Utah 2011

4 days after moving to Ohio, Vicki (my mother in law: bless her brave and generous heart!) and I loaded up the van and DROVE to Utah. Aaron had to go back to Little Rock to finish up some responsibilities and then met us there. So the road trip...It took us about 30 hours! Way too long, but the kids did as well as can be expected and we all survived. We spent the first week with my family in Fairview. It was great to see Mom and Dad. Susie and Maddie cam down for most of the week and we had a great time. The sad part, with all the unpacking and repacking, I forgot the camera! So we don't have any pictures of us with my family. Very Sad! Thanks to Susie's in-laws, we had fabulous Girls Night Out and got tickets to "Mamma Mia". We hiked up Maple Canyon, we rode 4 wheelers, we played at parks, saw the Mormon Miracle Pageant. It was so good to spend time with everyone!

The second week we were able to participate in the Annual Gardner Family Park City Trip. It's something the Gardner's do every year, but because we live so far away we have only been able to go 2 other times. It was a nice treat for our family. The kids love being with their cousins. We packed our days with fun kid friendly activities. There was always something to do.

The Condos at "The Canyons"

Hours of entertainment was spent at the indoor-outdoor pool

Fishing: the guys took the older kids fishing. Only one fish and one craw fish was caught, but lots of fun was had. Papa's friend even met them with his boat and they all took a ride.

Olympic Park: We spend some time watching skiers practice jumping and landing in a pool. We also took the lift to the top where the big jumps are.

The guys put in a few hikes. My boys (Aaron especially) were right in their element. We miss the mountains!!

Geo Cashing: Nana brought several hand held gps's. She taught us how to enter in the coordinates to some near by treasures. And off we went. The first was was unsuccessful, but after some time we found the second buried treasure. The older kids were really good and following the gps and could tell which way we needed to go and how close we were getting.

All of us at the treasure

Lunch at Flippin' Burgers

Nana doing Bubble tricks while we waited to go into the theater to see Cars 2.

Most of the kids dressed up for family pictures. We are missing Travis's girls.

Family Pictures: this is the snap shot Papa took not the real pic, but it's not bad.

Papa and Nana with all the Grandkids

We had a wonderful trip. We treasure the time we get to spend with both of our families. It usually only happens once a year, so it's a special occasion. And as we always say, there's no place like home...and for us Utah will always be home. Hopefully some day we will get back, and our kids will be able to call it home also.