Utah June 26-30, 2012

So our trip started with a flight to Utah.  It was actually much better then I could have thought.  Everything was on time and even with a layover, my kids were great.
At our layover in Phoenix

 

Like I said, we made it to Salt Lake on time and had a small crowd waiting for us.  Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Dillan and future Uncle Tyler all waiting to see us.  

 And if that wasn't enough, we came back to my brother and sister's house, took naps and then met up with the EFY crowd who also wanted to see the kids.  At least we got Jamba Juice out of the deal!

 Making our mark at the BYU bookstore.

 And we found a great pool to hang out at.  Good thing my kids love the water because this pool was cold by our Texas standards.  It was fun though and they didn't really care!  Harrison went back a few times!

 Poor girl looked like this most days as we were out and about a lot of the time we were there.

 

I also managed to get together with one of my oldest college friends, Emily, who is still in the area.  We had a fun afternoon/evening playing at her house and then another day we took our kids to the Bean Museum at BYU and had a picnic lunch outside.  All the kids loved it and Harrison touched his first Skink.

 If you would have told me 10 years ago that I would be meeting a friend that I would still be in touch with after moving away from UT and that we would have 4 kids between the 2 of us, I would have laughed!  But here we are and I'm so glad to have such a great friend! 

 Then on Friday I was able to go to the Provo Temple with my parents and younger brother and be there for my younger sister to go through the temple for the first time.  

It was an awesome experience!

People say we look alike...what do you think?

 Other people who came were her best friend, her fiance and his mom.

A sick but still happy little girl with Grandma and Grandpa!

 Then on Saturday morning, after a really rough night (Raegan got really sick at the end of our trip with a bad cold), I got up (but didn't really sleep to begin with) and went to take my younger sister's engagement pictures.  It was a lot of fun and they are much easier to photograph then my kids!  
We went out to Bridal Veil Falls where they got engaged and took some great pictures.

Then Saturday afternoon it was time to head back to Chicago.  It is about a 21 hour drive and we decided that with a few drivers (even though my dad drove 95% or more) we could do it all straight through. My kids would be the kickers though.  Harrison does really well in the car.  In fact, I told my dad before we left exactly what Harrison would do and I was right.  

We left at about 4 in the afternoon.  He played for a few minutes but was tired so he fell asleep.  Slept for about and hour and then watched a movie and played some games.  At about 9 pm, I said his prayers with him, gave him his blanket and elephant and he crashed.  He woke up about 7 am and then played for a few hours.  Stretched when we stopped for gas and breakfast in the morning.  Watched another movie, slept on and off and played with his games in the car.  We got to my parents about 3 the next afternoon (we lost an hour in time zone change) and Harrison did awesome.

Then we had our little missy!  I wish she looked like this the whole time, but not quite!  She did really well also though and did look like this 95% of the time.  It helped that I was sitting next to her, but the only time she cried was when we stopped for gas (twice) in the night.  I don't know if it was the dark or that the car stopped or what, but both times it just took a few minutes once we got going.  And luckily she fell back asleep at night!  I was able to feed her each time we stopped for gas or give her pumped bottles while we drove.  Other then that, she slept a lot and was entertained by myself or Aunt Della.

 We made it to my parents all in one piece.  The UT portion of our trip flew by and although I didn't grow up with the mountains, I missed them a little as we drove out of town.  Hopefully something will bring us to UT again so we can visit more!