Utah Summer Trip

I was thinking I was caught up for once on the blog and ready to do one more post before all the holidays began with Halloween next week, but as I organized my pictures, I realized that I totally forgot to do entries for our trips to Utah and Wichita Falls this summer. So I guess I'm not caught up, but I am ready to post the rest of our summer pictures, so here they are. First, was our trip to Utah which was over the week of the Fourth of July. We knew we were getting together with Tyler's family over the weekend, but we always take an entire week for the trip, so we planned some fun family adventures we could do whether we had family with us or not. I took this picture at one of our stops on the long drive north.

We usually take a long route around the state and stay with each of Tyler's siblings, but unfortunately this time, Tyler's sister Tiffany's family was sick the day we were supposed to stop and see them, so we had to change our plans a bit. Luckily, Tyler's other sister, Tara, had healthy kids, so we stopped to see them first. We also added an extra leg to our trip as we got in to Utah and decided to head all the way up to Idaho to see Tyler's cousin's missionary homecoming. Tyler's parents and brother Tim and family met us at the hotel in Idaho Falls. We had enough time to walk along a bridge by the hotel the morning before we headed to church. The Idaho Falls Temple is in the far background of this first picture. It was fun to see all the first and second cousins who were there and hang out with them after church.

We drove back into Utah that night and stayed with Tyler's brother in Stansbury Park, UT. We wanted to go to the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake during our trip since we have the discounted zoo pass, and we wanted to take the girls to Temple Square as well. Tyler's sisters and families were going to meet us for some of these activities, but they still had sick kids, so we did the Salt Lake trip on our own. We started at a Planetarium and Science Museum. The girls had a lot of fun checking out the cloud-making machine and looking at all the planets.

 

They also had some really fun exhibits set up like the moon and Mars, where the kids could walk around and I could get some pretty cool pictures.

 Taryn also had fun even though she was confined to the stroller for the trip. The girls got to pick out souvenirs from the gift shop and they ended up with rings and a bag of fancy rocks to add to their rock collection which they started on this trip by finding rocks in each state as we drove from Texas to Utah. 

 

We walked from the Planetarium around some outdoor shopping areas, ate lunch at Applebee's, and found this splash area. It took the girls awhile to decide to get wet, but with the random shooting fountains, there were times they got wet even when they weren't expecting it.

 

We took a ride on the tracks that circles downtown Salt Lake and it was the girls' favorite part of the entire trip I think. Here's a picture I took as we waited for the tram to arrive and I liked how you could see the name of the stop (Planetarium) behind us.

We took the tram to Temple Square and walked around with the girls, which we hadn't done since Tara and Andrew's wedding which was when Tessa was a baby. The girls really liked all the statues and flowers around Temple Square. They also liked the Reflection pool in front of the temple.

 We walked towards the Church Office Building which was where I worked for a year while Tyler finished up at BYU. We found this spot outside the Relief Society Building which was where Tyler proposed to me almost 13 years earlier. I made them sit in that spot so I could get a picture, and I had Abby take a picture of just me and Tyler too.

 On our way back through the temple grounds, we went through one of the visitors' centers and looked through their church displays. The girls liked all the videos, wax figures, and the huge Christus Statue.

 

We did get to the zoo and Tara and her two kids joined us, however, I just realized that those pictures were on my camera (instead of my phone) and they are now currently lost on the broken hard drive. Maybe one day if I ever get those pictures back, I will be able to upload them to the blog later. We had a fun time at the zoo. The girls loved the polar bear, the peacock that roamed freely, and the sea lions.

 

We stayed the next couple nights with Tara and her family. Her new baby, Grayson, was so fun to see since it was our first time since he was born. Taryn especially loved him and really liked helping him swing and borrowing his Bumbo to sit in herself. Abby was probably the best helper, either taking turns holding Grayson, or playing ball with Parker.



It's become a tradition whenever we go to Utah to make a stop at the Cabella's by the point of the mountain. The girls love all the animal exhibits and we always get really cute pictures. They love to look scary like the bears and they each got to pick out where they wanted their individual pictures taken.

 Abby wanted her picture by the mountain lion because that is their elementary school mascot, hence the LU symbols for her school, Lundy. 



 

We also promised Abby that we'd walk around the BYU campus, which she loves to do. We walked through the bookstore and I grabbed this picture. The girls each picked out a little purse from the clearance section. The girls had fun searching for the right patterned one, although Dad did not think it needed to take as long as it did. :)

 

On Wednesday, we drove out to Grandma and Grandpa's in Vernal. Everyone was there by the Fourth of July, which was Thursday. We saw the parade and the kids had fun with boom sticks and rainbow wands.

