Wyoming & Provo - Week 3 with Milt's family

Warning: Lots MORE photo colleges of our trip ahead.  Sorry, but we took a LOT of pictures!

Our last full week on our trip, we drove up to Star Valley, Wyoming to visit Milt's grandparents (the McKinleys). Star Valley is one of the most beautiful, peaceful places to visit. Milt has really missed being able to go for a visit every year to spend time with Nana and Papa Ken. I think he'd love to go visit them even if there was no golfing involved (of course, since there was golf, he did manage to play quite a bit).  In fact, McKinley has always loved golfing and this year was no exception.  She was out golfing every chance she got!  And Maddox and Kennedy got to golf a bit too, which was all kinds of fun (don't stand near Maddox if he has a golf club...you will get clobbered since he swings full power every time!)

Nana and Papa Ken took us up to Jackson Hole, WY on one of the evenings and we enjoyed a fun night of dinner and music at the Bar J Chuckwagon, hearing the Bar J Wranglers sing while eating a real western cowboy dinner. The kids loved it, especially McKinley. She laughed so hard at all the jokes, that everyone around us kept looking at her and smiling.  Plus we got to shop a bit and get yummy taffy in downtown Jackson, where McKinley saw the antler displays and said, "Oh No!  Did they kill all those animals just to get all the antlers?"  Aaaah, she is so my daughter, and I love it!

But our favorite part of Wyoming was definitely spending time with Nana and Papa Ken.  The kids just love them to pieces, and they especially love all the hugs, teasing, and feeling so loved!  Thanks for letting us come visit!

After Wyoming we drove down to Provo (Utah) to spend a few days with some of Milt's immediate family. We stayed at BYU in a Wyview three bedroom dorm apartment (or residence hall, as Lacey called it), and it was really fun staying on campus. It was like returning to our student days, but we never actually lived on campus as students so it felt a little strange to be doing it with all our kids! We even got to eat at the Cannon Center with Lacey, Brandon, and little Ryan, which made us feel even more like full-fledged BYU students!  We had a great time inundating the kids with all things BYU!

While we were at BYU, we got to visit with Milt's college roommate Nato and his wife Robin while they were also visiting Utah from Louisiana.  We hadn't seen them since our last Disney trip with them, and it was so fun just getting so spend time with them and their kids!  They are like adopted family, and it was great to see how big their kids are getting.  We all went to the Hinckley Building and got to see the displays and watch a movie about the history of the school (and indoctrinate our children on how great BYU is).  Then we got to walk around campus and take some fun pictures of all the kids. We can't wait to see these guys again soon, and meet their next little one, who is bound to be very cute, and very well behaved (as all their kids are...they are amazing!)

Later that day Milt’s mom Jacki drove up to see us for the weekend, and Milt’s little brother Ryley and his wife Shay and little baby Milton Cash came and stayed too, so it was quite a party, since we already had Milt’s sister Lacey, her husband Brandon, and their little baby Ryan there hosting us and showing us a good time! We played fun games every night in the apartment, and had LOTS and LOTS of good food (Brick Oven, Magleby’s Fresh, In-N-Out, and Café Rio…again…..) I think we gained about 10 pounds just from all the great food, and it was so great getting to hold babies and just have fun with family!

On Saturday we went to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point with all of us and it was so much fun seeing all the kids reactions to everything (although Cash and Ryan might have only really gotten a tiny bit of it, since they're still little).  But we had a great time, and it's always fun to see Maddox around Dinosaur stuff (and this is such an amazing museum!)

We had such a fun trip, and we wish we could have stayed longer to have seen even more friends and things, but it was wonderful, and we can't wait to see everyone again!