Trip to Utah

Right before Christmas we were able to go to Utah for Stephen’s mom to get married.  Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures of the wedding or of any other time that we were with his family.  Stephen has plenty of pictures and video from his mom’s wedding and they will be on his website at some point in time.  But as for this blog, it’s like it never happened. 

I’m bummed that I didn’t even take a picture of when all the sister-in-laws and our mother-in-law went to get mani-pedis before the wedding.  It was so much fun and will definitely have to be a tradition. 

Nor did I take any photos wedding dress shopping with Stephen’s mom Mitzi.  See, we arrived Thursday night for her Friday wedding and at around 11 pm she showed Stephen the dress that she was planning on wearing.  It was just a normal dress and certainly wasn’t very flattering and immediately Stephen said it wouldn’t work.  So the next morning instead of a relaxing day at the spa she went to find a dress for her wedding that evening.  Kellee and I came with and luckily the first dress at the first store we went to was PERFECT!  And SO much better than what she was planning on wearing.  But no, you don’t get to view any of that. 

Instead I have pictures from our 5 hour escapade out to Tooele.  Enjoy.
First up is my adorable son and myself.  This was the first and only time we let him play in the snow on our trip.  He doesn’t even have a snow jacket.  We’re such Arizonans.


He LOVED the snow, but he just enjoyed stomping around in it.  He had no desire to actually touch the stuff with his bare hands.






This is what Tooele looks like.  It’s where my Grandma lives and where my dad was born and raised.

Here’s my grandma’s house!  I love it with all the snow.

As I was trying to get this shot the tree dumped TONS of snow on me.  Lovely.

Stephen has his own rocking horse down here and he immediately got on this one at my grandma’s.

My grandma was the first to hear the little guy awake from his nap and she quickly scooped him up before he realized I was there too.  So cute.

I love that in this picture is a picture of me just barely older than him.  I’m in the black, white and red if you can’t tell.

This is the wall of our family photos.

I love this picture of the early family at Memory Grove in Salt Lake City.  This is where my parents had their wedding reception.  We have soo many family photos taken here and I was lucky enough to have my engagement photos taken here too.

My dad drew these pictures of my three eldest siblings.  That man has sooo much talent.

These are some photos of my grandparents. 

And this is the infamous height chart.  Both of my Stephens are on here.

Unfortunately this picture is so dark, but the second dark line down is my son!  From this trip.  Then move a dark line down to the first light line and that one is mine.  These two lines are a good two or more inches apart.  The crazy thing is I was two for that line, and my son isn’t there yet and already he’s two inches taller!  CRAZY!  I LOVE being able to see that stuff.  I WILL have one of these in my home.

These next two are homes that my family had in Tooele.  There on 200 West which used to be called James Street which is the family name.


And here’s how Stephen was kept occupied on the trip.

Haha.  Seriously though I was so proud of myself.  I came up with all these different things for him to do on the long drive.  I brought a mini cookie sheet which fit in his lap and some magnets (which he hadn’t used before) and some coins and pencils and paper.  While those certainly kept him occupied for a good while on the trip, my genius husband’s idea was the winner.  He downloaded episodes of The Backyardigans for IV to watch on the IPad.  Winner.  And now we ALL have the theme song memorized.  And yes, we burst into it at random.

Snowflake Trip

I have a whole bunch a places I want to visit in AZ before Stephen graduates in May.  There aren't any job openings here and so chances are we'll be living somewhere else once he gets a job.  So I wanted to explore Arizona while we still have the chance.  Still left on my list are Tombstone/Bisbee...we did a quick trip there already and I'm dying to go back, also Prescott/Jerome.  I've been to Prescott, but never Jerome.  

It's also one of my goals to see as many temples as I can.  Already this year my mom and sister went with me out to the Gila Temple in Safford, I was married in the Mesa Temple, and I've been to both the supposed Phoenix Temple site and the Gilbert Temple site.  All that was left in Arizona was to see the Snowflake Temple.  So up we went.  

While on the drive I had to change my son's diaper.  I've always struggled doing this in the car but this time I got smart and changed him in the trunk where there's tons of room!   I was pretty proud of this genius move.

Here we are at the front waterfall of the Temple.

I was testing out my ISO and I LOVE this shot of my cutie.

I would love to have huge pictures of the Temples in our home, but I'm not about to pay ridiculous prices for them, so I'm taking my own shots to later edit and frame.  I like the way these turned out.

On the way back we stopped in Show Low because my mom had never been before.  While eating lunch this older gentleman came in and was telling the craziest, loudest story I've ever heard before.  We quickly made our escape and found his beaten-up truck.  It seriously looks like Mater from Cars.  My mom stealthily took these pictures from the inside of our car.  

We're talking same color(s) and it was crazy to see the aging on this vehicle.

The tires were sooo bald.  The tread was literally worn off.  

As we were pulling away I saw that the back of the truck was held together with rope.  We had already put away the camera so I didn't get a picture, but this will live on in my memory as the Mater truck.  What it lacked in safety it certainly made up for in personality.

Meteor Crater

Over the summer we went up to Meteor Crater.  On the way up our son decided to play peek-a-boo.

Too stinkin' cute!! 

Here's the drive up to the crater.  I imagined it to look taller from the outside.

My Stephens at the top of the crater.  It was soo windy.

In the lower left you can see the bottom of the crater where they did experiments and set up a mine for a short while.  Pretty cool.

Strawberry Festival

A while ago (is it sad that I don't remember when?) the family went up to the Strawberry Festival in Strawberry/Pine.  I have such fond memories of going to Girls' Camp up there and I had been dying to go back.  Luckily my family felt this would be fun too.  Here's the little guy on the ride up.  He's just too cute.

We finally made it and little guy loved playing around in the grass. 

 

Here's Alex in front of the quilting store.  They had two long-arm quilting machines which was great for me to show Stephen what it was I wanted.  He was as impressed as I am.  

 

We also saw this fun covered wagon.  Stephen LOVES these and it's crazy to think that for how small it it, that's what people loaded up to come across to the West.  Crazy.

             

This is an amazing English Paper piecing quilt that we love.  We're totally gonna try it!

 

Ooh, this is the purse pattern that I want.  Did I mention that it was the Quilter's Show too this weekend?  Crazy huh!  I was super excited and we got some great stuff for some future sewing.

  

These next few photos capture my sister's and my adventure in the playground.  There was an actual teeter-totter and we gave it a whirl.

 

 Oh yeah, did I mention that she made me fall off?  Cause she did and it was awkward. And painful.

She'll hate me for posting this, but it's the only picture I have of her on the teeter-totter.

And then the ending picture of all the kids together.  We had soo much fun, even if Strawberry didn't actually produce any of the Strawberries in this festival ;)