Moms Court Date

 My sisters and I were so scared to go to court.  But it wasn't so bad.  Mark never showed up and we instantly won the case.  My sisters and I were awarded vehicle death insurance on my moms behalf because Mark caused the accident.  Mark tried to sue us so he could have to money.  As soon as he didn't show up, the judge sided with us and let us have the money.  Was it much?  Nope it wasn't.  No amount will ever replace our Mom.  Since we were in Cedar City we decided to the scene of moms accident.  It was almost like we were the only ones that had been there since the accident.  We were extremely bitter that Mark hadn't been there once since mom passed.  It was only 8 miles from his house.  And not once did he go there.  We could still see the tire tracks and where the broken fence was.  We found a tire for the four wheeler still there.

 We figured we needed to mark the site somehow so we went back into cedar city and bought some flowers to put on the fence where the truck and her body were lying.

 I found these glasses right by the fence.  They were my moms.  My mom wore these glasses during the accident.  These were the last things touching her face.  I couldn't believe that I saw them and found them right in all the windshield glass.  Mom had a big cut on her head that the funeral home had to fix, I am sure it was from the side of the glasses that was missing the side ear piece.  I took the glasses to Grandma shepherds house to show her and she asked to keep them.  I let her have them and she told me if anything ever happened to her and grandpa that she would make sure the glasses got back to me.

Dinosaur Tracks Museum

 On Sunday the day before the set court date, we went to the dinosaur tracks museum.  There aren't many options in St. George on a Sunday so we took what we could get.  We weren't about to just sit around in a hotel all day.  This museum was pretty disappointing.  It was super expensive and we were only inside for barley 45 minutes.

St. George and Cedar City Bound

 We had a court date set for a few things dealing with mom and her death.  It wasn't a fun court thing so we tried to make it a little better and we headed down to St. George for a couple days before the court hearing.  We took the kids to the wildlife museum.  My kids weren't impressed. It could have been because last week we were just at an African Safari park seeing live animals.... but they were still entertained.

Drive home

 Jason was anxious to get home after the sled pull but I made him pull over at a few other sites during our drive to give my kids and I a break. 

 

 We were able to see these really old houses built out of rocks.  They were fantastic

 There were a few Indian ladies right behind me on the street selling jewelry.  They had some beautiful stuff.  I bought all my sisters bracelets and me a nice bracelet and ring.  I got a killer deal too!

How would you like to live underneath this rock in this house? Looks cozy right?!?! I didn't want to go in it.  Looking at it was enough for me!

Lucas Pro Pulling League In Phoenix Arizona

 Lucas Oil sure knows how to put on a sled pull and they spare no expense.  Each pulling rig was assigned a tractor that was to pull them around so no one had to worry about getting pulled up to the starting line.

 Here is a picture of all the guys in Jasons class sitting under the MAV TV sign

 Here is a picture of Alter Ego sled pulling down the track.

 Jason popped a turbo right off the starting line and never made it down the track.  It was super disappointing.  But he got to be on TV and that is exciting.  Here are a couple pictures of him and the camera crew while he is being interviewed.

This was a two day sled pulling event.  Jason of course broke the first day and didn't get to pull the second day.  But for only pulling one day and getting last place, Lucas oil paid extremely well! We can't wait to pull with them again.  They treat you so darn good!

Out of Africa

 

 Jace loves animals and since he was really little he has been asking to go to Africa.  So we have looked into going to this park for awhile but never could figure out a time to go.  It worked out perfectly to go while on this trip.  Out of Africa is an amazing animal park.  You get to go on a small African safari and feed animals right out of your hands and feed and see lots of other animals up close and personal. 

 Seriously how often does a person get to say that a giraffe tried to get on a bus with your group?!  Soo cool!

 Lots of animals were on this tour.  they were all just living together like they would in the wild.  Minus the lions. 

 

 They had a great big snake show and we were all invited to go out and pet the huge snakes.  This snake we are petting is like 15 feet long!  Her name is Melanie. She was beautiful.  The yellow color makes her not scary at all.

 They had a water tiger show that you could attend.  During this show you got the change to feed a tiger.  Dayton and Jace were thrilled!

 During this show, we were able to see the tigers play and jump around in the water and just have fun.  It was way better than the hoogle zoo where they animals just lay around and look depressed.  These animals at this park are treated like kings and queens and they are so happy.  Each of them has a name and they are all loved individually.

 We went on another tour and this tour was just our little family on a small jeep.  Our personal guide(the owner of the park) took us to see every single lion, bear, tiger, hyena, and other small hairy African animals on the park. The animals loved him.  He carried around a bucket with a whole bunch of raw meat in it and feed each animal individually and pet and played with them.

And this time around I got to pet and feed the giraffe.

What an amazing day.  This park was so amazing and totally worth the money.  It is hardly a zoo.  Actually I don't look at zoos the same way anymore. I feel so bad for zoo animals.  My kids wanted to spend an extra day here but there wasn't enough time.  But if we do make our way back to Arizona again, we will definitely be coming here again.

Denny's Selfies

 After a long long drive and a good nights rest, we made it a couple hours out of Pheniox and we had planned to go and spend the day at the Out of Africa Park.  We started off our busy day filling up and Denny's for breakfast, and oh yeah, catching a whole bunch of selfies.