Utah Trip

The first week of September I went to Utah to pay a visit to Nonnie and Papa (aka Mom and Dad). The cool weather was fantastic. We played lots and spent lots of time just being together. Oh... and I spent lots of time chasing the ever-busy Weston, who was (and still is) bent on destroying anything destroyable. So that made for fun times. I also loved spending lots of time with Amy. Raegan just loved her. Amy always keeps life interesting. 

We got to go to City Creek Mall, which is fantastic. We went to an awesome, authentic Brazilian cafe. (So good!) We went to the zoo and we went to a peach festival/fair thing. 

These first three pictures are of the fair thing. It was basically like the ones you see in the parking lots of the mall now and again. Raegan was in heaven. She mostly had to ride by herself because the tickets were super expensive. 

I went on this one with her. It was TERRIBLE! I got jerked around like crazy. I don't think she really enjoyed it either. The other rides were good though. She kept pointing to the zero gravity crazy rides and wanting to go on those.

Weston actually was with us. I really wanted a picture of everyone, but of course forgot. The peaches were delicious. We also went to a famous-ish restaurant called Maddox. Super yummy.

Here is the only picture of the zoo. There are actually other pictures, but they are on my dad's camera. Who knows when/if I will ever get those. The ones in this post were taken with my mom's phone and I emailed them to myself. 

The zoo was lots of fun. The best part was this polar bear. He kept swimming laps and would pop up really close like this to the glass. Over and over. Each time the whole group of kids would scream in delight. Good times. Oh... and Raegan got to ride the carousel TWICE! which probably was on her bucket list. I'm glad we can check that one off. Thanks once again to my mom and dad for the fabulous trip. Love them!

Canada

After our trip to California we came home to Michael's passport waiting in the mail. We had been waiting for it forever and we didn't want to make international plans till we knew we had it. So we got it on a Wednesday and booked our flight the next day and left on Saturday. Craziness. We flew from Mesa Gateway airport to Bellingham WA, which is just a half hour or so from the Canadian border. The kids surprisingly did ok on the flight and drive. Lots of movies. We went to Canada with my Uncle's family. It wouldn't be much fun just by ourselves. My grandparents bought this house about 14 years ago and I have gone there many summers since. They have a great house with a huge backyard and this long sloping lawn that goes straight into the lake with their own dock and boat. The kids (and Michael and I) were in heaven. It was gorgeous weather. The first night we got there they set off tons of fireworks for Canada day. (They had to reschedule the fireworks because of flooding.)

Raegan loved jumping off the dock

And jumping on the water trampoline (Seriously there were a billion pictures of her on that thing)

 Here are four of the five handsome cousins. The oldest is 23 and youngest is 14. They were so much fun to be up there with and Raegan had crushes on all of them. They were all so sweet to her and spent lots of time entertaining her. 

 They brought their two dogs, Pippin and Koda, which Raegan calls Piffin and Carl. Not sure why.

 Sitting at the front of the boat. My favorite spot.

 Tubing. Raegan loved tubing. She hasn't yet developed a healthy fear of being flipped out at high speeds. I am terrified of tubing. 

 Our family game is Pinnochle. Everyone plays it. 

 At the farmers market. Yes he is still in jammies.

 Petting zoo. Good times. Raegan loved all the animals.

 Did I really let her touch that fence? Eww. That's a chicken coop.

 There were four of us and four of them. Perfect!

 Loving the bunny with uncle Mark

 Here's Michael swabbing the dock. Those geese are super poopy. We couldn't chase them away frequently enough.

 Reading with Aunt Lisle

 Mowing the lawn. (That thing takes a lot of mowing) And yes she is in her jammies.

 I love her running up the hill. She's working really hard. It's a big hill.

 A short walk down the road was a little market with delicious ice-cream. We went there maybe every day.

 Reagan LOVED walking Koda. He was the perfect size for her. Poor dog got yanked around a lot. 

 Tradition calls for a day of the giant slip n slide. It's good times, except Raegan doesn't have enough wait to get her very far. She needed lots of help. 

 I love how she is looking at Dallin with adoration. 

 Bonfire night. Lots of yummy smores. The sun didn't set till like 9:00 so it was WAY past bedtime. 

 Glamour Shot

 Of all her "cousin crushes" she had the biggest crush on Cameron. He just got his mission call to Argentina. 

 And here's the view from the back patio. Notice the geese? 

It was a fantastic trip. Not sure when we will make it back. Now that Michael has a real job our vacation days are limited. Sad face. I love you Canada!

Katie

Rewind approximately seven years. See me entering the missionary training center in Brazil. Enter my first companion: Katie Houston (soon to be something else- ha ha. I can say that because I am sure her boyfriend does not read my blog). 

Katie is great. She teaches high school choir in Salt Lake. I think you have to be a little crazy to do that job. But she's crazy in a good way. :) She was down visiting a few AZ friends this summer. The day right after getting home from California I got to spend the whole day with her. Poor girl had to wallow around my disaster of a house. (We left two days later to go to Canada. It was a war zone of laundry around here.) 

Anyway.... It was great fun spending the day together and catching up. I love hearing about her child free life and dreaming about what that might be like. I've forgotten. We went to breakfast at Crackers. It was my first time eating breakfast there and I have to say I think their lunch offerings are more impressive. 

After breakfast we went to my house to hang out for a while. We played with the kids and watched lots of olympics. Sad those are over. The kids had fun getting extra attention and showing off.

Katie happened to be introduced to Bahama Bucks and she couldn't seem to get enough of it. So we took Raegan there. Raegan showed off her "cool trick" she learned from yo gabba gabba. Silly girl.

 Good times. Thanks for hanging out with us Katie and taking/sending me these pics. Love you!

Cali Trip Part 2

After going to the beach and hanging pool side and generally relaxing, we headed for Sea World. Michael hadn't been since he was like eight. The kids had a great time. It was pretty exhausting. Skipping naps for both kids was brave of us, and they were both very tired, but overall they did great and we had a great time. In hindsight, I wish we would have ridden more of the adult rides. They just opened up a new roller coaster this summer and I hear it's pretty awesome, but we didn't try to go on it. Oh and the sun was really intense as you sat out in it watching the shows all day, especially after spending all the previous days out in the sun. But it was good times and I'm glad we went. 

Here are some characters we encountered. 

There is a whole "land" dedicated to Sesame Street. Raegan loved all these little rides dedicated to her age (they all mimicked Disney rides). Turns out they wouldn't let Weston ride without shoes (I forgot to bring them of course) so we had to buy him some shoes there in the park. They are orange Elmo shoes and they cost $20. He then rode like two rides. Oh well. 

We rode this one a bunch.

Yay for naps! (See the shoes?)

The aquariums were a nice way to get out of the sun. (Blurry picture, sorry). Raegan LOVED seeing all the fish. She shrieked about Nemo and Dori. Fun times. 

One of the gift shops had a fun little coloring craft we stopped to do. I said it on the last post, but these are the greatest cousins a girl could ask for. Raegan adores them and they gave her so much love and attention. 

Before coming she had watched an Elmo's world episode about penguins, so she was super excited about this one.