vacation part 2: Utah (or There and Back Again)

I have about a zillion pictures from this part of the trip, so this is pretty picture-heavy. Consider yourself warned.

We took 2 days to drive from Kirksville to Utah. We had some crazy weather . . . on the first day, we drove through Nebraska in record heat. It was 100 degrees most of the day. But the next day, as we drove through Wyoming and into Utah, it was in the 40s. How are you supposed to pack for such widely varying temperatures? Ridiculous. In any case, we were very glad to get to Provo and get out of the car!

He may look happy, but don't let that fool you.
This boy wanted OUT.

On our first full day there, we mostly visited with my grandma, uncles, and my sister-in-law Sarah. My dad took us on a small tour of Springville, his home town, and my parents took us out to dinner. It was nice to have a relaxing day after the drive. 

The next day, we went up to Salt Lake City and visited Temple Square. Thomas had never been there, of course, since he'd never been to Utah at all. We went on a tour of the conference center, saw a lot of other buildings, and had a really nice lunch. We got lucky, the weather was perfect that day.

Two of my siblings live in Utah and three more ended up coming to visit at the same time we did, so we had a mini-family reunion. It was pretty great. I loved having so many of us together, and it was especially fun to have so many babies together! My uncle Ralph and aunt Linda had everyone over to their house for dinner, and we got a lot of pictures of everyone. It was also my brother Mark's birthday that day, but he was sick, poor guy. 

3 sets of twins

babies!

my favorite picture from the trip

The next day was spent at my grandpa's house. He is 93 and is unfortunately not able to live on his own anymore, but my dad and Thomas went and picked him up from his nursing home to come spend the day at his house. Thomas really enjoyed getting to meet and talk to him.

4 generations

Uncle Thomas and the babies

We had everyone together again at my brother Hyrum's house that Saturday. It was so fun to have everybody there!

all 15 cousins

Jamie & Abigail playing a duet

That same day, my old roommate Shyla got married, and we went to her reception in the evening. I was so glad I was able to be there! It was a lot of fun to see her and also to see other old roommates and friends who were also there. It had been a really long time since I'd seen anyone.

On Sunday we went to hear the Tabernacle Choir in the morning. It was pretty great.

Jamie at 11 months

another 4 generation picture

My brothers who don't live in Utah left that day. My sister-in-law Sarah was still there, so we got to spend time with her (and of course her cute babies) on her birthday. We also spent some time with more friends. It was so good to see everyone!!

I gave Thomas and Jamie a tour around BYU. It was pretty fun to show them everything, and we also got to see two really awesome exhibits. One of them was in the special collections at the library, and the other was the Museum of Art. Pretty much fabulous.

We spent our last couple days at Hyrum & Kim's house (we had been staying with my grandma before that) and we had a lot of fun! Thomas is such a good uncle and had a blast playing with Zealan and Caslea, and I think Rivers and Jamie enjoyed making messes together. . .  And I think Thomas and Hyrum had fun playing Magic and talking about fantasy books. We also got to go to Caslea's first grade play. It was pretty darn cute.

badger badger badger

We had more crazy weather on our drive out of Utah.

taken May 19th

We spent 2 days driving back to Missouri. We stayed in St. Louis and went to the wedding of a friend of ours from high school. It was a lot of fun, and there were a lot of people from back home there. Congrats Maggie & Danny!

One more day of driving and we were finally back to Knoxville and more importantly out of the car! We loved being on vacation, but one of the nicest things about it was how nice it made it feel to be home and back on our normal routine.

We loved seeing everyone and can't wait til the next time we get to!