Utah

Yikes.  Ok, so I've been home for 3 weeks now, but I've been spending every night working on the kids' Halloween costumes or stuff for my calling or other pressing matters.  So, here it is - our trip to Utah!

We spent a week with my mom and a week with my dad.  Both my parents took time off work and that was really nice.  Especially being pregnant and not being used to having help with the kids (that happens when your husband is gone 16 hours of the day), it was great to have someone else pitch in and then make dinner, too.  :)

So, with my mom we...

Froze.  We were actually cold pretty much the whole trip.  Cade was excited to be able to finally wear his "sock jammies" as Ali calls them.  Ali on the other hand... well... just refused to wear clothes.

Made suckers.  The flavors?  Bubble gum and "hushmellow."

Held "baby" Kenzie.  My sister's daughter is only 7 months younger than Ali, but Ali really loved to "mother" her the whole time we were there.

Went to Kangaroo Zoo.  The kids loved jumping on all the blow-up toys they had there.  Cade especially loved flying at the speed of light down the gigantic slide.

Spent the weekend at my grandparent's house.  Cade went with my grandpa out on the 4-wheeler to take their dog out one morning.  Again, it was cold.

Here's Cade with his favorite dog, Rebel.  Or as he says it, "Ravel."

We had a ton of fun that weekend.  Ali spent as much time as she could upstairs in the "princess" room having tea parties.  I was able to do our family pictures and was pretty excited with how well they turned out -- especially considering we had 23 people to all get to look at the camera and smile at the same time.  :)  But to see those, you'll have to check out my photo blog.  When I get them up.

Here's my wonderful grandparents-

and here's a pretty good shot of my sister, my mom and me

We also went to the dinosaur park.  I just love Ali's smile in this one -

And this is when she stood on the dinosaur that she was able to conquer by climbing up on it's back (she's showing you her muscles)-

I also got to visit with some of my good friends from school growing up.  It was so nice to see them!

Hannah (newly married!), me, Heather and my sister

I was also able to go to my cousin's wedding while I was there (which is really why I was there - 2 family weddings within a week of each other.  It was great they could plan it that way).  Congratulations to Kevin and Rose!

The next week with my dad was spent mainly in Oregon.  Or in the car, rather, driving to Oregon for my aunt's wedding.  The kids did much better than I thought they would.  Between coloring, snacking, watching movies and the occasional pit stop, we made it in one piece.  Being pregnant while driving so much wasn't great and I learned why the dr. tells you to stop every few hours and walk around.

The wedding was a lot of fun and staying in a hotel is always fun for me.  Who doesn't love not having to clean up after themselves?  I especially enjoyed just being able to share a room with my sister and having late night hot chocolate that we swiped from the lobby after the kids finally went to sleep.

I was the photographer at the wedding (which was great - thanks again!) and it looks Ali will be following right in my footsteps.  They had disposable cameras for everyone to take some pictures and she took right to it.  Too bad her fingers were too short to actually take a picture.

I already posted some pictures from the wedding on my photo blog, so you can check them out there.

It was really a nice vacation.  We were ready to go home and see Tyler... and when I say "we" I mean Ali and me.  Cade told me on the plane home that he did not want to come back to Georgia yet.  "Don't you miss Daddy?" I asked.  "No.  He is in my heart.  When people are in my heart, I don't miss them."  I thought it was a pretty sweet thing to say.  For the books, he's in my heart, too.  But I still missed him.