Back to my roots

This past week I got home from a much-too-short trip to Utah. There is just never enough time to split between everyone. I flew out a few days before Jared got back from Peru (more on that later) so I was able to spend some good one on one time with my family. The first day I flew in, I went shopping in Salt Lake with my mom, then ate lunch with my parents at an awesome Thai food restaurant, and then that night we were able to see Harry Potter in Brigham city (at 7pm, BEFORE the midnight showings opening day, mind you). SUCH a great movie, best one of them all by far! After the movie we asked a kid to take our picture outside the theatre.


Not a wonderful picture, but I love it because it's our entire immediate family minus our youngest brother Andrew (who is on a mission in Korea right now). It's been a long time since we've had a picture with all of us siblings and my parents.


We were also able to have our 4th annual girl's day with my sisters and mom (usually we stay overnight in a hotel too, but Holly's husband was out of town so there was no one to watch her kids overnight.) It was still fun nonetheless. We started out with breakfast at the Straw Market (best. cinnamon rolls. ever.) Then we went to Tai Pan, and then to the Gateway where we shopped and had lunch at California Pizza Kitchen. (It's really funny to me that I can run for 2 or 3 hours and be fine, but shopping for the same amount of time just drains me for the rest of the day.)



I love my sisters and my mom!

One of the nights we also had a little BBQ in Ash and Jud's backyard. Here is a picture of the girlies.


Jared flew in to Utah from Peru four days after I got there (a full 24 hour hour trip with all of his layovers, including a thunderstorm in Detroit and a sandstorm in Phoenix!) Poor kid, he was so exhausted. A couple days after he got in, we drove up to Idaho to see his sister Kendra and their family. The night before we left Jared got really sick, a Montezuma's revenge, if you will. The 4 hour drive to Idaho quickly turned into a 6 hour drive, as we stopped at every gas station possible from Ogden to Mountain Home. Poor Jare Bear! Kendra's friend had a cabin about an hour from their house that they weren't using that week, so we stayed there for a few days too (although Jared spent the majority of his time there in the bathroom). Anyway, here are some pictures:

Jared taught the kids how to fish. He's such a sweetie, he's going to be such a good dad one day.



Alina and Isaac hanging out on a tree.


Jared and his dad trying to untangle the knots the kids made in the fishing lines. They were both very patient as this occurred about every 5 minutes.


Kendra and Ella. Poor Ella was not a fan of the hot sun while we were waiting for the fish to be caught.


Jared and Isaac


It was a lot of fun, I've missed being in the mountains so much!

These really were pretty much the only pictures we got while I was there. I'm kind of bummed because I always forget to take pictures when we do cool things, even when I do have my camera. Oh well. Anyway, I better wrap this up because I have to leave to go pick Jared up from the airport and I have to have this post finished by midnight or else I'll lose my record of having at least one blog post every month since I started this blog in 2007.