Our Last Day of Vacation

Our last day we stopped at Rachelle's house and what great timing!  Adrianne just got home from the hospital so I got go over to her house to see her brand new baby!  So precious!!  

This picture is to blackmail Madison and Noble. They took a while to warm up, not remembering the times they've played together in the past (ok, they were babies, we'll give them a break).

Rachelle took us to a great community pool and the kids had a blast swimming until sunset.

Thanks Rachelle for a fun stay - great dinner, fabulous breakfast and fun company!

Back in St. George where we stayed a night, I took Madison and Brooke to the Tuacahn Theater to see "The Sound of Music". 

It was fabulous - no wonder they call it Broadway in the Desert.

All packed up and ready to go.  Five hotels, three homes, and thousands of miles, yet we still weren't tired of living out of a suitcase.  We had such a fabulous vacation and didn't want to go home.  Now it's back to life, back to reality.

THE RANCH!

On Wednesday, we drove up to Grace, Idaho to the Clegg family ranch.  This is where Lyn Schuffert was born.  Her family is still there - they were so nice and let us have the best day ever!  We borrowed Kent's quads and swam in his pond.  We also went over to another cousin, Nathan's, ranch just up the road and road horses.  They have a slice of heaven there - it was so beautiful and fun!

Little Savvy and Brooklyn on the horse we named "Bella"

Sav got stung by a wasp on her face so was holding a penny up to it.

Christian and Madison on "Skip"

Skip looks tame now, but he likes to run!  Scared me to death.  Carolyn and I had fun taking the horses off into the fields.  Horseback riding is a lot more difficult than it looks!  I was really sore and used muscles I didn't know I had.

Carolyn riding off into the sunset . . .

Brooke testing her skill at driving

They had goats, baby pigs . . .

and a calf that Madison got to feed a bottle to.  So cute!

This is the pond that Kent made for his children's entertainment.  He just added this slide on the side of the hill.  The kids loved it and really picked up a lot of speed going down.  They didn't care that it was cold water.

Savannah

Everyone tried the tire swing over the little creek.  We rode the quads through a little canyon to a campground they have set up.  

This is Kent's horse, Diego.  He is beautiful, but not tame so we weren't able to ride him or get too close. 

Too cool off, we rode through the sprinklers!   These are much different than our little lawn sprinklers at home!

After a wonderful dinner with Nathan and his extended family, we took a sunset ride on the Rhino.  The kids were thrilled to be able to ride in the back of a "truck"!

One last hoop shot before we head home. 

We were all tired, dirty and got home very late, but it was all worth it. It was an amazing day!!

LOGAN!

On Monday, we packed up and left Joe and Heather's and headed up to Logan to spend a few days with Carolyn.  Brady and Ty were in Denver, so it was just us girls!  Poor Christian!  The picture above is the view from her front yard, and most windows!! We had a fun time together.  Logan is such a cute town.  We walked to town and went to dinner and did some shopping at a fabulous book store.  Look how cute these little girls are trying to carry as many purses as possible. 

On Tuesday, we "let" the kids play most of the day in the house . . . we were both sort of hooked on "Breaking Dawn".  So funny!  So were Heather, Joe and Megan.  We all were up until wee hours of the morning reading and reading and reading!  Crazy!

We finally had to get out of the house and went to Gossmer's Dairy for some squeaky cheese and root beer milk.   Then headed out to this darling park where the kids had a great time playing.
The all experimented with static electricity.

Our Weekend!! . . . sighhhh . . .

To celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary on August 1st, Dirk and Tina threw a wonderful party all weekend long in Deer Valley.  It started Friday night with a barbeque at their home (well, really it started Friday afternoon in the temple).  They booked the entire Hotel for everyone to stay in, and a weekend of festivities.  

Saturday morning we had a European breakfast at the hotel with everyone, then went over to Olympic Park for some ziplining,  Alpine Bobsleds, and a ski jump show.

The scenery was so pretty on the way down.  I thought the warning signs were pretty funny, too.

