Going on Holiday - Week 1

Here in the East Coast you often hear about people going on  "Holiday" and taking off on extended vacations, and since we left to go visit out Utah and Wyoming for 3 weeks, we figured our trip probably qualified us as going on Holiday too!  And since I know everyone wants to hear EVERY DETAIL OF OUR TRIP, I've decided to break it down by week rather than post one ginormous blog post.  You're very welcome. Here is the first installment of our fun vacation.

First, I flew out with the kids BY MYSELF, which didn't go so well for any of us, but we did survive.  It started going downhill when Maddox started screaming when he had to put his brand-new Star Wars Backpack on the x-ray conveyor belt at Security, and Maddox pretty much didn't stop throwing tantrums for the next 6 hours!  My only goal was to keep Maddox and Kennedy happy and occupied for the flight, and ring-pops and Star Wars books were the the winning combination of items that kept them from fighting, thereby keeping me sane. McKinley sat right behind us next to a very nice grandparent couple, and they were happy to let her talk their ears off the whole flight.  I only heard snippets of what she was saying, but what I did hear was pretty funny!  McKinley sure does like having people listen to her, and I was so grateful for nice people who kept her happy!

Once we got to my parents' house in Utah we kept our first few days pretty low-key.  We hung out with Nana Betty & Papa Kirby - jumping on the trampoline, having Uncle Trevor come down for visits, and of course eating at Cafe Rio. We also got to spend a lot of time visiting with Nana Farol at my Aunt Connie's house (where the kids got to dive in to Connie's great dress-up boxes!)

Since Milt wasn't out to Utah with us yet, we tried to spend most of the first week visiting with my family and seeing my friends from our old neighborhood and some good high school and college friends.   Also, we got to see our good friends the Hannas a couple of times since they've moved back to Utah from PA, and Maddox got to spend some quality time with his best buddy Drake. We went to a park with them, and the kids had a great time playing with each other while Paige and I chatted in the shade and watched Johnny with his 5 kids on the swings.  We sure miss these guys!

One of the mornings we even had fun learning when we got to go to the Monte L. Bean Museum at BYU with a group of great friends and amazing neighbors from Saratoga Springs, and afterward we went to a  really cool park where the kids got to go "swimming" in a play fountain.  Fun times with some incredible life-long friends!

And we also went up the canyon to South Fork to spend an evening with my Nana, my Aunt Connie, and my Aunt Nancy and Cousin Alice who were visiting from D.C.  In fact, Milt's little sister Lacey and her husband and cute baby Ryan came up, along with my mom and brother Trevor.  It was beautiful, and the kids managed to climb into the river within about 5 minutes of us getting there.  It had to be a record for the quickest amount of time until they were covered in mud, but boy did they have fun (except for Kennedy during her moments where she realized she was dirty and wet.)

But the best part of all from this first week was seeing loved ones, and getting to see these beautiful mountains everyday when we'd look out the window!