Utah Trip

You are going to get a lot of pictures this time. We took our big trip to Utah and it was great! I will tell about it with pictures and then fill in where I need to.

Right before we left we picked three big bowls of pears off of our pear tree and put them in our almost empty fridge.  Pears have to be refrigerated for a few weeks before they will ripen on the counter.  Thomas and Stuart loved helping daddy.  We got the pears our after we got home and they were wonderful.  Actually, only one bowl has fully ripened and we ate them, gave them away, and I made pear sauce.  Now I have two more bowls to experiment with.

We drove to Cynthia's house on a Tuesday night and then made the trip in two days from there to David's grandparents' house in Layton.  The boys did great on the trip.  David's aunt Ruby Rae and her two boys Hyrum and Haven also live with them.  We went with Ruby Rae and the boys to the aerospace museum at Hill Air Force Base.  The boys loved the big airplanes and helicopters.

Thomas loved playing outside in their yard.  The trampoline and sandbox were his favorites.  Stuart was scared of the dogs even though they were tied up.  They had fun making a mess of some yogurt bars.  What a cute boy!

One morning we went to a nearby pond/walking path that had lots of ducks.  You could tell the ducks were used to getting fed (we are not allowed to feed the waterfowl in Maumelle).  We gave them a few pieces of bread and we were surrounded.  One took a piece of bread right out of Stuart's hand.  We went on the bridge later and fed them from there and it was much better.

We took the boys to temple square.  Thomas liked the picture of all the planets and stars behind the Christus at the visitor's center.  We gave him a pass along card that had a picture of the temple on it and he had to show it to the temple.

This was the best we could do as far as a family picture.  Thomas was anti-camera this trip.  Walking around the temple grounds brought back a lot of memories for David and me since we were married in the Salt Lake Temple six and half years ago.

In downtown Salt Lake you can ride Trax for free, so we took the boys on it just for fun.  Thomas liked riding on the trains.  We only rode a few blocks then turned around and came back.

I was glad the boys got to meet their great-grandparents.  It was good to be there.

Next, we went and saw my friend and old roommate Adri.  She had three boys when we saw her and has had her fourth since we left.  The boys had fun together and it was great seeing them.

Here is where we failed to take any pictures for some reason.  We went to David's best friend Harold's house for two days.  We had a lot of fun with them.  They were good enough to watch our boys so we could go to the temple.  I also went to see my friend Heather in Eagle Mountain.  She has four girls, but the boys had fun playing with the girl toys.  We had a good visit as well.

Finally, we drove down south to go to our cabin in Duck Creek Village in the mountains near Cedar City.  Stuart got sick in the car on the way and David already wasn't feeling too great, but we got to see something we didn't even know we would pass.  It was called Cedar Breaks and there were a couple of places to pull off and look at it.  We were glad we at least we got to see this since we didn't get to go to Bryce Canyon like we had planned.  This is a "don't make the An'mere nervous" picture.

We were so excited to have our whole Stewart family together again, since it had been ten years.  They had a little playground at the "resort" we stayed at.  Thomas particularly liked the tether ball.  He also had fun digging in the dirt and sand with his cousins.

Josh and Leila made bird feeders with the kids (including Anna).  Just kidding; she was a great help with all the little kids.

Cora and Thomas playing in the rocks.  They also played with a parachute Grandma brought and did a piñata.  Grandma always brings fun stuff!

The cousins had fun playing together.  Our boys were a bit shy since it was such a big group and they weren't feeling well the whole time either.  Thomas is playing Twister here.

On Friday we started our East family reunion with my mom's side of the family.  They were mostly camping and we met over at the campground for our activities and meals.  It was very dusty, but the kids loved it!  I saw cousins that I haven't seen in many, many years.  It was great!

Here are some of those cousins, Tyrell, Ann, Caia and Billy and one of Ann and Tyrell's newly adopted children.  I didn't take many pictures there, unfortunately.  Sunday we had a little "devotional" and talked about our family.  It was good.  My mother and her brother John (who did not come) are the only two living siblings out of five.  So she was our matriarch. Stuart and Thomas were both sick starting on Friday night and David got sick on Sunday morning and I came home and crashed after the devotional.  We were ready to go home by Monday morning.  We made the drive in two days without any problems and everyone started to feel better.

Now we are home and waiting for our baby girl to come in about five weeks!  As you may have noticed during our trip the lens cover on the camera broke, so we sent it back (we only got it in March), and they are supposed to fix it, so there won't be any pictures for the next little while.  We just hope we get it back before the baby is born.