Vacation Week 1: Utah

What an adventure! We've been gone for 4 weeks! I have about 400 pictures! I tried really hard to narrow them down to some favorites. I kept thinking along the way that I needed to write down all the things we did and what funny things the boys said so I wouldn't forget or in case I didn't have pictures to remind me...typical of me, I didn't get to writing anything down. I didn't do a whole lot of anything actually. So, the next few posts might not be very interesting to anyone but me...plus there's tons of pictures.

The boys and I flew out one evening (Barrett came out 5 days later). The plane ride was pretty low key. The boys were so excited and really good. They both fell asleep on our last flight, which was nice. I had to force Damon awake to walk off the plane where Grandpa was waiting for us with a stroller. Tanner and Jessie were there to greet us at baggage claim. It was nice to finally meet Jessie...even if it was at 11 at night...1 am my time! Damon stayed up and got more and more hyper by the second. We all eventually fell asleep.

Here's some of the fun things we did:

Morning walks. 2 or 3 mornings, I strapped Tommy in the stroller and made Damon walk/run along side me. It was so beautiful to see the sun peeking over the gorgeous mountains!

Buddies. Whenever Quinn was around, Damon and Tommy were glued to him. They were all watching Fantastic Mr. Fox when I discovered 2 of the 3 were asleep!


Movie with Grandma! Grandma took the boys (and Tanner and I) to the Winnie the Pooh movie. It was really fun and a pretty cute flick! Thanks Grandma!



Pool time! Grandpa bought a pool for the grandkids to play in. They had fun playing while filling it up, playing crocodile with Grandpa, and running in circles. It was pretty fun...too bad it ended up killing the grass underneath it.





Canyon. One night we went up the American Fork Canyon for dinner. The boys loved climbing on the rocks, roasting hotdogs and making s'mores. It was so fun...except it was kinda hard to keep the boys from falling off the rocks. We sure miss the mountains and canyons!









The Salt Lake Temple and Conference Center. We've been wanting to take the boys to Temple Square. Ainsley and Cailin joined us on this adventure (somehow I don't have any pictures of them though). We took a tour of the conference center and even got to go on the top to see the gardens...I'm pretty sure that was a first for me. We walked over to see the temple too and have a little snack before rushing back to the car.






PROVO. Whenever we're in Utah, we always have to head down to Provo and walk around the BYU campus and visit the bookstore. Usually we go visit JaVan in her office too, but this time we could only go on a Saturday. We always love to visit with Grandma Sims and JaVan. We picked up pizza and rootbeer from Brick Oven and headed over to their house to eat and visit. Tommy loved the tire swing and I was finally able to eat one (or many) of Grandma's famous applesauce cookies. They were awesome! Quinn came on our adventure too...we were glad to have him distract the boys and being our photographer:) On our way home, we stopped by Jessie's corn stand. Tommy was getting crazy, so we trapped him in a watermelon crate...he loved it!








Raspberry picking. The boys loved picking and eating raspberries at any given time! They also devoured the wild strawberries in the backyard. We missed the blackberries this year, but maybe next time.




Walk with the fam after stuffing ourselves from Barry's BBQ. I can't remember if we had 4 or 5 different types of meat...serious business.




Funny stories:
-When Tommy saw Cailin in pigtails, he turned to me and said, "Antlers?" with a very confused/weird face.
-On the movie Fantastic Mr. Fox, he does this little whistle then tongue click. It was Quinn and the boys' little thing they did. Grandpa did it to Damon one day and Damon said,"Grandpa, you haven't even seen the movie!"
-Tommy was riding on Grandpa's back in the pool. Grandpa was his crocodile. Damon was trying to bug him and get on. Tommy said, "No, this is MY crocodile!"
-Damon helped Grandpa make raspberry ice cream. It was kind of over flowing and grandpa told Damon to get a spoon and start eating some of it, then he walked out of the room. All of a sudden Damon starts panicking and asks Grandma when he's supposed to stop eating! It was really funny!

Other stuff:
-I enjoyed visiting with Rolayne in her room one night
-I helped stuff and address wedding announcements
-Grandpa made his awesome cookies...I really had to restrain myself, but not sure I did a very good job at that.
-Grandpa taught Damon how to crack an egg
-Tommy loved climbing and jumping off the rock wall in the grandparent's backyard
-We enjoyed delicious corn, green beans, asparagus, peaches, and lots of other produce from Jessie's corn stand
-We had Cafe Rio!!
-We had snow cones!
-I saw my best friend/roommate from college while the grandparents babysat the boys
-I drove by (many times) the school I taught at my first year of teaching
-We had fun!