As soon as the kids got out of school, I packed up the car and drove to St. George with the kids. The Barker's were having their yearly tradition of staying in condos in St. George and I have never had the chance to join since we have lived so far away. It still wasn't close…. 12+ hours without stops, but close enough that I could do it! Unfortunately I-75 got shut down in the middle of nowhere because of some ginormous boulders that rolled off the mountain and onto the freeway. I ended up having to detour and it added over 4 MORE hours on my drive. I did have a little cry because I was a little overwhelmed by myself! The detour took me about 20 minutes from my parents house, so we spent the night at their house and then finished the drive to St. George in the morning. Phew! It was fun hanging out and swimming with the kids. I wish so badly that Abe could have come! Unfortunately, I didn't take one single picture!!
After St. George, we headed straight to my parents house since we were already so close. My parents had the cabin that next week, so we headed up with them for the entire week. I wasn't for sure how it would turn out being there for so long with the kids as far as sleeping and boredom went, but it was awesome! The kids slept great and there was no time for being bored. The kids had multiple horseback riding lessons a day, roasted marshmallows, visits from Grandma Dofi, we played games, played on the swing set, watched movies and everyday we had a little picnic for lunch. We packed our lunch up and then would hike to little areas where the kids could play. They played in the water, made little forts in the woods, made friends with caterpillars, etc. It ended up being a highlight of our stay there. Adeline became pretty comfortable riding a horse by herself (on trail rides), which was a big accomplishment. She loved going on rides with my dad and being his little sidekick. In the morning, my dad would walk the kids down to a nearby cabin that has an awesome view of a lake. One morning when they got there, there was a moose just feet away from them. By the time I made it down there and turned the corner around the deck to find my kids, it gave me a little scare as I wasn't expecting it to be so close and was worried about my kids being almost petting distance away! It was pretty cool and we did end up leaving since it wasn't getting any further away from us and it could easily walk up the couple of steps onto the deck! The week ended up being more than I hoped for and so much fun. I love that the kids were able to create some fun memories that resembled mine from my childhood. Anders particularly became obsessed with my dad and wanted him all the time. It was pretty cute.
After the cabin, but before my sisters got to town, we spent some time visiting the Utah County area to get our hair done by Roni and hanging out with her and also meeting up with Grandma Barker and a bunch of the other cousins to play at a splash pad and get the famous Waffle Luv.
More random pictures from my parents house
We were also able to stop by and visit Great Grandma Jeanne. She was so nice to make lemonade and popcorn for the kids and we had a little picnic on her front lawn.
My sisters and their families both arrived and we got to hang out with them. The highlight was the Fairy Forest and it was our first time doing it as we had missed the last time my family went. My girls thought it was so much fun running around and seeing all the cute fairy set ups. They loved getting do create their own little set up and then getting a little dot on their head from my mom in the end!
Of course there was a lot more horseback riding with cousins and we also went to SLC to visit Elise and Brian at Brian's parents awesome pool!
Anders had his birthday before Abe arrived, so we agreed to celebrate it when he got back. On his actual birthday, Sierra & Amanda's families were in town. I did get a little cake and sing him happy birthday; but it was mostly for all the little cousins and his siblings. The next day, I picked Abe up from the Airport and we were able to have a little getaway in Park City for a night. It was nice, but really hard to be away from Anders for the first time! Luckily, I had just stopped breastfeeding him and while in Utah, he started sleeping through the night for the FIRST time in his life! After our overnighter, we picked the kids up and headed to Mt. Pleasant. I got a cute little cake and Margie got some Balloons for Anders' birthday. It was so cute letting him go at the cake. He loved it and was surprisingly pretty clean eating it. Gabe was hilarious running into all the balloons behind Anders over and over again. Then he would sit next to Anders to eat their cake and they would eat off each others plates. Love them! Margie got him a little ride on toy and Anders was (and still is) in heaven!
We went back to my parents house after a handful of days to celebrate 4th of July and hang out with everyone since my sisters were in town. I LOVE 4th of July in Oakley. We did the 5K early that morning. Amanda was going to do it with me and she chickened out and decided to sleep instead. My mom ended up taking her place and I convinced Adeline and Jojo to come too. I had the double stroller and figured they could walk if needs be. Turns out Jojo was so worried about catching a chick at the kid rodeo, that she didn't want to run much so she could save up her energy. She was hilarious. We would make them run/walk for a minute, and then we would switch off turns pushing them (and Anders) for awhile. After that, it was parade time, then kid rodeo, BBQ at my moms and then the Rodeo. It was so nice and clear pretty much every single night we were in Utah and of course it ended up in a downpour at the Rodeo. Unfortunately we had to miss some of it and Adeline was not very happy about it since she had been anticipating it for so long!
