Utah Trip

My family is spread out through 4 different states. My parents, my brother and his family live in Utah, my sister and her family live in Idaho, and my little brother and his family live in California. So really the chance for us to all be together is pretty slim, but this past week we were able to work it out that we all were in Utah at the same time. Corey had to go out of town for work, so I loaded up the van, and as soon as the boys were out of school we were on our way. Amazingly, we only had to make on pit stop in Beaver, in fact, Hailey and Brendan were asleep when we stopped, so they didn't ever even get out of the van. So I was shocked how well they did, sure I had to give Hailey a couple of dum-dums for the last 30 minutes, but she made it.

My kids love to go and visit my parents and it was so nice to get out of the heat for a week. I love it when I can just let them run and play; we spent every evening sitting outside, the weather was so nice. My SIL Connie, and her two boys were able to come out and BBQ and play on Saturday night. On Sunday, my little brother, his wife Kimber, and baby Rex, came for church and dinner. My kids were fascinated with Rex, you'd think that they had never seen a baby, but he is pretty cute you just can't help it. On Monday, we went to eat at "The Family Tree" restaraunt in Santaquin. The food is pretty good, but they make these scones that are literally 3 feet long. They are so good- if you ever find yourself in Santaquin, it's worth a stop. On Tuesday, we intended to go to the Dinosaur Musuem at Thanksgiving Point because they were having special $2 tickets, but that was apparently what everyone else in Utah planned on doing that day because the line was hours long. So, we decided to go over the the farm instead. The kids ended up enjoying it and loved being able to see all the animals up close and feeding them. Unfortunaley, I don't have pictures because my battery died on the way there. I would have especially loved a picture of the llama that kept snuggling up to Hailey.

On Wednesday, we met up with everybody again ( except my little brother and his family, sorry, we missed you ) and went to the pool in Spanish Fork. It was so much fun. My kids loved going down the water slide and Carter was especially happy to have cousins to swim with who were brave enough to go off the diving board with him. I was grateful to have my sister, Patrice, and Connie there to help out, it is a lot of kids to watch and take on the waterslide over and over.

All the cousins( except Rex- we were never all together again after this- maybe next time). Notice the shortage of girls though!!

On Thursday, we met up with everybody at BYU to go bowling. Patrice and her two kids weren't able to come ( She thinks that just because she is recovering from knee surgery, that she can't bowl, whatever). Everyone had a good time, even though I didn't win. I was having an off day and I didn't have my ball with me, so it threw me off. But I quess, we were really there for the kids anyway.

It was so funny to watch the kids bowl because they all did it so differently. Carter took this sideways approach and Brendan could hardly lift the ball. We had a ramp for him to use, but he wanted to bowl like everybody else, so he wouldn't use it.

"Do you hear that? That's the sound of me winning."

After we were done, and when some of us had recovered from our horrifying loss,(really, I am just kidding, I don't really take bowling that seriously, but I actually do own my own pink ball with my name on it) we went for ice cream at the creamery.

We really had a good time. Carter was really upset about coming home, he said he would rather live in Utah, of course after I explained to him that he would still have to go to school and so would all his cousins- that we would still have to live a normal non-vacation life. then he changed his tune a little. I know how he feels though, it's always hard to come back to reality and it was so fun to see everybody especially knowing that it will be a long time until we are all together again.

I just had to include this picture of Rex-he does exsist- and I did get a picture of him, just not with everybody else. He really wasn't to thrilled to have his picture taken right then, but he really is so cute.