Our Arrival in Provo, Day 1-3

DAY 1:

Arrival at Grandma and Grandpas. Elizabeth came from Seven Peaks water park to meet us just before she had to leave for work. This is baby Nora with Naomi. 

Then the excitement hit when Avery walked up to see us.

Besties!!!

 Avery, Naomi, Ellie and Heidi

We went swimming at the Koffords. We needed to cool off ASAP having come from 117 degree weather.

 Day 2:

These kids were in the girls room for a bit, and came out giggling like this. On a stick horse.

Heidi and Kate

The toilet in the basement flooded and soaked almost all the carpet in the north bedroom, all down the hallway, and partially in bedroom viewed straight ahead. My mom had been trying to shop vac as much water as she could as we pulled into town. So when she didn't know what else to do, I called all the carpet cleaning business' in Provo. The first that answered got our business. I scheduled to meet them at my parents house, and they came a 1/2 hr after I called. I'm sure they were dying at the dirty carpet, but all we wanted them to do was suction as much water as possible. Nice!

 Day 3
I couldn't figure out why Audrey was being so quiet when I left her watching Yo Gabba Gabba on Chances bed after I had gone downstairs. Usually she cries when I leave. I walked back in to this at 9:30 am. This is so rare so obviously she needed sleep.

Since the weather was off and on raining, we decided to go to the Dollar Movie Theater with all the cousins. The Lorax was the kid only movie playing and we hadn't seen it (due to the terrible reviews from friends.) But it was interesting with about 12 kids and 3 moms, oh and Chance. Thank goodness that all the other families with little kids didn't mind the constant moving from seat to seat, load talking, and crying from Audrey and Nora. All and all, it was fun.
                                      

Leaving the Theater, we piled as many kids in as possible to the 3 cars that were there.

After attempting the park near Elizabeths home, having it rain on us, I suggested a service project of dusting and vacuuming Grandma and Grandpas house. So we ended up there. The kids were all good about helping. Somehow we lined them up on the stairs and took some funny pictures.

Demon Children (my camera wasn't focusing right cause I had the flash on)

There were a lot of photos taken, but I'll spare you the long row of them. This was fun. Half the kids smiled, and the other half did silly faces. They jumped the gun a little with the silly faces.

Chance wins the prize for cleaning out our moms fridge. You never know what you will find, or how old something is. So thank you Chance for cleaning it out for me and my kids.

Kenned and Abby ended up in the garage cleaning out the freezer with Grandma. Kennedy didn't want to get her skinny jeans dirty, so she just took them off.

Then we went to Wendy's to have spagetti and have the girls do pedicures on each other. Wendy and I have been planning to run away and get real pedicures of ourselves. It may never happen with busy schedules and kids.

When all interest was lost on finishing pedicures, sweat Kennedy painted Heidi's toe nails. I need a Kennedy at my house.

Audrey was stapped in so she wouldn't get into the nail polish, and so she would sit still to eat food. Since we've been here, she has run around and not eaten much, or climbed on my lap and tried to eat my food. I would like to enjoy my own meal so we pulled out Wendy's high chair.

Then around 8 pm, we decide to walk off all the pasta we had eaten. Wendy and I pushed strollers. Kennedy walked. Naomi and Thomas road bikes and Avery and Lincoln had scooters. It was quite the adventure. We ended up going to "Stans" for shakes. Then walked back. That was a little rough for some kids walking. And especially for a complaining Heidi who sat in the stroller almost the whole time. Heidi:  'Why didn't you bring my bike?' Me: "You told me you didn't want to ride it!"

I road my bike all over town growing up. I love the care free sedation of just cruising on a bike. So as Naomi was going around and around "Stans" I had to take this shot. I have to say, I did not doctor of photo shop this. My iPhone took it like this. MAGIC!

All the kids with us: Heidi, Audrey, Kate, Kennedy, Avery, Naomi.....

 ...and Lincoln.

Our Trip to Utah 7-11 /7-12-12

"On the Road Again..." Heading to Utah for a vacation with family/sisters/cousins. Filled with swimming, bike riding, climbing trees, swimming, not eating due to playing too much, little reading (much to my dismay,) sleepovers, and bathing suits!!! So excited!

Naomi was my co-pilot for the first few hours.

This guy is "Awesome!" (look closely at the plate)

45 minutes of traffic, and routed off the freeway, passing this...

We saw an ambulance taking off on the other side of the freeway going south. Then as we approached the crash sight, a life light helicopter took off, heading south too. When we pulled closer, this red car seemed to be the only car involved in the accident

Once we passed the site of the accident, I was in such awh of the beauty of the cloud formations. So bare with me cause I couldn't stop taking pictures as I drove.

We stopped on Wednesday night to stay in St George, Utah with my cousin Simcah Reed. I have never been to her house, yet have heard so much about her graciousness. So I contacted her to ask if she would be ok to have us stay with her. And, yes, she was very excited, as I was too. This picture was the evening, about 2 hours after we arrived. I had missed the shot of the beams of the sunset spouting out of the clouds toward the ground. But this was still amazing.

The next day, again I couldn't resist. Utah has such strange winds and random storms that blow in around late afternoon, but I enjoyed the clouds that rolled by.

Starting just before Baker, Ca. The temperature just kept climbing. Then on Thursday morning around 11 am, the day was already a smoldering 100 degrees. I was so happy to not be staying the rest of the day in the "desert."