Summer Road Trip!!!

Yup!!!  Driving to UTAH!!!  Honestly I am not a road trip kind of person but when you have 4 people (aka:family) going on a trip, driving to Utah is much less expensive than flying and renting car.  It was our annual trek to BYU for Education Week.  But added a few extra days to be with friends as well.

Our timing was great as there was a Home Tour going on.  We took full advantage and got LOTS of great ideas and dreams.  I want to do this on the wall in our bedroom:

 

And want to do this to our entryway/living room wall and up the stairs.  I just can't get this out of my mind.  I LOVE IT!!!!

While in this GINORMOUS house, I got separated from the rest of the family because of my love affair with these wall treatments.  I went on a search for them.  Any guesses where I found them?

Yup!!  In the home theater room, kicking back watching a movie.  SO my family!!!

And the backyards didn't disappoint either.  Rob found a few things he wants to do too.

You can see it in his eyes:

We had also heard about the UP house (decorated like the house in the Disney movie UP) was nearby (not on the tour).  And we found it!!!

The rest of the time was spent at the Salt Lake City Farmer's Market with friends

Visiting a new and most favorite cookie place EVER!!!

Saying "HI" to our chocolate friends

Spending Sunday at Temple Square and seeing Music and The Spoken Word

My cute babies in the car

Seeing Frank and Kathie Greeno after way too many years!!!  Amber and David had never met them before so that tells you how long.

Went up to Park City

Stayed with our fabulous friends, Ken and Cyndi

Had a fabulous view of the Draper temple from our bedroom

Met up with friends we haven't seen since we left California - John and Tylyn.  So fun to catch up!

And a "girls only" with my Margaritaville girlies!!  Honestly no reference to drinking here - we all lived in a city called Rancho Santa Margarita.  LOVE these girls!!

Then the week was over, just like that (SNAP)!  We had to stop again at RubySnap for cookies for the road.  You know, you have to have a reward for getting to certain miles.  Plus we hoped that the owner, Tami would be there.  Her daughter was serving her mission in our area and we had a picture to deliver.  We brought her to tears as she was just missing her little girl the past few days.

She was moving so fast we never got a good picture of her.

And one of the BEST parts of the trip was meeting up with these people on the way out of Utah.

Lianne McCoy and her daughter Kensie and Leif Walde. 

Of course we had to go see the Brigham City Temple.  So beautiful!!

But you know what was the strangest part of the trip?  Not having Robert or Lizzie there with us.  My Mom and Grandma heart hurt not being able to see them.  Dang them for moving!!!

Brigham City marks the start of this:

A whole lot of NOTHING!!!!  Nothing through Utah and Idaho.  Now you understand why we reward ourselves.

The kids catch up on their sleep

We see awesome license plates

And they sleep some more



 

 

Until next year Utah!!!!

Back to School Photo Shoot

So this year we decided to take advantage of Courtney Price Photography's "Old School" session instead of those typical blah school pictures.  Plus we were out of town when they took the pictures and forgot on makeup day.  That's just fine because these are SO much better!!!  David is currently a junior in high school.

When did my little boy grow up?

After Disneyland...

...we were home for about 1.5 weeks and then off to Portland.  David was in our favorite honor band - Music in May out at Pacific University.  Rob and I made a chocolate tasting event out of it at 2 shops that carry our bars.  We had a blast!!

All the while wondering when we would get the word when we could do this:

Welcome Ryan home from his first deployment.  After a 4 hour delay, we finally got to do this!
 

Funny story - due to the base requirements, you have to have proper military stickers on your vehicle to get on base.  There is a parking lot just outside the base for people to park.  So we parked our car there and crawled into Tabitha's Prius to get on base.  The 3 of us were pretty snug in the back seat once Ryan arrived but the ride to the parking lot from the airport on base was literally less than 2 minutes.  Guess who forgot we were in the back seat?  Tabitha drove right by the parking lot!!  We all laughed and said we really didn't want to go home with them.  Something we won't let her forget!

YIKES!!!! Unexpected Absence Again!

Sorry!!!  Life just went screaming (mostly fun) out of control.  Not to mention problems with BOTH computers (family room and office) that I just didn't get the chance to post.  Not that I didn't think about the blog.  In fact, I wondered if anyone really checks here any more.  I guess it really is just for me because I do print out these books.  Sort of a family journal. 

Any way, I will have a few posts to catch us up.  DISNEYLAND!!!  Very, very, fun!  But also very, very different.  It was just me, Rob and David.  Seth joined us there too for a few days.  We didn't have a car and spent our entire time near the resort.  Which really is an easy thing to do.

One of the most enjoyable parts for me was seeing all my friends. 

Danny, Elise and Anne.  I have not seen Anne since our high school graduation!  It was fabulous to see her!

Lynette

Cathy

Hayley and her sweet little girl, Madyson

Nathalie and Natasha



 

Spending a little time alone with this guy!

 

And getting to eat here!

Talk about magical!  Item crossed off the "bucket list".

And of course, making sure we saw Tinkerbell just for our little Lizzie.

Couldn't have asked for a better time.  Well, except for it to have been longer!