Good Old Provo

Provo holds a very dear spot in Nate & my hearts.  This is where we met, this is where we dated, this is where our lives began.  This is where I moved away from home for the first time to.  This is where I really grew up into the person I decided to be.  Provo means so much to me and to Nate.  We went to Provo several times because we just couldn't stay away.  

We took Jaxton & Cooper to hike the Y on the mountain.  They were very excited about this.  It's been years since Nate and I had done it.  Jaxton purposefully packed his hiking backpack to take up the Y mountain.  It was a steep trail, and the kids got tired, but they kept going.  We totally missed the trail going to the bottom of the Y, and we went all the way up to the tip top of the Y.  We sat up there for a few minutes looking out at the valley.  It was beautiful.  We got up there before the sun came shining over the mountain, so we hiked in the shade all the way up and most of the way down.  What an accomplishment.  

We also took the kids to the CougarEat of course just for memories sake and to show the kids where they would be eating lunch someday when they came here for college.  We got everyone some BYU shirts and a sticker for our car to sport our favorite college.  

Nate and I drove around provo on memory lane, showing the kids were we used to live, we took them around campus showing them the business building, the math building, the english building, and the library where he and I had our first class together.  Nate and I also stopped at Mama Chu's Mexican restaurant, our own favorite place in Orem to eat.  The same owner and the same waitresses were still there serving us.  The owner even remembered us!  That was pretty awesome!  

Cassidy, our niece was moving into her apartment in Provo, so we stopped to see her new place and spent some time with her as she was getting accustomed to her new surroundings.  We love Provo.  Such a fun place!

Salt Lake Valley

When we finally arrived in Salt Lake City, we were thrilled.  The drive had been manageable.  My family was there to greet us.  We were glad to be done traveling for a while.  The kids immediately picked up right where they left off with their cousins, Amanda, Dillon, Spencer, & Bella.  It was fun to get to know the younger cousins again, who have grown up 2 years from when we last saw them.  Amanda is 9, Dillon is 8, Spencer is almost 5, and Bella is 3.  My mom's basement has been converted into a preschool, so it was decked out with activities for the kids to enjoy every moment we were there.  I enjoyed spending time with my parents, and my sisters too.  

We had a barbecue the first night.  Marcos, Melissa's husband did a chilean barbecue, the same we remember from when we used to live in Utah.  The kids played and played and played.  Everything from soccer, to sprinklers, to magnets, to buildings, to dress up, and everything in between.  We spent some time at the park with them and spent time at Melissa's new home just a few minutes up the road from my mom & dad's house.  Becky came also to visit, and it was so good to catch up with her.  She is doing so well, and seems so happy, it is so great to see her with confidence in her eyes.  She is so talented at her work and is doing such great service to the young girls that she leads and teaches.  She is doing so much good in the world with her efforts.  

We spent time with Lindsay, my old roommate, at Legacy Park in Salt Lake City.  Lindsay and her family recently moved back to Kaysville, UT while her husband Kris is going to nurse anesthetist school.  She has 2 darling daughters and a little 2 year old boy.  

We also spent time with the Glausers, Melissa & Steve.  They have 4 kids now, and it is so fun to catch up with them.  We always enjoyed spending time with them and could talk about all kinds of things we had in common.  

We also spent time with Johnny and Jamie and their 2 little blond boys in Cedar Hills across the street from our old house.  Johnny, Nate's best friend, hasn't changed much, and the two of them got to catch up quite a bit.  

One morning we went to temple square to see the temple and eat at the lion house.  We took the kids to the Church Office Building where we knew President Monson works.  We walked around the temple and in the visitors center.  There is such a neat spirit there.  The kids are 2 years older than when we were here last time, so they could understand more and enjoy the experience more.  

Salt Lake City is such a neat place.  We will never tire of visiting there.  So much to see and do, so many memories, and family of course.  

Utah cousins

St. George

We arrived in St. George after a nice 7 hour drive.  The red rocks and cliffs and mountains appeared quickly as we approached St. George from the flat desert of Arizona.  It was magnificent.  The red rocks and cliffs and caves everywhere were such amazing sights of nature.  We stayed in a condo on the west side of the city where the kids got to swim and play outside. The condo had a room with 2 sets of bunk beds and the kids each got their own.  That was pretty fun.  Little Nathan slept in a pack n play in our big closet.  We got our own groceries to feed us breakfast lunch, and even dinner.  We had a barbecue the second night out on our large deck that overlooked the park and pool.  It really was super fun staying there. 

In St. George we visited a few places that are rich with our own ancestry.  My moms grandmas house is still standing on the corner of 2 roads.  My mom remembers staying there as a child and playing in the water ditches along the road.  

