That's right, after being home for an incredibly long one whole week, we finally got to go on vacation again! Don't worry, we were all definitely back on TX time, no lingering jet lag, and definitely already bored of the daily grind again! Thank goodness on Wednesday it was time to hop on another plane and fly to Utah! And check it out, there's a cool dinosaur in the SLC airport! Yay! Also, we flew Southwest, and since the last time we came, they finished the underground walkway through the middle of the airport, so we didn't have to walk all the way to the end of B, across and all the way across A. The walk was seriously at least 1/3 the time of last time.
Thursday morning we all woke up and walked over to the park by Niki's house. We stayed at her house during our visit and various other family was also coming and staying in different places. Oriah's kids came over from Jerusha's house to come with us too, and in addition to the playground, we also played lacrosse. I don't think my girls have played at all before, but they had a lot of fun. Especially Winry. She kept playing until we had to leave, and even managed to catch a few passes.
That afternoon we went to see Elio at the theater. Here's Winry inside... that guys mouth. Forgot his name. The movie was alright, but we all had fun.
The 3rd of July is when North Salt Lake does it's fireworks show, and they do it at the golf course right by my parents house. I have a lot of good memories going to the firework show growing up. It get's crazy busy now, so it's nice to be right there. In fact, we just watched from the front lawn.
On the 4th of July we got out the slip and slide. It was so much fun. After a bit, we put the inflatable slide at the end to hold it up so that we got a big puddle of water to slide into, and to save the grass. The kids all had a great time, and Nathan and I started trying to do tricky slides like rolling, or push-ups, or just looking awesome like Nathan here.
That evening we had hamburgers, and I offered to grill them. Turns out that was a more generous offer than I anticipated as it started pouring rain and hail right as it was time to turn on the grill. Everything turned out alright in the end. I had to hide in the shed between flips, and I was able to avoid the worst of the hail, though some of them did melt into the burgers. No wonder they were so juicy.
Alyson came up to celebrate with us, and that evening we had a rousing rendition of "I'm Proud to be an American".
Grayson and Monica got tattoos in the festivities as well. I picked this picture because I like Grayson's face, he's very serious and thug life.
On the evening of the 4th, we headed back to Niki's and put the kids to bed, and then I went out on the driveway to see if I could see any fireworks. There were dueling firework shows going on in the neighborhood, so that was pretty great. Both groups definitely spent a LOT of money to give me a show.
On the 5th, several of the boys found themselves in timeout... I'm actually not sure why they were sitting in this corner, and unified gazes would indicate they're watching a movie from back in there. Guess it was just the place to be. Oh, I didn't have a picture for this, but Brooke and Megan worked on a dance.
Saturday night was the main event for our whole trip, Niki's carnival! Here's the ringmaster herself, along with her most dangerous, flotatious tiger! ROAR!
We did a lot of things at the carnival, and I'm going to capture some highlights here. Glancing over my pictures I don't have any of the tents of carnival games, nor did I put one in for pit spittin' as I didn't have a very exciting picture. I also missed the ticket counter and prize tent, but don't worry, I captured lots of games and fun! We had the return of the pig race. These racing pigs are so exciting that Grayson got one for Christmas a few years back. Great news, I guessed lane 3, so I won, and as you can see here, Grayson's pig made it halfway down the track, turned around and came back to him. It just didn't want to be alone.
Here's Grayson hanging out with Megan, I just thought it was a cute picture. Also, as you may notice, Grayson has little concept of personal space.
We had sack races, and they got very competitive, but everyone had fun.
We had a water tower this year. Niki did find a dunk tank before, but thought it kinda stole the whole show and no one wanted to move on from it. While it's great to having something fun, there's more to the carnival than people getting wet. I think the tower was super fun. I don't think this is the best picture to capture what's happening, but Grayson was way too excited in this picture to not keep it in here.
In this one you can see Monica back there getting up from the chair after getting wet. That was the water tower. It was a lot of fun, and it's easier to get more people involved and wet in the end. Lots of fun.
We also had hang time, and going head to head is becoming more common! I challenged Spencer the first year, and this year it was the norm. Here's Brooke going against my uncle Gary.
And here I am going against Nathan. I don't remember who went the longest overall, but I made it around a minute ten or so, so I was pretty pleased. It really hurt in my shoulder, and I'm not sure why, but I guess I know what I need to work on before next carnival. Oh, and I guess I didn't have a picture, but at the end of the carnival we did human hungry hippos!
We searched the house and found my parents accordion. Nathan had it on and was playing it when Gary arrived, as Gary is actually a very accomplished accordionist. He played it a lot growing up and won a lot of awards and trophies. Sounds like he played it because my Grandma really liked it and hasn't played it in a long time. He said he was rusty, but the little he played sounded great to me.
After the carnival, Monica took the kids to put them to bed and I stayed to help clean up the carnival. I headed with Niki to the... IML I think (it was ULA when I played lacrosse), to return some shade tents and tables we borrowed for the day. On our way down the freeway, there was a drone show! What! That was awesome. So I had fireworks on the 3rd and 4th, and a drone show on the 5th. I definitely got my fair share of night light shows on this trip!
Here we are at what I will still call the ULA, toasting another great carnival. Also, check out that jersey. Utah has a pro lacrosse team, and they own the championship, so there's a jersey signed by the team mounted on the wall. Pretty cool.
We had a great time in Utah watching fireworks and the carnival. We even got to go to the temple while we were there. But Sunday morning, bright and early came the next leg of our trip. We headed to the airport to fly to California. We were late to Monica's family vacation! The date got changed and overlapped with the carnival, so we came a day late to join everyone. We landed just in time to make it to church, and after staying up late and waking up early, Grayson was a little bit tired.
After church, we went up to the tide pools and saw quite a few crabs, and some of them were pretty large as well. There were even a few little fish in some of the pools. Grayson found a long piece of grass, and was trying to use it to fish out a crab. He'd stick it down next to them, and sometimes they would actually grab it with their claws, but none of them hung on long enough to be pulled out. That's probably best for everyone.
Then we walked down to this thing. I know it has a proper name, but I'd also say that if you've been to La Jolla you know exactly what this cement path jutting into the ocean is. We went to see the sea lions. The tide was coming in and the waves splashed us a few times which the kids really liked.
Over on the protected beach side, there was a baby sea lion coming up on shore, and was right up close.
When we made it back to the house, Grayson wanted to go check out the beach. He's very excited.
The kids brought a few games with us, and Grayson brought Sleeping Queens and really wanted to play it. We had a good time playing it in the evening.
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