Utah Week 2- The Friends

Week two we were off on a whole new adventure to spend time with our best friends of 12 years! We love these guys and always look forward to lots of laughs and late nights.

We always try and have a date night where just the adults go out and we leave our 9 kids behind. No matter what we do we always have a blast but we decided to live it up this time and had a beautiful dinner at La Caille.If you have never been here I highly recommend saving up and enjoying a night here. The grounds are BEAUTIFUL and the food is delicious. We had a great night listening to some music and laughing about it just a little and enjoying every single bite of food we put in our mouths. Another tradition is for Cherlyn and I to visit our most favorite place in the world...Sego Lily spa. Seriously this place brings tears of joy to my eyes. I had the best massage of my entire life and then Cherlyn and I attempted to take some pictures giggling like school girls the whole time. None of them turned out unfortunately but we had a fun time trying.

It has been so fun for us to see our kids grow up together and go from this.....

to this.....

We took the big girls to get their first ever pedicures and they LOVED it. We let them get designs on their toes and they thought it was the coolest thing ever. Morgan had a blast working her massage chair.

We have also loved seeing these cute boys go from this..... to this....

They had fun playing together and also having a very special day together, their baptism!

We had lots of time to just hang out and play but we also went swimming and had late night movies in the backyard projected on the house.

We ate out...a lot and I loved every bite of food. Cafe Rio and Sweet Tooth Fairy...I miss you! Seriously I would gain 50 pounds if we lived in Utah. Here was the big day for the boys. We had a ton of family there and Cherlyn was nice enough to let us invite everyone to her beautiful home for dinner after.

This was such a special day and I was so thrilled that Ethan was able to have so many friends and family involved that love him so much. I am so proud of him.

Here are the boys with their proud papas.

And the boys with their proud mamas. It has been wonderful to grow in life and marriage with this family. We miss them terribly but are thankful each and every day for their friendship and blessing that they are to us. We miss you!

Utah week 1 - The Cabin

There they are...super excited and ready for a trip of a lifetime. Utah here we come! We LOVE flying out of our little airport. The gate agent took each of the kids out to the plane and they got to walk on the luggage belt and then she took them up to the cockpit. The kids thought it was pretty cool.
I was a little disappointed to see that Logan was small enough to bring as a carry on. I was really hoping to check him!

Week 1 was spent at my parents cabin way up in the mountains. It takes some work to get there but once you arrive you never want to leave. This is the view from their bottom deck. It is beautiful.


For the 4th we had the traditional breakfast at my grandparents home. Even though they have passed on my cute cousin lives there and allowed us all to come and be together like my grandmother would have wanted it.


We went to the parade and then Charlie lit fireworks and we ate some delicious food and spent time with relatives that we don't see very often. It was a great day.

One of our first adventures was to Kennecott copper mine. This place is massive and can be seen from space.

Just one of these tires costs $25,000 and only lasts for 9 months. The kids had fun exploring and Ethan and Seth had fun working on earning a scout patch together.The rest of the week this bunch played and enjoyed spending some great quality time together. My sisters kids and my kids play so well together it was my favorite thing to see them be creative and just enjoy each other. Shad and Charlie got some golf in and took the older boys with them. They had a great time and Ethan loved driving the cart.

We took a day trip to Park City and did the Alpine slide and the new Alpine coaster. It was a BLAST and the kids thought it was so fun to drive their carts down the mountain at top speed.

The chair lift freaks me out big time...but Grace and I hung on for dear life together and it was fun to spend a special moment with her.
Morgan is a speed demon and kept telling me to go faster and giggled the entire way down.


Back at the cabin the boys enjoyed a game of nerf wars against the moms. We were finding bullets for days after.
The kids had a sleep out on the deck. Luckily everyone was alive in the morning...we found out later that there was a bear roaming in the area.
We got in some rounds of bowling and the kids had fun making up bowling names for the screen.

You know there are a lot of you when you take up an entire swing set!

