available.

My post next Wednesday will be from Cedar, so I’ll share what fun things we have had the opportunity to do while I’m there!