Summer Vacation - Part 1

We took our summer vacation to Utah last week spending time with my brother, some of my extended family and with Tyler's family. We had a great time! I have so many cute pictures I'm going to have to break our trip up into multiple blogging entries. This entry will include the drive out west and the time we spent with my family. So our first story begins at the very beginning of our long 2-day car ride. We hadn't been in the car very long when Tessa starts fussing and whining. And if you know our Tessa, she can be quite loud when she's upset. When we finally calmed her down, it wasn't even 5 minutes later when Aubrey started to cry and I looked back and saw this:

That's Tessa for you. She's plugging her ears because she thought Aubrey was being too loud, but it seriously was like 2 minutes before this that she was the one making all the noise. Too funny.

Abby's favorite story to tell anyone about our trip is the waterfall and bridge found in our hotel. It was pretty cool. The little waterfall and small stream was actually in the hotel and our lucky room was only accessible over a little bridge. The girls loved it even though we were at this hotel for only a couple hours to sleep and they didn't even get to explore it all that much. We had to at least stop for a picture.Our first stop once in Utah was to my Grandmother's house where we met up with my aunt and cousins and their families. Two of my cousins had babies shortly after I had Aubrey, so we had to have a photo session with the three cute girlies.

Can you tell my Aubrey is the oldest? She's only "slightly" bigger than their girls right? Right. The older kids had fun playing together too. Here they are playing croquet, which is the game I always remember playing at my Grandma's house when we'd visit when I was kid.

And finally, more entertainment from Tessa. I was holding Tessa on my hip and talking to my Grandma when Tessa decided to pretty much bear hug my Grandma around the face while still clinging on to me with her legs. Luckily, I had my camera in hand and whipped it out for this cute pic:

Thankfully, my grandma survived the squeeze, but man alive, check out those baby blues. Gorgeous!

Now you may think this is an adorable face, but don't be deceived. Behind the beautiful blue eyes and curly locks is a daredevil girl who's already learned to fight for what she wants. And when she's not happy, beware the "evil eye." I have now taught her to do this on command, so it's pretty funny when she goes from adorable smile to evil eye in a split second. Luckily, I caught the split second for all to enjoy.

My brother thought it was hilarious and wished he could have been the one to teach her this talent. Every time he saw Tessa, he'd ask to see her "evil eye" and just laugh and laugh. And to add to the pleasure, he tried to tell Abby to roll her eyes and say "whatever" whenever I ask her to do something. Thanks John! You've got to love uncles. :)