Willard Bay Fun and going home...

All of Dan's family got campsites near Willard Bay on Thursday Jul. 26.  We got there in the early evening and set up camp.  We had a great time hanging out by the fire and playing games and getting pretty bad sleep :).  The kids did fine overall, but we were all tired on Friday.  We borrowed a boat and had such a great time tubing, wakeboarding (I got up!), wakesurfing, etc.  It was a fun day spent in the sun.  We set up all our chairs at a little pavilion and we could just head down a hill to a beach area to play and swim out to the boat to trade out boaters.  It was perfect!

 Brooke taking a quick morning nap.

Megan enjoying the kindle and some wifi--modern camping :).

Daddy and our little Candy...

I was there too!

Candy taking a nap too...

Grandma and Candace at the pavilion...

Ali and Ben...

Heather...

Cousins at lunch!  Whitney, Alonzo, Jake, and Isaac...

The kids had as much fun on land with the floats as they did on water :)

Uncle Ben getting some love from Sarah and Lily..

We were too worried about our camera to take it out on the boat, so we have no documentation, but we all tubed together (slowly with Megan and Brooke on board) and Dan and I attempted to wakeboard and wakesurf.  I love boating!

Before we knew it, Saturday morning was here (July 28) and it was time to drive home.  We stopped to take a few pics at Hole in the Rock in southern Utah.  We drove to Amarillo on Saturday and then made it home Sunday evening.  Our first road trip in the van was a great success.

City Creek and Nate & Steph

On Wednesday July 25, we decided to go check out the new City Creek shopping area.  We heard there was a splash area for the kids and we had so much fun walking around (especially in the Disney store), watching the kids splash, and enjoying a fancy caramel apple compliments of Papa. 

Brooke, Alonzo, and Megan

Looking down on the street...

Candace hung out on my hip...

Megan, Uncle Ben, Whitney, Papa, Grandma, Dan, and Brookie...

Enjoying the apple...

We did a quick walk through Temple Square too.

We then headed down to Orem to see Nate and Steph and their two boys.  We had a nice dinner and played some Pinochle while the kids watched a movie in the basement.  As usual, we stayed up way too late and had a blast!

Henry, William, and Megan...

Candace...

William and Megan...

Pioneer Day

We had a great 24th of July. 
In the morning we took the kids down the hill to the park while some of the adults played tennis. 

In the afternoon we went to Grandma Great's house.  We chatted and enjoyed being together with Grandma.  Ken played piano while Ali and Jane sang and the kids all had fun playing with the toys and getting hugs from Grandma.  

In the evening, we went to a little potluck at Dan's cousin's home (David Keith and Becky).  It was great to catch up with cousins and celebrate Pioneer Day.

Visit with Maren and Family pics...

Monday was a pretty quiet day for us to recover from the drive.  My college roomie Maren was able to come up to Bountiful that morning to say hello and let our kids play.
Maren and I have very similar tastes in a lot of things.  Especially clothes.  And when we lived together, there were many times where we'd come out in the morning only to discover that we were wearing almost the exact same thing.  Since we had pretty much every class together, we felt like it would be too weird if we dressed as twinners, so one of us would go and change.

So true to form, here we are 7 years later with almost the exact same outift and hair.  Bahaha.  Love it.

Maren's crew:  Brigham, Ben, and Ann.  Baseball Megan.  And very grumpy Brooke.

Candace and Anna were pretty funny.  They are about 2 months apart in age and they only wanted whatever toy the other had.  Oh 2 year olds.

Brooke found this super-comfortable position and passed out.  Hilarious.

After a lovely morning with Maren, we got ready for a party with all of Dan's siblings and their families.  As part of the party, we headed to a neighbor's yard to take some family pictures.

Candace and Papa getting ready to go for pictures...

All the grandkids.  In the sun.  This was as good as it got.  15 kids and counting.  Ali and Amberly are both expecting, so that number will grow quickly!

The originals...

The whole fam...

The adults...

We're so mature...

 

The couples...

And Ben.  Home from his mission for a year already!

Dan and I.  I love this man.  

Mom and Dad...

The families...

The grandkids also loved the trampoline after pictures.  They had so much fun playing.

Road Trip!

What good is a mini-van if you don't take some good road trips in it.  We made our plans to take our girls out to Utah for a week.  The plan was to drive up on Sat/Sun (Jul 21-22), stay for the workweek and drive home Sat/Sun (Jul 28-29).  We were ALMOST foiled in our attempt when some random guy backed into our van (AHH!) on Thursday Jul. 20.  I was grabbing some last minute things from Target and he hit us as we were leaving.  I was SO. MAD.  Oh you know, thankful we were all fine, etc., but it totally messed up my plans!

But miracle of miracles, we got the van assessed, told the guy the total, he brought us cash that day and we got it fixed.  Whew!  That made for a busy time packing things up since we didn't get the van back until after 5 pm on Friday.  But we did it. 

We hit the road EARLY on Saturday Jul. 21.  Like 4:30 am early.  We recently bought a dual screen DVD player that we can put in van and it was worth every penny.  We borrowed a bunch of movies from my Dad and that kept the kiddos entertained. 

Some of us were more tired than others...Brookie

Megan was so excited...

A darling sleepy eyed one year old Candace...

The kids slept the first few hours and watched movies.  We had breakfast packed to eat in the car.

  The girls did so well on our long first day.  We stopped to stretch for lunch and dinner at rest stops along the way.

Lunch... 

Running laps with Dad...

Dinner--Candace DEVOURED the plums--and was quite a mess, but so cute.  

We made it to our hotel in Albequerque near 6:30 pm and got the girls bathed and in bed.  It was a little tricky to get the girls to calm down enough to sleep with us all in the same room, but we got through. 

We got off near 7 am on Sunday morning and made it to Bountiful just before dinner time.  We got to catch up with Dan's parents and a few of his siblings at dinner that night.  We were so happy to be out of the car!

Starting out the second morning...