Ogden

Kathy was nice enough to drive us up to Northern Utah on Tuesday. We had a nice drive up and the kids slept. It is amazing how much shorter that drive gets the older I get.

We did have one incident where Lilly started crying she had to go bathroom. We pulled over to a gas station and I brought her in. She cried the whole time and I had to carry her. Then when we got back in the car I noticed she was pale white and couldn’t keep her eyes open. It was scary and I thought we were going to have to bring her to the hospital. She fell right to sleep and was bright eyed when she woke up. I am thinking she was just overly tired maybe?

Kathy dropped me off at my office and dropped Tyson and the kids off at the airport to pick up a rental car. I spent about 30 minutes in the office just checking in and picking up my Christmas present. Then Tyson picked me up and we drove up to Ogden. We spent the night settling in and getting groceries. We also got to visit Tyson’s sister, Michaelenne’s, beautiful new home. It was nice to be in Ogden.

Ready for bed at Grandma and Grandpa's house

The next morning we woke up bright and early and headed up to Logan for dental work. I had 8 cavities and 1 root canal, Tyson had 4 cavities and even Lilly at 2 cavities. Tyson’s brother Chad was nice enough to fix up our teeth. Thank you Chad and Brandon for the great work you did!!

I was so proud of Lilly. Her pediatric dentist here in Iowa said she had a cavity and wanted to send her to the hospital to get put under for the dental work. They said she was too young to do it at the dental office. Chad disagreed because Lilly was really good at being calm and opening her mouth. He did all of her work and she was amazing.

While mommy and daddy were getting their teeth fixed

After we arrived home I went out on a girl’s night with my friends while Tyson took care of the kids. It was so, so, so nice to have a girl’s night out. We had an early dinner at Sonora Grill and then hit a late night movie.

The next morning was also spent up in Logan to finish up our dental work.  We then had a surprise party for my brother, David. David thought he was doing a catering event for Sonora Grill that was cancelled. My other brother, Steven, told him to drop the food at my mom and dad’s house since we were visiting. When he showed up to drop off the food we were all there. All the nieces and nephews were so excited to jump out and say surprised. It did scare Bennett though. David was really confused. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to go back to work or not.

David and Bennett

Mike and Bennett

Max and Bennett

My favorite pictures were of Max's hands in Bennett's face. Bennett smiled every time. 

Gracie, Gretchen, Lilly, Lucy and Rachel

On Friday morning we visited David and Leslie’s new house. Leslie did a fantastic job decorating with that bright red carpet! It looks amazing. Lilly loves their little boy Luke. They walk around holding hands. It is adorable and they had some fun playing solo. It was also fun because David had the morning off (David works a lot) so we got to visit with him. And we got to spend some more time with my new nephew, Max. He was at the house being watched by Leslie.

Luke and Lilly

The night was spent at Brandon and Julia’s spectacular new home in Perry. A lot of people in the family got new homes in the past year. Lilly has a special spot in her heart for her uncle Brandon. I think it is because he lets her play with his chair which she thinks is so cool.

This trip was different because Lilly could play independently with the cousins without much supervision from us. It was bitter sweet because this is the moment I had been looking forward to the most with the extended family; wanting my kids to be able to play with the cousins happily and sadly we don’t even live by the extended family.   

Lilly tired out from so much fun.

We couldn’t have a Utah trip without going out to breakfast with the Ballards. Since Richard (my dad) wasn’t there we went to Denny’s. Denny’s is usually vetoed by Richard. I love Denny’s. It was a good way to say goodbye to my side of the family.

The rest of the day was spent up in Logan at Chad’s house. Michaelenne announced she was pregnant with a baby boy. They didn’t know it was a boy back then but have since found out it is a boy. It was another great and yummy dinner with the family.

Brandon and Julia

McKenzie and Tessa

Greyson and Lilly

Sam

Chad and Nate

Angie and Kathy

Michaelenne

All the kids under 5

Bennett, Karen and Leah

Libbie and Ellie with the little girls

I think we packed a lot of things in our Ogden stay. We got to get caught up with everyone and see all the new houses. Thank you Richard and Gloria for letting us stay at your house! Thank you everybody for hanging out with us!