The Daughters of the Utah Pioneers museum had a room that held the tools of one of our relatives, and the photos of 3 or 4 of them hung on the walls.  Brigham Young's winter home had an office outside of his home where our ancestor, James Godsen Bleak, was his office assistant.  He had been unable to work in the fields because of his frostbitten toes, and instead was hired by Brigham Young to work the finances of the church in that office.  His picture hangs in that office building on the wall.  I remember taking a picture of me and my sisters underneath that picture.  Someday it will mean just as much to my children as it does to me. 

Before we left St. George we visited the caves.  That was really really fun.  A simple "hiking" experience for the kids.  The red rock caves were molds of nature that we could climb up on top, climb under and inside.  The kids loved all of it.  Definitely a sight to see.  The nature of that city is just incredible, the lines in the rock cliffs created after billions of years of water levels rising and falling.  Evidence of the earth's creation right before our eyes.

 

Trip to The West

We planned our trip to Utah in a unique way this summer.  The lowest costs flights were through Allegiant Air.  We scored non-stop flights directly from Fort Wayne to Mesa, Arizona using Allegiant. This way we could see Nick & Carissa in Mesa for part of our trip.  We would rent a van and attempt to drive to Salt Lake, stopping in St. George on the way, a total of 10-11 hours.  Since we recently did a 12 hour drive to Florida, we figured we could handle this.  The last 3 days of our trip we would stay in Mesa before flying home to Fort Wayne.  

As we got to the airport on Wednesday to head to Mesa, everyone was excited.  Dawson especially was so excited to ride on a real airplane!  The flight was supposed to leave around 2:30pm.  Unfortunately it got delayed.  They told us that the plane had mechanical problems.  About an hour later, they told us the plane was not going to be able to fly that day at all.   But there was a plane that may be coming from Las Vegas and that they'd let us know.  Well, several hours later, they confirmed that the Las Vegas plane would come to Fort Wayne to take us to Mesa.  But it had not left yet.  They delayed the flight till 7:50pm.  We rented a car for $25 for an hour and went to the nearby mall to eat dinner and pass the time.  When we got back, we got airport dinner vouchers and ice cream.  By 7:30, they delayed the flight again till 9:30.  The airline bought pizza for everyone.  So we just hung around.  After 9pm, they delayed again till 10:45 or so.  At 10 it got delayed till 11:25.  The last we heard, the delay was going to be until 1:30am.  At that point it was after 11pm, really late, and we got jammies on the kids and found the cleanest place in the airport to get the kids to try to sleep.  Then, just after we got settled, they CANCELLED the flight.  It got rescheduled for the following afternoon.  So we spent about 11 hours in the airport in Fort Wayne!!  

We had gotten dropped off, so by the time it would be to have someone come get us and take us home, we'd have had to turn around and drive back to the airport because each time they delayed, it was only a couple hours.  We got to know the people on our flight really well.  We felt like the show "Lost" where we got to know everyone around us really well since we all were in the same boat.  One kind lady made sure we got 2 large whole pizzas reserved for our big family, and she brought us sodas too.  Other people who were discouraged and frustrated with the airline, looked at us and commented, realizing that their situation could be worse if they had 5 kids hanging out in the airport like we did.  It was a frustrating experience for all.  But the kids were such angels, that it made such a difference.  The kids were troopers.  They dealt with the delays like champs.  Not much complaining, they were cooperating, they were patient.  Even little Dawson waited and waited and waited to get on that airplane.  He would watch other planes out the airport windows and wait for his plane.  After all that waiting, we ended up just going home!! If he was disappointed, he didn't show it, and we got on our airplane the following afternoon.  And he was sure proud at that.  In Mesa, we got off the plane outside, which was even more of an experience than getting off and walking in a tunnel.  That was exciting for all the kids, especially Dawson.  

Fireworks

We went to the new Leo Riverside Gardens park with some friends for the Fourth of July Fireworks show.  It was the neatest show we've been to in a long time!  There were so many people, music, vendors, and fun.  People were letting off lanters, (like in Rapunzel, Kaylee informed me) and the kids enjoyed watching them float up.  Dawson was a little nervous with the fireworks noise at first, but then he enjoyed the show.  And Nathan was so shocked and intrigued he just watched them without hardly moving a muscle.  Cooper wanted to know what the grand finale was like.  He kept asking, "is this it?"   We told him, "you'll know, when you see it."  He kept asking, but when it came, he knew!  That was fun!

Fourth of July

The Fourth of July is always so memorable.  This year the boys painted giant flags to put up on our house.  That was fun for them.  And Dawson and Kaylee painted red white and blue pictures too to put up.  

We went down to Noblesville to Melissa and John's house for the day.  They had a bounce house with a water slide which was the biggest hit.  They had some fun games for the kids.  In one game, the teams had to thaw and put on a frozen t shirt.  That was pretty fun!  The food was excellent, and the family was so much fun to be around.  

Happy Fourth of July!