We headed straight to Utah after leaving Phoenix. We stopped at our favorite fishing hole on the way, although it wasn't as productive as last year. We only caught one or two fish before they stopped biting, so we didn't stay as long. It was still a pretty drive up southern Utah on our way to Spanish Fork.
We stayed with Tiffany and Justin in Spanish Fork and the kids had so much fun with their cousins. They spent the majority of their free time filming their own movies, usually reenactments of Disney favorites like Cinderella, Peter Pan, and Robin Hood. We went fishing at the reservoir and they had a lot more success. Everyone caught at least one fish. I think Abby's count was up to seven or so. I did get one picture of her reeling in one of her fish. They love fishing and it's even more fun when they have cousins to hang out with while waiting for the fish to bite.
We caravanned up to Vernal to Grandma and Grandpa's house so we would all be together for the 4th of July. Tara's family was already there. My kids were so excited to see Duchess and see how she was doing. Her fur was lighter and a lot thinner than when we had brought her up last winter. They've made her a huge pen that she likes to run around in, but apparently she's too smart for her own good. She has figured out how to push the entire fence over far enough to reach Grandma's garden where she'll proceed to eat all the raspberry bushes. Grandma was not too happy. The kids loved seeing her play and eat though. Aubrey still loves the chickens and had Grandma take a picture of her holding one of the chickens while she checked for eggs. She is our animal lover.
We went to the annual 4th of July parade and sat in our usual spot. It was so sunny and hot, but the kids were excited about the parade and all the candy.
Luckily with Abby's club volleyball team being the Stars, we had a lot of perfect 4th of July accessories to use during the parade like these glasses, hat, and some necklaces that the girls wore. Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy was in the parade and we cheered loud enough to have him come over and pose for a picture. It was the older girls' favorite part.
In Grandma and Grandpa's house, there's this picture from nine years ago that we had taken when we were all there for the 4th of July. I wanted to do a reenactment photo this year with all the grandkids from that picture, so here's our before and after picture - 2009 and 2018. We used a missionary picture to stand in for Andrew's spot. I thought it turned out so cute and everyone was very accommodating to pose just like they had when they were nine years younger. I love it!
I took a picture of Taryn by Grandma's flag that she helped put in the front yard. I love the bright colors of the flag's stripes. The kids made rockets again this year and instead of fireworks, we shot off the rockets in the school parking lot again. The kids love seeing how high they go and chasing after them as they fall back to the ground. Here's a picture of when we were getting all set up.
All the kids were waiting patiently for Grandpa to set up the rocket station, and they looked so cute all lined up on the curb, so I grabbed this picture. We shot off the rockets in order from youngest to oldest so Taryn was the third one to go. She got to help set up the rockets and also push the button after everyone counted down from 10.
Tara's husband, Andrew, used his good camera to take still pictures of the rockets as they blasted off. He wasn't able to get the timing right until after the first couple rockets had already gone, so Aubrey's was the first rocket that he was able to catch in motion as it blasted off. I thought it looked so cool.
We had some technical difficulties with the power box, so there was a lot of waiting time between each rocket. You can see as each of my kids went, the sun is getting closer and closer to setting. I also love how you can see each rocket so clearly as it's taking off, so you can see how each kid decorated it differently. Here's Tessa's turn and her rocket.
It was almost completely dark by the time the oldest kids' rockets were shooting off. Here's Abby's. I really like how you can see the bright flames from the rocket shooting in the darker sky picture. We had so much fun shooting off the rockets.
We drove to another spot in town to watch the fireworks display that night. We felt like we waited forever for them to start, but there were enough other fireworks being lit that we kept debating which were the real ones and which were just people doing their own fireworks. But at least we had something to watch. It was getting pretty chilly, so the kids all stayed cozy and warm by bundling up together under blankets. Here they all are as we waited for the real fireworks show to start.
We drove out the next day to Tooele to stay with Tim and Lora and see their kids a little bit more. We did sparklers there since they had some leftover. We were going to drive home instead of head into the Salt Lake area originally, but while we were in Vernal, I received an email saying that Abby had been accepted to the BYU volleyball camp which started the following Monday. She had been on the waiting list and we hadn't heard anything, so we figured she'd just have to wait until the following year to try going again. But we got the email on the 4th and the camp started on the 9th. Luckily, we were already in Utah and that Abby had all of her volleyball stuff with her since we had come straight from her tournament. So we quickly replied and told them she would be able to attend, and Tyler got a flight from Salt Lake back to El Paso so he could fly home to work for the next week. So the girls and I stayed in Utah hanging out with Tyler's siblings and letting the cousins play even more, which they were excited about.
So the day Tyler flew home, Lora and I took Abby and Kate and Sara to the Jordan River temple to do baptisms. Abby had been looking forward to going with her cousins to the temple because they had recently turned 12 and she wanted to go do baptisms with them. This temple had just recently reopened after being updated, so it was pretty busy, but we had made an appointment and they were able to get in and out pretty quickly. We grabbed lunch together and then headed back to their house where the other kids had stayed with a babysitter.
