Home Sweet Home

In case you thought I caught a life threatening disease, you can rest assured that we were just on vacation. The world's BEST vacation in fact. We spent the last week and half in Utah and Idaho visiting with friends and family. There's nothing like a 15 hour road trip to break in the new car. I do have to say that my kids were great little troopers for all 3o hours there and back. We only had to stop and pee on the side of the road once and the biggest melt down lasted about 2 minutes when Nate woke up in the middle of his nap and his neck hurt.

So as not to over whelm you with all the pictures I took -- and yes, you will have to scroll through all of them, no photo montage skills here -- I'll divide our trip into two parts. And also because I am so tired I don't think I can get them all up tonight. So without further ado -- Our trip to Utah.

We spent two days in Provo where we attempted to brain wash the kids, and hang out with Casey -- Dustin's younger brother -- and his wife, Sarah. We hung out downtown for Freedom Days, went swimming, Sadie chased around poor Nevilleplayed games, took the kids up to BYU and tried to convince them that this is where they should go to college. Who can name the sculpture we're standing in front of?
And of course we went to Stadium of Fire where we saw Glenn Back, Blue Man Group and Mylie Cyrus.

We had so much fun in Provo and as soon as we started pulling away, the kids started crying because they didn't want to leave Casey, Sarah and Neville. We were then on our way to far away Pleasant Grove -- in case you don't know UT geography they're 2 freeway exits apart, to see our college friends the Casabars.Me and my BFF, Holly ;D

We became really good friends when we all lived in Union Square after we got married and lucky for us, she was happy to have us all come crash with them for a few days despite being pregnant -- cutest pregnant person ever! They even threw a BBQ for everyone in town from our Union Square days. It was so fun to see everyone 6 years later. We moved to AZ right after Ellie was born and a few people had one baby but look at what happened in 6 years. If you can believe it, there are actually a few kids missing.

It was so fun to see everyone and tell stories. It was amazing how many stories I had forgotten. My cute neighbor Katie had to remind me of the time I slowly took things out of her apartment waiting to see how long it would take her to notice because we were always laughing about how unobservant she was. She never did and I had to bring her over to show her the stash of things I had taken. And Holly reminded me of the time she and Damon flooded our apartment -- while they were in the shower.Carrie, Lara, Pauline, Megan, Me, Holly, Joni and Katie

The boys.

The rest of the days at the Casabars were spent making smores, watching movies, trying to get the kids to fall asleep, playing farklein case you don't know how to play farkle, this roll is worth 3ooo points

breaking into houses, going to church, staying up late and just hanging out having a good time. The kids loved each other -- especially the girls. It made me laugh that they wanted the same hair style every day.
Also, please note how gorgeous her little boys smile and what a stinker mine is!

And now, if you can stand a few more pictures, I'll finish up our Utah half of the vacation. We finally had to pack our car and say good bye. Once again the kids cried and cried and cried until we made it to Tasha's house. She fed us some lunch on our way up to Idaho. Tasha ditched us a few months ago to move back to Utah and it hasn't been the same without her. Especially this summer! My kids miss hers so much and the 1st day of School won't be the same without the two of us driving the girls up together. How often do you luck out and have a friend with kids the exact same age and gender as yours?Macey and Sadie are 2 months apart. Sadie's older if you can believe it.Tanner and Nate are 6 months apartand Ashley and Ellie are a little over a month apart.

Exhausted yet? Sick of pictures? Too bad because there's more! But just a huge thanks to everyone in Utah who made our trip there so much fun. It was so much fun. I love and miss you all! It almost makes me want to move there just to hang out with you guys all the time. Note that I said almost.