 I caught a picture of Tessa and Makaela with Grandma.

 

The kids had fun at grandmas making t-shirts, playing outside, playing kickball and volleyball, and just hanging with their cousins. The Dinosaur Museum in town had free admission on the fourth so we headed over there to check out those dinosaurs. They had this guy welcoming everyone at the main lobby.

 

 I let the girls pick which dinosaur they wanted their picture next to. (Apparently Aubrey never decided on one because I did not have an individual picture of her.)

This was my favorite picture because the girls and cousins decided to look really scared in front of this huge T Rex. We also walked around the exhibits on the inside and the girls' favorite part was having an artist draw pictures of dinosaurs of their choosing for each person. We had to wait awhile for each grandkid to get his or her own drawing, but the drawings were pretty amazing, and we had a large variety of dinosaurs by the time he was done.



 Here's a bunch a girls piled on Andrew. He didn't seem to mind and I thought it was a cute picture.

 

We spent one afternoon taking new family pictures. It seems we do this about once a year, but there's always at least one new family member since the previous one, so it has to be done. Here are just a few of all the grandkids. One with Grandma and Grandpa and one with just the kids. All the kids did pretty well considering they were forced to stand still and smile when all they wanted to do was play together. But we were near a playground, so we kept bribing them to be good so they could have play time afterwards. The photographer even came over to the playground afterwards and took a lot of candid shots and some of those are my favorites as the grandkids played together and showed off for Grandma and Grandpa.

 One of the main reasons we went out to Utah this particular weekend was to be there for Anna's baptism. We didn't get to see Tiffany's family as much as we would have liked since they kept passing the sickness between each kid, but it seemed like by the weekend, everyone was better, so they had the baptism as scheduled.

 

This included the luncheon at their house afterwards. The kids had fun playing, and I finally got a picture of the three young grandkids who enjoyed playing (and fighting) with the toys together.

 

We left straight from the luncheon to head home over the next two days, but the sickness that we thought was gone ended up hitting our family by the time we got to the hotel that night. It passed through most of our kids and we heard every family that was there also got some form of the sickness as well. No fun, but we were glad we were able to be with family and have as much fun together as we did. We love our family and can't wait until the next time we get together.

September Weekend Fun

So it's been too long since I last posted, but I've been in a bit of a dilemma. A month or so ago, Tessa was reaching for something above our computer (in an area where she isn't supposed to be grabbing stuff) and while pulling down a bucket of cords, she ended up pulling down my external hard drive as well which was sitting on top of the bucket. The hard drive fell all the way to the floor and the corner of the case cracked. I was hoping the case would be enough to protect the insides, but have since learned that the bump was enough to completely mess it up and I can no longer access anything on the hard drive which is every single picture I have ever saved. I'm a bit distraught. After talking to a few computer places, they said it would cost at least 250 dollars just to send it off to a service center and then add on costs if they can retrieve anything from it. I'm currently looking for second opinions and hoping for cheaper options. We'll see. In the mean time, I've finally found another online place to store my pictures and luckily all the pictures from my phone are still there, so I can continue with where I left off on the blog with those pictures, but for any pictures earlier than May of this year, if I haven't uploaded them to some other website (Facebook, the blog, photo book websites) I have no access to them right now. It makes me super sad just thinking about it. I suppose it could have been worse and I at least have some pictures (and mostly all the favorites on the blog), but for future picture projects that need pictures of my girls when they were babies, it's disheartening to think I may not have them anymore.

 

Anyway, so onward with the blog. The girls have started school and seem to be enjoying it. Everyone stays busy with school work and our regular daily activities. September was a crazy busy month mostly on the weekends. We had something scheduled every weekend and that's the focus of this blog entry. The weekend trips included a visit from Scott, Nevla, and Chloe over Labor Day Weekend, a trip to California for Tyler's work conference, a camping trip, and a fake campout since our ward campout was rescheduled the first time around.

 

First was Labor Day Weekend. We were excited to stay home and host Scott's family who came up to visit from San Antonio. We had so much fun. Chloe got to play with her cousins, and we adults stayed up too late every night playing games and visiting. We decided we needed to get together more often because it was so much fun. Between our closet full of games and the suitcase full of games they brought, we tried to get through every game during the three day weekend, but of course we had too many, but I think we played at least 20 or more games and had a blast doing it.

 

The second week was scheduled to be our ward campout in Cloudcroft, New Mexico; however, like I mentioned before, it was postponed because of weather. It wasn't decided until the night before so we had already purchased and planned our meals around the campout, so instead of actually camping we just got together with our good friends, the Billings, and cooked tin foil dinners and smores over their fire pit. It was just as fun, less cold and rainy, and we got to sleep in our own comfy beds. Good times were had by all, especially by the kids as they ate their messy smores.