Tim and Lora also have a lot of animals, so Aubrey and Taryn were in heaven with their pet fix. They had a kitten named Guapo until they learned it was a female, so now its name is Guapa. Taryn loved carrying it around like it was a baby. They also had two chickens that live in their playhouse outside and Aubrey and Taryn were constantly chasing them and picking them up to hold them. They loved playing there.
Their neighborhood also has a lake and we spent some time there while we were staying with them. After Tim got home from work that first night, we rushed to the lake for the kids to have a quick swim before it got too dark. The sunset was pretty and I tried getting it with all the kids as they jumped off the docks. Aubrey was one of the first ones in and it was funny because right after jumping in, she came up out of the water and said, "Eww. It's all mucky!" We laughed and explained that's what lakes are like. It was pretty funny.
Before the sun got too low, I took these pictures of the kids as they ate their snowcones.
They love playing with the cousins and I love how they all have cousins close to their ages.
On Saturday morning, we ended up at Home Depot for one of their summer crafts. Everyone made their very own fishing game. They had to put the box together with glue and nails and then they got to paint their box, fishing pole, and fish. They had a lot of fun crafting and being creative.
With Tim home from work that day, the kids had fun playing with Uncle Tim and climbing all over him. After they made this tower, I had them stay steady long enough to grab a picture. We were also able to borrow some of their friends' paddleboards so we could go back to the lake during the day and give them a try. My girls took turns taking rides first while their cousins rowed, but once they got the hang of it, they took their own turns paddling around the lake. I even took a turn. It was a lot of fun.
Aubrey enjoyed it a lot, even though rowing against the wind was kind of tough. They even had a tiny paddle for Taryn and Anson to take turns. If they sat at the front and used the tiny paddle, they were able to paddle around the lake as well. We all took turns using the paddleboards and swimming around on our own. They spent the last 15 minutes or so that we were there chasing after a water snake that they saw swimming in the lake. Another kid jumped in when they saw the snake and caught it with his hands. When he let it go, it kept hiding in the rocks near the edge of the lake and our kids kept following it in hopes of catching it themselves or just touching it. It kept them entertained forever.
Here are my kids with Tim and Lora's kids on our last day before we left to head back to Spanish Fork. We had a great time with them.
On Sunday we went to church with Tiffany and Justin's family in Spanish Fork. After church, I had set up with my Grandma to go visit with her. Some of my aunts and cousins were already planning a ladies game night, so we were able to see a lot of family by hanging out at my grandma's. The girls did puzzles and hung out in Grandma's basement while the older ones visited. Once the second cousins got there, the kids had fun playing together. We took some pictures with Grandma too. Tessa loved that she was almost as tall as her great-grandma.
Abby's still taller than Grandma Willes and my Aunt Chris even measured Grandma while we were there and determined that she had shrunk a little more and was only 4'10". We liked visiting with her and hearing about her busy summer. Abby even helped her a little with her new cell phone that she was still getting used to.
We took a picture with all the great grandkids that were there with Grandma Willes. It was almost funny to see how she blended right in with all the kids since she's the same height as most of them. Grandma Willes was always known as Tiny Grandma by most of her grandkids. My cousin, Heather, came with her kids and my kids loved playing with her newest baby Faith. I grabbed this picture of Tessa with her 2nd cousins, Faith, and Shaye.
On Monday, we took Abby to BYU to get her started at her volleyball camp. We decided to all go and Tiffany kept all the kids at the Bean Museum while I took Abby to the Football stadium to get her checked in. We had time between check-in and orientation that we were able to go back and walk around the museum with everyone else for awhile.
I stayed for some of Abby's orientation in the Smith Fieldhouse. Here's a picture of the women's volleyball head coach who ran the camp with the majority of the team players behind her who were the coaches for the girls for the week.
While Abby was at camp every day, we found other activities to keep all the kids entertained. One day was the Dress like a Cow day at Chic Fila for free food. We do this every summer, so we talked Tiffany's family into doing it this year with us. We made spots for our shirts, headbands with ears, and signs so we could dress up like cows. Lora and her kids even came down to meet us. With Utah having lots of large families, the lines at the Chic Fila we went to were very long, but they were on the ball and the lines moved quite quickly. We got our free food and then were headed on to our next adventure.
We met Tara's family at a community pool in Payson to swim. The kids had so much fun in the lazy river, swimming on their own, and going down their two big slides. Here's Taryn and Aubrey when I got them to stand still long enough for a picture.
Tessa kept an eye on Lucy while going on the lazy river and I love this last picture I took. Tessa's coming down the slide, but Sara, Anna, and Kate all posed and waved while I was taking the picture so the overall picture turned out super cute!
