The drive out was pretty easy. We stopped in Omaha again and stayed with the Applegarth's. It only took about 8 hours off, but that made all of the difference. The next day was about 13 hours, but it was doable.
Of course we had to stop by Little America and see the dinosaur and get some ice cream...
Benny is still not a fan of heights. He didn't like being on top of that bison very much.
One morning we went to an awesome new park in Bountiful and met up with some of my high school friends and their kids. I love that we still stay in touch even after 15 years. I love all of these girls. It has been fun watching them all become moms. I have learned so much from them. This is only a handful of the kids that were there. I didn't count how many kids we have between us but I think it's at least over 20. Pretty crazy to think about!
Jack insisted on wearing his favorite cowboy hat from Grandma's house. I think he pretty much wore it for an entire week straight.
One night we went and did some school shopping at Station Park in Farmington. The shopping wasn't the most exciting part though. I think they really liked being with their cousins Annie and Aliyah and hanging out with the princesses. However, we did get all of our school shopping done in one trip so that was a win!
We spent one afternoon at Grandma's house having a "Pinkalicious" tea party with all of the cousins. My cousin Liz was also in town from Seattle with her kids so her daughter Molly was there. She is close to Ruby's age. My mom, aunt Cheri, and Grandma planned it and it had so many fun details! Gracie now talks about having a tea party all of the time.
We also spent an afternoon at a splash pad in Salt Lake with some of our cousins. It was a super hot day.
We spent one day at Lagoon with Annie and Aliyah. We left Ruby with my aunt Cheri as I didn't think it would be worth it to take her. She probably wouldn't have wanted to ride anything anyway.
I debated about taking Benny, but I was so glad that I did. It was so fun to watch him enjoy all of the kiddie rides. I was glad that Jack was still short enough to ride all of the kiddie rides. It was so fun to watch them ride them together and call each other "best buddies". I think they are really going to like sharing a room together.
I couldn't really ride any rides except for the log flume, sky ride, and the carousel so I became the designated stroller watcher and photographer. This was part of our group going on rattlesnake rapids. It was a super hot day so I was a little jealous I couldn't go and get wet with them.
By far Benny, Jack, and Gracie's favorite ride was the little bumper cars. I think they rode them 10 times over and over again at one point. The ride operator got to know them pretty well.
Gracie loved the ladybug drop. I was glad that Grandma still likes to ride the rides with the kids since I couldn't go on any with them.
We went and had lunch with Ruthie, Taylor, and Riley at Arctic Circle and then went to their neighborhood pool in Saratoga Springs. I didn't get any pictures at the pool as we didn't last very long. Ruby was super tired from the fun events of the week and threw a major tantrum so we had to leave a little earlier than we were planning. I think the kids still got a little bit of swimming in though.
We spent an entire day up in Cache Valley. Aunt Cheri had arranged for us to learn more about our ancestors that lived up there. She compiled some history for us to read before we went up there and arranged for us to go see the home that the Smurthwaite (my Grandma Miller's side) lived in in a small town called Wellsville.
First we stopped by the cemetery in Wellsville and found the graves of the Smurthwaites and Browns.
We found the grave of one of my great grandma's, Mary Ann Wood Watt Brown who was the first woman baptized in the British Isles.
Sarah and Joshua Brown are my great, great grandparents who built the house in Wellsville. It started out as a log cabin and then was added onto by their daughter Maggie and son-in-law Alfred.
This is the Brown/Smurthwaite house and we got to go visit and have lunch in the backyard. It has had a lot of changes since it was first built. It started as a small log cabin and was built on by it's many owners. Now it is owned by the neighbors across the street who are renovating it to be a bed and breakfast. They were nice enough to let us use the kitchen and have a picnic in the backyard. It was fun to see a little piece of history and be there together as a family.
Grandma entertained the kids and blew big bubbles outside on the lawn.
While renovating the house the owners found the original log cabin underneath the walls. It was pretty cool to see. They said that they will try to keep at least a part of it exposed so that others can view it.
Haken's absolute favorite part of this trip was being able to spend so much time with my cousin Grady. He slept over at his house and they spent a solid 2 days together playing baseball pretty much the whole time. My aunt Cristina said that when they weren't playing baseball they were making up logos for their imaginary baseball teams. I'm so glad to see them getting along so well. So many of his friends here are girls so I think he really likes having a guy that he can share his love for baseball. They really are best friends and are only a month apart.
They were being a little awkward in this picture as I told them that they needed to put their arms around each other and act like they liked each other. 11 year old boys are so funny.
While in Cache Valley we had to go check out our old house in "the circle" in Providence. We only lived there for 18 months but my kids loved that house and I did too. It had such an ideal set up for kids with the track in the backyard with lots of kids to play with all of the time.
I couldn't believe how much the trees we had planed grew up. When we planted them they were just barely taller than me. Now they tower over the kids. It's amazing what 3.5 years will do.
I was sad to see that the new owners had ripped out the flower beds along the patio that we put in and replaced it with grass. It made it a nice little secluded patio but maybe they didn't the up keep of the flowerbeds.
Shad flew in for our last weekend there to help me drive home. We spent our last day on the beach of Willard Bay with our friends the Burnhams and Mickelsons. They were our Alturus Lake buddies so it was fun to relive the good times and hang out at the beach with them all day. The Burnhams brought a floating island and two paddle boards so there was plenty of stuff for us to do.
Haken loved hanging out with Bodee again and Jack with Ian. I didn't even get pictures of them together because they were out in the lake playing together the entire day. It was so perfect. I miss hanging out with them.
Ruby has been one tired girl all week. She slept a bunch on the way home as I think we really wore her out, especially skipping naps so many of the days to do fun things.
The drive home was fast and great. I was so glad that Shad flew in so that we could do it all in one shot. However, I did end up having a little bit of swelling from sitting so long in the car. It's a good thing we aren't doing any more big trips this pregnancy. It really was a great trip though. I'm always glad when we can go and spend lots of time with family that we don't get to see often.
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