I am not sure what made me think I could do it but I decided to drive the boys to Utah to visit family for a few weeks. I think it helped just knowing that I would have some good friends traveling the same day to pretty much the same area (thanks Flamm family).
Joe came up with a great motivator for the boys to try and behave on the trip and gave each of them an envelope with 10 $1 bills in it. I then got to decide when someone needed a $1 removed from the envelope and could also let them earn it back. It ended up working out quite well. I realized that Ryland was still a bit too young to really understand the whole $$ concept when he said he just wanted $7. Nevertheless, it still helped. I think they all had earned $10 by then end.
We stopped in Boise and stayed at a nice hotel to break it up a bit. We got there in time to grab some dinner and then take a dip in the pool. We pretty much had the whole pool to ourselves so that was kinda nice to get wiggles out. The hotel even offered complimentary sodas and hors d'œuvres which was fun for after the pool.
Aunt L is always so great with our boys and once again had her basement completely set up for them. This time it was a space theme and their tents were all made into spaceships.
~thanks aunt L~
Our weather at home up until the trip was pretty mild to say the least and I was looking forward to some real summer weather. Unfortunately, it was quite a bit hotter then my pg body could handle. All my energy was zapped!! We were still able to do some fun things though and visit with lots of cousins.
We went to a water park called Cowabunga Bay as well as camping up American Fork Canyon our first weekend there with Aunt L, grandma Meg and Kaden.
While camping L and I happened to see a moose... of course, none of the boys were with us.
Aunt L has also been the one to teach them all to ride a bike without training wheels and it was Ryland's turn. So proud!!
Having a little fun at Grandma Loveless' house.
We met up with grandma Stephenson at Thanksgiving Point to see the dinosaur museum and the 3D movie Sea Rex.
Grandma Stephenson's pool is always a huge hit and one day the boys spent a shriveling 5 hours in it.
We had quite a bit of thunderstorms while there and one day it produced some pretty big sized hail. The kids had a great time anyway.
Before church...
Joe flew in for our last wknd there to say a quick hello and help drive us home. We were able to go out on Utah Lake on Grandma Loveless' new boat ~ it was a great time although it did get stormy quickly and we had to leave much earlier than we wanted. Brian and Joe on the death biscuit was quite hilarious!! (*I think I will make a separate post just for those pictures... there are quite a few good ones and are pretty priceless!!)Sat. night we were able to get Joe's parents and all the siblings that live in UT together for dinner at Sweet Tomatoes. Thanks for making some time for us!!!
phew - going through almost 650 pics is not an easy task!!!
