Utah -- the first stay

The week after I got back from Girl's Camp it was time to get ready for our trip to Utah. Of course I had to unpack all the camping junk, laundry, company, Dustin was out of town, I hosted 2 sleepovers, there was a pool party, piano lessons, summer movies, Peter Piper play date, breakfast with one of my YW, lunch with a girlfriend. . .I was beginning to think it might be more fun to just stay home.

In all that craziness, the weather delayed the arrival of our lost roof rack keys so we didn't have much extra space.  That meant I packed everything our family of 6 would need for 2 weeks into 4 carry on suitcases.  Therefor you will see my kids wearing the same clothes over and over again.  I swear I didn't just stage all the pictures on the same day.  My kids were mostly upset that I only packed one swimsuit each and they had to put on a wet swimsuit in order to get wet.

We had planned on leaving Friday afternoon so Dustin could work half a day.  I was begging to leave at 6 am so we could party with my sister all Friday night.  Unfortunately his plane was delayed and he didn't get home until 4 am.  Somehow we met in the middle and ended up leaving around 10 am.  We drove straight through and arrived at the hotel within a few minutes of my parents.  The next few hours looked like this:

CHAOS!  As the cousins reunited and the kids saw my parents for the first time in months, it was a total blur of a moment.   Luke and Livy were running in and out of closets chasing each other.  I have no idea how late we stayed up but it was long enough that Kathleen could run some errands and return with the star of the show: NORA!

My sister had a baby just a month before and she is adorable.  Luke loved her and kept calling her, "Lukey's baby Nora."  And then poking her eyes.  Just a small reminder why I don't need one last baby.

Saturday morning we switched off with the kids so everyone could run, made a million trips to Macey's and Kathleen hosted a party for the June Boys Club.  We all know the "January Girls Club," but there is also a lesser known although just as a exclusive "June Boys Club."  To be in it you have to be just plain awesome.  Luke, my brother-in-law Kyle and his brother Reed were all honored this year.

Reed (Kyle's brother in case you can't remember from me telling you 5 words ago) and Rachel have 7 children -- 6 boys and 1 girl.  The oldest, Emma-the-only-girl, is Ellie's age.  7 children in 10 years is crazy.  Six boys is unimaginable.  And yet Reed and Rachel are totally sane and really funny. On top of the 9 of them, they also brought some family friends, so I feel like most of the pictures make the swimming look relaxing and quiet  In reality, this picture probably captures the moment better:

Kyle's parents were also in town and his sister and brother-in-law too.  We had such a good time that we were there for well over 5 hours before we realized we still had cake!

Luke loves twinkies, so my sister spent hours in the kitchen making homemade twinkies which we then painstakingly stacked into a masterpiece of a cake.  Thank you so much Pinterest!  Actually we bought a box at the store, unwrapped them and shoved whatever wasn't eaten onto the plate.  But it's a super cool BYU Cougar plate that my sister painted at Color Me Mine so it's almost as impressive.  And I'm glad we didn't spend any time on it because it was devoured before we could even cut the actually amazing cake that Rachel made.

Can you see the cake in that picture?  Can you see the look on Luke's face as he contemplates why Reed got a cake with fancy Chinese characters on it and pudding and butter cream layers while he got some haphazard twinkie cake?  Probably not. While he was impressed with the real cake, he seriously wanted to marry his twinkies.  Poor Kyle only got gummy frogs as his special item.  And that's makes the June Boy Club so awesome: none of them actually cared.  I fear, no I KNOW (!) this would not be the case with the January Girls Club.

See the smiles?  June Boys are the best!  (Rachel of Cake Making fame in the corner and Reed and Kyle are the two men over the age of 7 in the picture).  Wait?  Are they talking while my won is blowing out candles?  Jerks!

The kids had a great time with each other and Emma even tried to come on vacation with us.  With 6 brothers I was really rooting for her.  And with 7 kids, there was a friend for everyone.

Nothing says fun like a dangerous game of Real Life Frogger between swinging kids.  I believe Luke was injured during this game.

We had Cafe Rio at the hotel for dinner and then Dustin and Kyle went to get us Kitty Katrina cake and cazookies from *THE* Chocolate while we watched Olympic trials and the kids bounced from bed to bed.  I love my family.  We have the most fun when we're doing absolutely nothing.

Sunday we went to church with my sister for the blessing of Nora.  Even though no one officially invited us.  That's actually only funny if you are my sister.  I was really excited because she lives in a richy rich ward with people like Donny Osmond (who I SAW!  But I was stalking his house at the time) and Steve Young's parents.  I don't know what I was expecting, but something along the lines of the front row at a Fashion Week runway show might be an accurate description.  In the end everyone there looked pretty down to earth and really nice.

We threw a brunch afterwards where the adults had great conversation because all the children went into one big empty room in the Club House that has solid oak doors.  It was totally quiet until someone opened them and then you could hear screaming and see children flailing around the room.  Then magically the doors would shut again and you forgot what you had seen.

After all of that, we shoved the big kids into my Aunt Kristine and Uncle Dave's car and followed them to Idaho.  Well, we meant to follow them, but we ended up about 30 minutes ahead because they made TWO food stops during the short 3 hour drive.  I guess stops for beef "turkey" and nachos directly after a buffet are what make them so much cooler than us.

And then we arrived to my own personal heaven.