We had a great day at Boondocks playing mini golf, bumper boats, winning tickets and playing laser tag.
My sister had the brilliant idea for the two of us to battle each other on the bumper boats and get SOAKED right before we went out to dinner. Great idea Jen!
We had a fun dinner at The Mayan and the kids loved running around getting the best view of all the divers. What a fun place that is for dinner.


The best time was just spent at the cabin. The kids ate lunches outside and played and played and played some more.

One of the last days they had a cake decorating contest. Girls vs boys. The boys named their cake sugar wonderland and the girls was Utah castle. They both won awards for creativity and were given medals for their hard work. No one really wanted to eat the cakes fearing sugar overload!
Here is Sam and Grandpa doing The Hulk. I am not sure how this started but it was so cute to see the two of them put on their hulk faces and growl as loud as they could.
We love this family and love being together with them. We wish it was more often but we make the best of it when we are together. Leaving was difficult and we hope to be together again soon. We miss you guys already and we miss the beauty of this peaceful retreat in the mountains!

Injured...injured bad

I fought the door.....

and the DOOR WON!

Patio

We love our yard in the summertime. It is shady and private and one of our favorite things to do is sit around the fire with family and friends on late summer nights.

We built this fire pit years ago and it has served us well. However with the high traffic, little sunlight, and sandy soil, our fire pit are was beginning to look a bit like...a pit so this year we decided to have a paver patio put in and we just broke it in this weekend.

This was our sad little fire pit before.

Here is the after. We LOVE it!

It took a little more time and money and caused a little more damage to our existing lawn than we were expecting but I think in the end it was all well worth it.

We have to plant some new grass to repair the damaged areas but we look forward to many years of late summer nights enjoying our new patio.

10 & 3

My little baby just turned 10. Ok...so I guess she is not a baby anymore. Is it crazy that I have a 10 year old? June is party central in our house and if we are not hanging up decorations, blowing up balloons, or eating cake we don't know what to do with ourselves. The parties this year were just small family parties filled with love and laughter. I can only imagine what wish Abby had in her head at this very moment.

Abby at 10:

She loves to read. She is caring and thoughtful of others. She loves piano and her new teacher. Her favorite thing to do over the summer is her "summer school" where she has made an entire classroom downstairs and teaches the kids things all summer long. She is funny, forgiving, and a great friend. She has a strong testimony and loves her family very much. We love having Abby in our family!

Our little Sam just turned 3 and boy...does he add life to our family. He was so excited about his birthday this year, he talked about it for weeks.

He got a kite, bubbles, chalk, and some books. We also went to go see Kung Fu Panda at the movie theater which he was so excited about.

Our little Mr. Sam at 3:

Loves his little brother Logan. He loves to be one of the big kids and have sleepovers and stay up late. He has a smile that can light up a room. He gives the best hugs ever. He loves to "fuggle" (his way of saying snuggle) and read stories at nap time and bedtime. He is funny and energetic and we can't wait to see him grow through the years.

It's My Party...

I am officially 34. I have had a wonderful birthday week and despite having to give a talk and teach a lesson during church today this has been one of the nicest birthdays I have had in a long time. It started early in the week with some of my best girlfriends. We all climbed in bed together to watch Bachelorette and eat some DELICIOUS cold cake that my very sweet and very pregnant friend was willing to make for me. I think this is one of the most beautiful cakes I have ever seen and it was definitely a special treat.
Saturday morning Charlie surprised me with a 90 minute massage and it was wonderful. I loved every second of it and it was the perfect relaxing moment that I was needing. That night he had pulled together a party with some of our good friends and it was a blast.
We ate lots of amazing food including another beautiful and delicious cake from another great friend and we sat around the fire and played some rounds of badminton and laughed and laughed and laughed.
The weather was perfect and I think there is nothing better than ending the night with a roaring fire surrounded by amazing friends.
Tonight the kids decorated and sang happy birthday to me but we all agreed we were ready for some birthday carrots, not cake. We have had our fill of sweets and now it is time to get my 34 year old behind out on the road and burn off some of those delicious calories!