What Utah taught me...

1. Vacations with the whole family can be achieved with only a few meltdowns.
2. Moms in Utah go to Walmart with all of their kids. 4,5,6,...
3. Other families take their kids out to dinner and understand when your 19month old wants to turn and look at them.
4. Some moms combine with other moms and take all their kids to Walmart.
5. American Fork has the fastest Urgent Care I've ever been in. (1 hour)
6. It pays to pack extra clothes in case your kids puke on you or themselves.
7. DVD players in the car were created by parents who take their kids on long trips.
8. I want to move to Utah so I can join the 4 boys club. (We saw a few families like that on our visit.)
9. Temple Square is as peaceful as it was when I served there 15 years ago, and the Sisters still have a certain pause when they speak. You have to be a TS sister to fully understand.
10. I love spending fun time with my boys and husband.
11. Excited for another fun trip sometime.
12. You can never have too much Anti-bactrial hand sanatizer!!!

New Years 2009!!!

We all tried to sleep in after being up so late. It kinda worked. My throat really started to hurt and I was trying to figure out what was going on. I was really not looking forward to doing anything today. We watched the Rose Parade...a tradition I really like. I told the boys someday we'll go and see it live. We had lunch at a resturant Jason had gone gone about JCW'S. He said the food was super yummy. It was good, but I could have enjoyed it more. I will say that the chocolate shake was huge and YUMMY. Perfect for the throat.
We headed over to J&L's and decided we owed the boys a sledding experience. Spencer was not so sure about it, Garrett really didn't want to do it, as this picture shows He was much happier playing on the playground.

Ammon LOVED it and Talmage we had to drag kicking and screaming away. We got some really fun pictures of everyone.
Michael got some good air time!
I totally love the looks on the boys & Michael's faces in these pictures. It just showed how much fun they were having.
Yes I went sledding a couple of times too. But I enjoyed being over by Garrett and Spencer. Spencer slid down the slide and his facial reaction is priceless!! We headed back afterwards to figure out dinner and something else to do. Leslie and I felt yucky enough, she checked my throat and said you look like you have strep! (I found out the next day that I did) The boys had pizza, we had soup and sandwiches and we all played on the Wii. The boys really like Mario Kart and Guitar Hero. Michael & I like Guitar hero too. We said our goodbyes and headed back to the hotel for the final night.

Thanks to Jason, Leslie and the boys for letting us come and take up so much of their time. We really had fun despite the illnesses. You're great friends. Glad we were able to reconnect.

New Years Eve in Utah

Poor Garrett still feeling under the weather, mom was not far behind. I had been feeling under the weather too, sore throat that would come and go. Anyways, we plugged on with our vacation in Utah. On New Year's Eve we decided to head up to Salt Lake City. Really wanted to go to Temple Square and Leslie has a membership to the Children's Discovery Museum. The boys had a blast and I was taking tons of pictures. Then I ran out of room on my memory stick, so I thought. I had forgotten to put it back in and I was putting them on the hard drive of the camera!AHHHHHH! Luckily I have a wonderful hubby and we were very fortunate that a Office Depot was just a couple blocks away. Otherwise, I would have missed some fun pictures of my family! Talmage with balls.Spencer watching the balls go up the tube. Garrett is hoping for a job in Law Enforcement for the Little Tikes. Ammon is going to be our pilot!
After lunch we headed to Temple Square. It was really COLD! We had Spencer and Garrett all bundled up to keep them nice and warm. And we rode the railway system to save us from having to walk in it.
Our time on Temple Square was pretty quick, because I was feeling pretty
yucky. And Garrett too. I told Michael we have to come back in the summer when it's warmer. But we got some nice pictures of the family by the Temple.I like this one. You can tell Garrett doesn't feel well. But I am highly trained in Smiling when you feel badly. Ancient Temple Square Sister secret!!
We had some IHop dinner, hit the Walmart, back to the hotel to put on our Pj's then over to J&L's for movie, hot chocolate, and banging pots at midnight. Michael & Spencer crashed about 11:30. The others made it until midnight. Ammon was so excited that he got to stay up so late. And they had fun too. Happy New Year boys!

Utah Vacation pt 1.

So Michael says to me "Why don't we go to Utah and visit our friends Jason & Leslie after Christmas?" When he said we he meant the family. I came up with lots of reasons we shouldn't go, but in the end...I'm glad we went. The boys had fun, made a couple of new friends and really enjoyed themselves. So did mom & Dad. So the Monday after Christmas we packed up the suburban, the boys and ourselves and headed up to Utah. We bought a new DVD player for the car because our old one died. That was a life saver, plus the Nintendos!We survived the 8+ hour drive. And the roads were nice and clear for us. The mountains were covered with snow and beautiful. Low and behold the next morning as we were getting ready for the day, Garrett started puking!!! He was burning hot with fever. I didn't know how high,but I knew he needed medicine NOW! Michael went to the Walmart to pick up some stuff. Poor Garrett.We just figured that we'd head over to our friends and see how he did now that he had medicine in his system. He got sick again and Leslie suggested we use one of the suposatory for nauesa. It worked and he fell asleep for a few hours. The boys had been playing on the Wii and would have been happy to stay there all day. But while he slept, Michael & Jason took the boys to Cabela's and Leslie introduced me to Guitar Hero on their Wii. It was pretty cool. Ok REALLY COOL. That night we braved the cold and Garrett had been feeling a little better, and went to Mayan Adventure. It's this super cool resturant with a Indiana Jones feel with a cliff diving show. Our wait was very short in comparision. Check these out. Talmage, Ammon, S, and Mayan guy. & us waiting for dinner with the boys.
Definatly ones of the highlights of the boys trip.