We watched the ski jump show in the afternoon.  This is the only facility in the world like this, so people come from all over the world to practice here. They had many Olympians, and Olympic hopefuls performing.  It is amazing!  The water is aerated right before they land to break the landing better.  They have to swim out of the water wearing skis and all the gear.  It was really amazing when 9 skiers jumped at the same time.  Here is a 20 second video clip of one jumper.

After the Olympic Park activities, we rented mountain bikes and took the ski lift to the top of the mountain and rode down. It was a lot of fun . . . but it was so hard! I nearly bailed so many times and all I could think about was having bruises and scrapes in my formal dress. Nothing like spin class!

It was so beautiful, serene, and peaceful up on that mountain.

Then we had appointments at a salon . . . I got an up-do and John got a massage.  I wish I had time for a massage after that bike ride!  

An hour and a half, three ponytails, one braid and 50 bobby pins later:

It was so heavy on my head I had to take Advil!

We got dressed to the nines.  John was so dashing in his tux!  I pretended we were celebrating our 15th anniversary (since it passed without a wink).  We had a marvelous time with wonderful people, a beautiful dinner, dancing the night away.

The next morning there was a farewell brunch put on at the hotel.

Then John left for the airport (he had to be in San Francisco all week) and I went back to Elk Ridge to get the kids!  Again, we are so grateful for Joe and Heather for taking our kids all weekend.  It's not like they don't already have their hands full with their own five kids!  Especially with Ashlyn . . . she never did warm up completely to Joe . . . not even after he was the lucky one who had to change her massive dirty diaper.  Thank you thank you thank you!!!

Here is a rundown from the week of July 28- Aug 1.  We had another busy, fun-filled packed week of sightseeing, movies (love the $1 theater!), shopping, eating, swimming, and fun.  We packed up our Cottonwood hotel on Thursday and headed to Provo to show the kids BYU, then went down to Joe and Heather's in Elk Ridge.  They have such a great place with a fabulous view.  We enjoyed staying with them, and the kids loved being able to hang out the whole weekend with cousins!   We are so thankful for Joe and Heather for taking our kids the entire weekend so we could attend the temple and the weekend activities!

Friday:  The catalyst for this whole road trip:  The Sealing of Dirk and Tina Gates!

We are so happy for them.  They were sealed in the SLC Temple on Aug 1 - their 10th anniversary.  We attended his first endowment session and then the sealing.  It was very emotional when the children came in to be sealed together with their parents forever.  

John and John DiGiovanni - a friend from work.  John D and his wife toured temple square while we were inside.

July 30th

Wednesday we headed up to Deer Valley to visit the Gates family

so the kids can play with Iyan and Aden.  We loved their cabin home - so beautiful and peaceful!

John loved having a place to work without interruptions, and reliable wi-fi.  He had been going down to the hotel lobby late at night to work each night.

and then on to Draper . . . Swimming and a barbeque at Kim and Kyle's! 

We were fortunate to be the first ones in their brand new pool!  

Brooke and Taylor had too much fun palling around together!  They were so cute.

Christian loved how EVERYONE has a theater room!  

He said he wanted one in our house (sorry, no basements here!) and would rather have a theater than the beach!  Who's kid is this?  Geesh!

Kim and Ashlyn on the trampoline

Madison and Brooke ended up sleeping over with Taylor and Riley.  They had so much fun with girl time and I'm grateful for the lifelong friends that we all are!

July 28th

On Monday morning, we hiked Mt. Timpanogos and toured the freezing caves.  The kids were troopers and made it up the 1 1/2 miles nearly straight up it seemed.

The views were spectacular!

Ashlyn needed to be carried the whole way up (that was a workout for me!). . .

and the whole way down (she slept that whole time).

We didn't pack any jackets for our whole trip, so we brought a blanket from the hotel to wrap up in.  I'm glad we did because it was so cold inside!

After hiking and then swimming at our hotel, 

we went over to Jason and Emily's for a barbeque.  Tiffany and Eddy were there

with their darling kids.  It was so fun to get together!  We miss

our good friends!!  Ashlyn loved holding baby Catelyn.  So cute!