Heading to Utah

At the end of the week we boarded a plan to head out to Utah for one final summer hoorah!  Monica's back has been feeling better than before, so she was even able to make it with us!  We kept it a tight lipped secret, and my family was shocked when they saw her walk in the door!  Totally worth it.  I also noticed that when Monica wasn't expected to be with us, my family didn't come pouring out the front door when our car pulled into the driveway, which is our usual greeting.  The flight was good, and the kids did well.

We finally got back to Grayson's wall and I helped Monica get the head painted on the brachiosaurus.  Grayson was disappointed to have it get a head...  But here's his dinosaur wall!  It's amazing!

Grayson "helped" Monica make, I believe, pancakes and whipped cream.  Maybe I should say he "helped" wash the dishes.  It's hard to know exactly what he was helping with, but he was having a great time doing it.

One thing Grayson definitely loves to help with is the garden, and he helped Monica pick a watermelon!  I think we've gotten 3 or 4 this year, so that's pretty awesome.  Things are growing a LOT faster here than they did in Colorado.  It's pretty crazy.

I joined the family after work for swimming at the pool, and some of the Ellers even came to swim with us too.  We had a lot of fun and played all sorts of games.

Friday after our flight, we landed in good ol' Salt Lake City.  The kids really liked their fancy wiggly multi-tiered benches, so we stopped to climb on them a little bit.

Saturday morning, first thing, Monica and I woke up and headed to the temple.  It was a pretty great morning, and the temple was only a 5 minute drive away!  That's quite a bit closer than usual for us now!

I spent the rest of the morning wrapping up some Christmas presents.  We're going to Bear Lake with my family next week, and we got matching Buc-ee's swimsuits for everyone, so I wrapped them all up so we can do an early Christmas.  I even turned on a Christmas movie to watch while I was wrapping.

We had a tea party lunch and the Seawrights came over to join us.  The kids were very excited to see their cousins and had a great time together.

And here's the other side of the table.  Grayson brought his fancy tea party clothes too!  We had some sandwiches, lemonade, and lots of desserts!

When we showed up to church Sunday morning Winry was having a hard time.  We ended up waiting for her to calm down a little outside because she was screaming, and eventually we found ourselves hanging out under a pine tree that made a good play house.

Winry and I made it back in after 10 minutes or so, but second hour I was right back out there with Grayson, because for some reason he just isn't having any of primary lately...  Anyway, he loved the tree house and especially the pine cones.

Monica caught us playing under the tree... She came out because the chairs were not playing well with her back, so she hung out with Grayson and I went back into church.

After church we packed up our things to head up to my parents house, which meant saying goodbye.  Pop got a super group hug! And then Gram and Pop both drove up with us to drop us off.

Recently Pop got Gram her dream car, which was an old school beetle.  Pretty sweet car, and very small to stand next to.  I guess I need to learn to drive a manual so I can take it for a spin next time we're out.

And that's our week.  We're heading off to Bear Lake next week with my family, and we're all pretty excited.  We had an amazing time there two years ago, so there's big shoes to fill, but I know it'll be superb!  Catch ya next week.