Artists, French Toast and Tumbleweeds!

Our last day in Utah, we went to visit great grandma and grandpa T.
It hailed while we were there! That was exciting!

We had fun visiting and looking at grandma's beautiful artwork. The girls love to look and wonder how grandma paints these scenes. (Just yesterday, Sarah was looking at the one in our living room trying to figure out how grandma did the ripples and reflection of the Tetons in water.) I think it's neat they really appreciate grandma's talent and hopefully it makes grandma feel good. (o:

Grandpa is very talented too. He does amazing things with wood. I remember the smell of his woodworking shop in his basement when I was growing up. He made most of the frames on grandma's artwrok. This ship took grandpa two years to make. (If I remember right.) I love to look at the details. He said tying the sails was the hardest part. Look at all the strings - if I had tried to do that, they would probably be in a huge messy knot. It must have taken so much time and patience.

These were two of grandma's most recent pieces. The detail is amazing. Isn't it beautiful? I'm so happy that my girls have a good relationship with my grandparents. I love them so much!

Before hitting the road, we had a lovely brunch with my parents and Rudy's* parents at Marie Calendar's. I love and feel very lucky that our parents get along so well. We are so blessed to have such wonderful and fun parents! We love you guys so much and HATE these goodbyes! Sarah was very teary shortly after taking this picture. We are always a little depressed after leaving our favorite people.

Kisses goodbye. )o:

Bye mom. )o:

The ride home was fairly good, but we drove in some CRAZY wind!

The girls were dying as I took this - it was sooo windy. They are showing a tumbleweed that got stuck in the grill. The tumbleweeds were insane! It was hilarious. They were rolling all over the place on the freeways in Idaho. It was like watching Rudy* play a real game of Mario Cart as he tried to avoid as many as he could while staying in our lane! We've never driven in anything like that before. It was funny and scary at the same time.

Here's a piece of one that came flying up over the car and got stuck on the antennae! It stayed with us for a good half hour or so!

Road trips can be exhausting, but when they are to see family, it's well worth the effort!

Here's a video for your enjoyment to give you an idea of the excitement the tumbleweeds gave us. It's hard to see on the left side of the road in the video, but if you look close, you'll see tons of big old tumbleweeds rolling along. Enjoy!

Lazy Rivers, Waterfalls, Ribs and Getting Arrested?

All week we had been telling the girls that one of the days we would take them swimming at the hotel pool. But it was outside and it was just never that warm. By the time we got back to the hotel, it just sounded so unappealing to the adult members of the family.

Then Andy had a fabulous idea. A family swim party at the Lehi public indoor pool.
Danny gets to come to this cool pool often, what a lucky guy! And you can tell he is a fish. (o:

Angela had so much fun she decided that it wasn't scary any more to put her face in the water! Yay!

Wahoo! She was so proud of herself. (o:

Little Sammy all bundled up.

This Parks and Rec pool was awesome. Every 10 minutes or so, the bucket would fill up with water and spill out all over the lucky ducks below! People lined up waiting for it. It was on top of a huge pool playground. They also had a lazy river and a cute kiddie playground with little waterslides. Unfortunately, the big waterslide wasn't open when we were there, but we had plenty to keep us busy anyway. This was the perfect way to spend the day - good times!

After, we had worked up quite an appetite, so Andy called ahead to get us seats at a restaurant highly acclaimed for their ribs. Rib City Grill somewhere in Lehi/Orem (we were driving around for quite a while and I got confused where we were at!) - was so yummy. Their pulled pork was delicious. (My stomach is growling just thinking about it!)

Sarah and Collin have fun hanging out together! (o:

While we were eating, Danny (who is 4) needed a drink, I think it was. When the waitress came out he called out, "Excuse me, waitress?" Very adult-like. We all busted up. What a character.

Angela loves grandpa!

Playing at Andy's house in the basement...

When it was time to go, we thought it would be fun for Andy to show us the lights on his Police car. Here he is trying to start the car . . .

. . . and here he is jump starting it! (o:

A police car needing a jump? How embarassing!

Andy's car has so many bells and whistles and things draining the battery that if one thing gets left on (in this case it was a light), the battery gives up. (o:

Now it's working and lookout girls . . .

Uncle Andy knows what you've been up to!

Don't mess with Officer Andy.

It was cool to see all his police officer gadgets. I'm proud of Andy - he does a great job and really have a passion for what he does. I have a soft spot for police officers more than ever. They work so hard to keep us safe and have to do a lot of yucky stuff and deal with mean people. Plus they don't get all the hero status that the firemen and military get.

I have a whole new appreciation for policemen after hearing many of Andy's stories.

You bad guys better be nice to my little brother!

Temple, Dinosaurs, Sharp Shooters and Cheese Fries

Grandma and grandpa P. live close to the brand new Oquirrh Mountain Temple, so we had to take a quick detour one of the days to get a close up view. It's beautiful. When we would pull into our hotel at night we could see the Jordan River temple to the west and the Oquirrh Mountain temple just behind it. We could also see the Draper temple when we got out on the freeway. It's amazing to think about how many temples have been built all over the world in the last decade.
Driving in the car is way more fun with visitors!

We love visiting the dinosaur museum in Lehi at Thanksgiving Pointe.

Nat had fun inventing things to try in the wind tunnel. To tell you the truth, so did I!

The sand and water area in the museum is a place we always spend a LONG time. Angela could have stayed all day long.

Guess who else had fun? (o:

These skeletons are so impressive up close. Crazy to think they were real.

Chris and I spent a long time reading about the underwater prehistoric creatures that lived in the oceans long ago - we are nuts about crazy ocean life!

It's tradition to get a silly picture in front of the scary "Jaws"

Ever heard of Cabela's? WOW. We didn't know much about them before this trip. Grandpa really wanted us to see. I've never seen anything like it. It's a destination outdoors store. They had fish, animal displays, a shooting gallery, mini museums, and so on. It was something else! The girls favorite part was feeding the fish and playing at the shooting gallery. Grandpa was impressed with Sarah's shooting skills. (o:

See Natalie feeding the fish in a video below - well worth teh 25 cents we spent on the fish food!

What? Davy Crockett hats? They really do have everything!

Fill in the blank with your own caption . . . . ___________________

We had a few coins left to spend at Boondocks from our first time there. So we thought we'd do one more game of lasertag for good measure!

Two very good sports! (o:

A father/son air hockey competition.

We couldn't come to Utah without a visit with Emily and Casey's cute family and dinner at Training Table. So why not combine the two?

We miss auntie Em!

Sarah's new snazzy sunglasses. It cracks me up that the Top Gun style is back!

Sweet little Grace. She has grown up so much since I last saw her as a baby!!

Isaac being cool. (O: He was so cute with the girls. Emily sent him back and forth at the restaurant telling him questions to ask the girls to get to know them, like, "What is your favorite dance move?", "What food do you like?", etc.

Grace has some girls to be around!

Me and Em and Training Table - we go together like bacon, lettuce and tomatoes. (o: