Utah, we love thee!

Not going to lie, we had the best Utah trip this summer! The best part was the fact that J got to stay the whole time with us. Usually, he'll drive me and the girls up, fly back to work, fly up to spend a few days and then drive us home. But the odds were in our favor and he was able to come up and stay the whole 10 days.

The highlight of Utah is spending time with our families. J's parents returned at the beginning of July from their 18 month mission to London and we were so happy to welcome them home, hear their wonderful mission reports, and spend days at their house. Our kids loved seeing their Grandma and Grandpa again and it was especially fun with all of J's wonderful siblings around. I think I'm so lucky that I married into such a great family with such good to the core people.

We had some great days with my family, and were especially glad to be there to support my Mom after her surgery. My angel mother found out that she has breast cancer at the beginning of the month and started out on her journey to recovery. We were so grateful to see her in person and to spend time with 2 of my 3 siblings. I know that my greatest blessing was being born to my parents and growing up with my amazing siblings and I'm so grateful for them.

And what can I say about the cousins! They made everything so much more enjoyable for our girls. Having friends to pal around with on all of our adventures, sleep over with, and play, and play, and play with was their favorite thing. It was a joy to meet two sweet, precious new babies who've joined each of our respective families and I'm grateful that the pool of people to love keeps growing.



Our girls love Utah because they're surrounded, inundated, and filled with the love of our family members and I couldn't ask for anything better than that.

We had some awesome adventures along the way. We made the traditional indoctrinating visit to BYU, toured campus, hung out in classrooms, and bought paraphernalia at the bookstore. The highlight was when, on our way home, we saw the gates of the stadium open and went in for an awesome self tour of Cougar stadium. We went up and down the bleachers and ran the field. Thankfully we weren't picked up for trespassing, because it was the time of this boy's life.



 

Another day we went to the Pioneer day parade in Salt Lake City, and spent the afternoon visiting with some dear friends in Bountiful and North Salt Lake and getting yogurt at night with other friends in Provo.



We spent one day at 7-peaks and rode every slide in the park. It was awesome to have two childless couples with us and we loved that our kids got to spend time with Andy and Chelsea and Matt and Jess. It was one of the highlights of the girls trip.



We spent a morning playing tennis, and in a clumsy accident I tripped and sprained my ankle. That killed my plans to run every morning of the vacation and I'm still waiting for a full recovery.



We visited the Dino museum at Thanksgiving point and were lucky to get out of there alive. Luckily, the $.50 ice cream cones saved the day.





We spent an afternoon at my sweet cousin Syd's complex, watching a movie in their theater room and swimming in their fun pool. We enjoyed the village pool and a BBQ on my parent's back porch and loved the late night showing of Batman with our siblings.

We made visits to J's grandmother and my grandparents. I  feel like it is so important to spend time with our grandparents whenever we are in town and have the opportunity, and it was fun for our kids to continue to get to know these wonderful people who've left a legacy of faith for us to follow.





We stayed up late, slept in, ate wonderful food, laughed, visited cute newlywed apartments, did fireworks, relaxed, and overall just enjoyed being together and being with our families. You know who you are and that our favorite thing is being with you. Here's to Utah 2013!