We flew home Sunday morning. Our flight home went extremely smooth. We sat in front of a slightly naughty family with kids (nothing too bad). Lilly and Bennett slept most of the time and the rest of the time Lilly spent on the IPad. When the flight was over a lady sitting near us mentioned how well behaved our kids were. I was thankful they were good. 

Herbert update - Some of you asked what we did with Herbert while we were gone. We had some boys from the ward come over every other day to ensure Herbert had water and food. They stayed at the house a little bit so Herbert would eat (he doesn't like to eat without people there) and have some company. Herbert doesn't do well with this though and sits and barks at the dog sitter the whole time. When we got home you could tell that Herbert had some anxiety while we were gone. He had a red spot on his nose that he had licked raw. Herbert is pretty forgiving though and he was just over excited to see us. He does get too excited to sleep though which is annoying for me. 

Bennett seemed to have discovered the dog right when we got home. It was like he realized that the dog wasn't just a norm in the world. He gets so excited to see Herbert and really really wants to eat the dog's ear or tail. Bennett just doesn't understand why Herbert won't let him suck on his ear for a couple of minutes. 

St. George

On Saturday morning we were driven to the airport by Grandpa Richard and Grandma Gloria. We flew from Phoenix to Las Vegas in a very short 1 and a half hour flight. I wanted Bennett to sleep the whole flight so I didn’t feed him or let him sleep until we got in the plane. This caused Bennett to be a very grumpy baby. He was fussing by the time we got on the plane and people were starting to give us worried looks. Luckily, he ate and fell asleep before we even took off and slept the whole time.

When we landed in Vegas we were picked up by Grandma Kathy. We were all very excited to see Grandma Kathy and were very grateful she came all the way from St. George to pick us up. We decided we would stop at the strip while we were in Vegas. Because it was a Saturday and it just started to get warm the strip was packed. It was smelly and not as fun as I last remembered it so we left quickly. We did watch a short 3D movie at M&M World. It was the first 3D Lilly has ever watched so that was pretty funny seeing her react. It was loud though which made Bennett cry.

We took a small detour to Trader Joe's and the M&M Factory (not the one on the strip). The chocolate factory was closed during the weekends so we didn’t get to see them making the chocolate. Then it was off to St. George.

One of our highlights of St. George was stopping at the Valley of Fire on our drive there. Tyson was really excited to show Lilly the red rocks and to do some hiking with her. It was really cute seeing them explore together. We climbed up the long staircase to see the Indian petroglyphs, took a hike to a hidden lake, and took a lot of pictures. I hiked with Bennett in a carrier and it ended up being a good workout for me.

After church on Sunday we headed to the sand dunes at Snow Canyon. I hadn’t been to the sand dunes since I was 8 years old so I was excited but Tyson was even more excited. You would have thought Tyson was the 3 year old in the family with the enthusiasm he brought into making a sand castle. Lilly was more excited trying to find and dig up buried treasure and planting sticks to look like trees. Bennett, Grandma Kathy and I spent our time relaxing and enjoying the warm weather.  

Monday was St. Patrick’s Day and Grandma made us a green St. Patrick’s day breakfast. Once everyone was dressed in green we headed to the Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm. When I was at Dixie State College I volunteered at the Dinosaur Discovery Site (before there was a museum) and helped dig up some of the dinosaur bones. I was really excited to show it to Lilly. She was most interested in the cartoon dinosaur movie and sandbox with fake bones in it.  

Then off we went to go swimming. We went swimming at the Washington City Pool. It was an inside pool but the heater was not on very high. Tyson immediately went into the pool with Lilly and dunked her under the water bucket. She was not having it. She didn’t want to do the slides or any of the other fun things at the pool after that. Since she is so small she gets cold really easy and I think we only lasted 45 minutes before we had to leave. To make matters even worse Tyson forgot to bring towels with him. Tyson is not invited swimming again. 

We had a lot of fun with Grandma Kathy. It was fun for both Tyson and I to be in St. George with the kids since both of us have lived down there during some time of our lives. The weather was warm and it was sad to leave the warm to go to the cold of Northern Utah.

Thank you Kathy for letting us stay with you, for driving us around, making us yummy food and for being such a great grandma. We all miss you already!