 

We also took the scenic route around the mountain that separates El Paso into the East and West side while running errands that weekend. We stopped at a lookout point and took a few pictures. Here's the view towards the west which would be Mexico and New Mexico behind Taryn and Tyler. I believe the view from this angle, behind Abby and Tessa, is to the east and the rest of Texas.

 

 The girls enjoyed walking on the paths and seeing all around El Paso and beyond. Here are the girls and I with the view north back towards the Franklin Mountains.

 The third weekend, we took the girls out of school and headed for the coast. Like our trip to California last year, we went so Tyler could do some continuing education classes, but the rest of us got to tag along for the vacation. We decided to just do the beach as our main event this year since Tyler missed out on the beach last year. We were able to meet up with our friends, the Whetten's, again. That was fun and got us out of the hotel while Tyler was in class. We went to a park/splash pad where the kids had fun once they decided to play together. Amy and I had fun visiting and catching up. This snake was the main decoration of the park that the kids loved climbing on. It was perfect for the backdrop of our pictures. 

 I had to eat at El Pollo Loco and while waiting for our food there, I caught this cute picture of Taryn and Tessa. We also ate at Red Robin and the girls wanted a picture with the Statue of Liberty--too bad you can't see the burger on top of the torch.

We walked around an outdoor mall one evening and let the girls pick out a souvenir to take home. They found a play area where we had to spend a couple minutes, so I took pictures while they played.

Tyler's classes were outside San Diego, so the mall we found was in the same neighborhood as the San Diego temple, so we stopped by there on our way back to the hotel. It was pretty late and the parking lot was dark and empty, but we let the girls get out for a minute and take a few pictures. Unfortunately it was just too dark to even see the girls in front of the temple, but at least they got to see it.

 

After Tyler's Saturday class, we headed for the beach. Tyler decided we should go to Coronado Island which is a small island right off of downtown San Diego. The bridge to get to the island is super high and it may have been the girls' favorite part of the drive. It was a bit chilly and windy, but that didn't stop the girls from getting in the water, looking for shells, and playing in the sand. I loved getting pictures of them playing in the water even though they were far away. The first picture is of Tyler and the three older girls. Taryn slept through the first half of the beach trip, but she probably wouldn't have lasted as long in the wind, so it worked out for the best.

 

They loved running and jumping over the waves and they spent a lot of time looking for shells. With Tyler's help, they probably found at least 20 shells and those were full, unchipped, and some rather large shells. They found sand dollars too and then had a bunch more sand dollars given to them by someone who was walking past on the beach. Aubrey even found an entire clamshell still living. They couldn't pry it open, but they had to keep it. (It ended up totally dying and stinking up our garage after we got home, but by then we were able to open it--with our noses plugged--so the girls could see what it looked like inside.)

 We tried building sand castles, but couldn't get anything big to stay, so we just spent time digging in the sand which was Taryn's favorite part. She didn't care too much for the chilly water.

 

 Here was the final picture we took as we left the beach as the sun was setting. We tried finding a yummy seafood place to eat on the island, but ended up at a Mexican restaurant that looked family friendly and didn't have a long wait. We had a really fun time!

 

After Tyler's final class on Sunday, we drove all the way home. We were able to stop by the Hall's house in Tucson and visit with their family for a little while eating dinner, so that was a nice break. Although with the entire drive, plus the stop, in one day, we did not get home until almost 3 in the morning. It was a long day, but a super fun-filled weekend.

 

The fourth and final weekend of September was the rescheduled ward campout. We tried getting up there earlier than dark, but it still just took too long and we were one of the last ones trying to set up our tent and cook hotdogs after dark. With it being a last minute rescheduled campout and cooler weather, there were not too many families who came, but we still had fun. I think one of the most interesting things from the weekend was hearing all the elk calls in the woods while trying to sleep. We heard them all night long. The girls could even recognize them by the morning. We had to search through the winter clothes to find warm stuff for the girls to wear. It was a fun battle to even get Aubrey in pants (she refuses to wear them because she thinks it makes her look like a boy). I loved the ones I finally got her to wear. She didn't even want me to take a picture of her wearing pants.

 

 The girls loved the playground they could play at and spent a lot of time there.

But their favorite part of the camping weekend was the zip line. They remembered it from last year, and had a great time doing it again this year.

 

 Even Taryn took a turn on the zip line, and she loved it too.

So as you can see, our September was busy and that wasn't even including the regular school/work schedules during the weekdays. We had fun times and loved making these family memories together.