Everyone in our group loved hanging out in the regular pool on the edge of the lazy river to give high fives to whoever swam by in the lazy river. I was able to get over on the other side to grab a picture of them all while they waited for their next high five friends.
We stopped at Tara and Andrew's house for dinner and the kids were able to play in their backyard before we had to head back to Spanish Fork. Lora was driving home with her kids, the older girls had mutual, and I had to go pick up Abby from camp. Lora was already on campus, so I drove her kids down to Provo with me and we found Abby before meeting up with Lora and saying our goodbyes. We were staying for a couple more days, but this was the last time that we would be seeing Lora's kids while we were there. It was fun getting to spend so much time with everyone, and I was glad that Abby was able to say goodbye since she wasn't with us during our daily activities.
While hanging out at Tiffany's house during Abby's camp week, the kids continued filming their movies. They also loved playing on the trampoline and helping in their neighbor's garden across the street. They kept trying to sleep all night long on the tramp, but every night either bad weather or scary noises brought them back inside before the night really began. They still had fun trying though.
The next day we met Tara's family at a bowling alley and laser tag place. They had a great deal for unlimited bowling and laser tag and since it was a week day, we pretty much had the entire place to ourselves. We bowled a game first and the kids enjoyed giving it a try once we found the really light balls. It had been a long time since my kids had tried bowling. Here's Aubrey and Taryn taking their turns.
And here's Tessa bowling, and also a picture of all the kids as they waited for their turns. One game of bowling was enough though, and afterwards they were ready for laser tag.
The laser tag was the best thing ever! Since we were the only ones there and we had unlimited laser tag games, we just played one 7 minute game after another. There were only 12 people allowed at a time and of course we had 13, so Tiffany, Andrew, and I took turns resting while the other two adults played the game. They switched up teams every time and sometimes played on teams or as individuals, but we pretty much did laser tag for like an hour straight. We lost track of how many games we played after we passed 6 or 7 games. We all had so much fun. Even the littlest kids. It was so fun having the entire game consist of players that you know. We really enjoyed our day there. This was also on July 11th which is free slurpee day at 7-11. We grabbed our free slurpees on our way back home and on my way to pick up Abby from camp.
On Thursday, I met up with my cousin Heather again, so that our kids could have more play time. We decided to go to the Provo Rec Center which we had been to before and the girls love. It has indoor and outdoor splash pads and pools and slides too. Taryn was too little to go down the big slides alone, so I went down with her and did more water slides than I ever have in a long time. The girls liked the big slides and the rock wall the best. Here's Taryn with Lexi and Cami with Aubrey and Tessa on the rock wall.
Shaye came too, so all the cousins had fun together and we grabbed this picture of all of them except for Taryn who refused to be in my picture. We loved being able to see so much family from both of our sides while visiting Utah this year.
Thursday was Abby's last day of camp. They spent their last hour saying goodbyes, signing autographs and taking pictures. She got a team poster, a BYU ball, and an award for being one of the best players on her team. She had such a great time and learned so much. We took this picture with our new friend Amy Boswell Usevitch, who was a volleyball player at BYU. She married someone who's family is from El Paso and in our ward, so Abby went up and talked to her one day during the camp and told her she knew her in-laws and we took a picture of them together on that last day. The second picture is of Abby with her coach for the week, Mac (McKenna Miller). Abby was the setter for her team and Mac loved her. They worked really well together and Abby loved learning from her. Mac is an outside hitter from the volleyball team and she's the one who gave Abby an award at the end of the week.
We also took a picture of Abby with another player, Mary Lake, who's one of the DS players for the volleyball team. She's probably one of the shortest members of the team at 5'7", but she had the most outgoing and spunky personality that Abby loved her. Abby also met a lot of new friends at the camp from her team and ate her meals with them and hung out with them when they weren't playing together. They were from all over too. One was from Nevada and another was from Ohio. They had so much fun together all week and Abby was so happy that she was able to attend the camp.
We did some last minute shopping at the BYU Bookstore and that's where we found this statue of Cosmo the Cougar on a bench. I took a quick picture of the girls even though Aubrey wasn't too happy that she couldn't have her picture taken alone. The final picture I took before leaving to head home was of all the kids still sleeping on the trampoline the morning of the day we left to drive home. On that very last night, they tried sleeping on the trampoline again and they made it all night! We were surprised that they did. Even the youngest, Taryn and Lucy, stayed out there all night and slept with the older kids. I think it was probably one of the best parts of their trip - being able to sleep on the tramp since they had tried the entire time to do it.
We love our family and the opportunities we have to travel to Utah so often to hang out with them. It was the first time I had driven home by myself with all the kids for such a long distance, but thankfully our drive was easy and uneventful. We had a great vacation and were happy that we were able to spend all that time with family and friends. It was a great summer vacation!
