Family Fun in Utah

We made it to Utah and settled in pretty well - spending lots of time with grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles.  We put our babysitters right to work and after the kiddos went to bed we went straight for the movies seeing the second Star Trek which we loved.  We visited with family the next day too.  Steve's sister Meghan had her missionary farewell talk in church on Sunday and did an exemplary job on it.  She's been prepped for it for a long time coming.  We're so proud of her.  She will be doing so much good!

Getting some yard work done to start with.

Ross enjoying his red Camaro from his Uncle Dallas

Grams and Grandbabes

Getting some Uncles to do some jumpin'

Party time!

Hanging out with neighbors too

Meghan's signature pose haha

Sista-in-laws

Ross manipulating uncles some more. ;)

Auntie and Niece

Ross knows how to get what he wants. ;)

Spinnin' in his favorite swing

Daddy hangin' out with Rubes.

Monday we headed to a Grenny family reunion of sorts on my mom's side of the family.  It was fun to see cousins and their kids.  It's like we're all grown up or something...I still don't feel that way.  That night Steve and I stole away on another date.  We got the best shaved ice I think I've had since Hawaii and went to visit some of our families' graves since it was Memorial Day.  We went to my grandpa's and cousin Jake's  cemetery, and Steve's Esplin grandparents, sister Ashley, and Aunt Sandra.  

Aunt Renee, Uncle Mike, Gramps and Rubes - testing our Ruby's long monkey toes.

Ruby's not sure what to think about facial hair. ;)

The engaged couple!  Rach and soon to be brother-in-law Dain!

Throwin' some frisbees around.

Cousin Aleah with Aunt Maya

Cousin Ashley with their cute new baby Ellie.

Uncle Mike, Grandma Grenny, Gramps and Rubes.

Grampa loves babies!

The cousins!  Aislinn, Hyrum, Cara, Dain, Rachel, Grampa Grenny, Grandma Grenny, Tyler, Ashley, Austin, Stephanie, Justin, Lexi, Me, Stephen, and Ross the photo bomber!

The cousins with kiddos!

Ruby "chillin"

The Clan

Playing with Grams

Hangin' with Gramps

The next day I got to go with my sis and mom to help my sister go wedding dress shopping.  She, of course, looked amazing in all of the dresses she tried on.  We had to stop her, because it was making it harder to decide with each dress she tried.  She ended up picking the first dress she tried on which was a gorgeous lace that was more form fitting.  Totally Rachel.  She was so excited about it.  I remember picking mine and seeing it on and just LOVING how it felt.  I will always love my dress!  She will totally love hers. :)

That night we went to a Salt Lake Real soccer game.  It was pouring buckets...literally, but we sneaked to the covered seats and enjoyed the entire game.  I learned how to make cinnamon roasted almonds and deemed it appropriate to bring to the game.  They charge $15 for a bag!  I made a gallon bag's worth for about $10.  Win!  

Real!  We loved the chant song for the Real - it was awesome.

The crazy passing rainstorms

Wednesday we headed up to Park City with Steve's fam for the annual White family reunion.  It was surprisingly cool the whole trip.  We had some funny sleeping arrangements.  Ross got to bunk with his Papa and Grandma (score!) and Ruby hung out with us...she would get banned occasionally to the hall when she got too noisy. ;)  We did lots of fun swimming, playing Monopoly (with a bunch of cheaters I might add!), a zoo trip, and a hike which hilariously we thought was about half a mile and turned into a 3 mile round trip.  We did the hike with Ruby in the carrier that Steve carried and Ross walking....which lasted about 5 minutes.  He was then transferred from uncle to uncle to grandpa to mom to dad and back again throughout the rest of the hike.  He hung in there until the end and we got him to hold on with singing silly songs about dump trucks and Mater.  It was a nice hike where part of the Mormon Trail was - you could still see places where handcarts and wagons had forged their way through.  We also got to dine at Ruby Tuesdays for those of us who read/listened to the last General Conference talks by the Prophet and Apostles.  Goodness never tasted so good. ;)  We packed up, headed home, and got to go do a temple session before doing some family pictures where my always smiley Ruby decided she was tired and not so smiley anymore.  We still got some good pictures regardless. :)  Those will be a separate post since this one is so enormous!

Love this pic!

What usually ends up happening when we try to get Ross to color...you end up solo. ;)

I love cuddly, freshly bathed babies

Zooing it up!

Ross and Grams are ready

Ruby blowing bubbles to pass the time.

Ross was SUPER excited about the otters he would call fish every other time.  It was adorable!

Watching the bird show

Rubes taking her afternoon nap

Grandpa's in heaven - Ross wants to see some tigers!

I still can't decide who was having more fun on this ride. :)  Don still talks about it. ;)

Our little chimp

The hike

One of the few times Ross was walking. ;)  If we let him walk he'd hang out picking up rocks and sticks instead!

Super dad!

Go China!

Ruby the Lego Orangutan

Crazy monkeys

Killer spoons in the pool.

 

Monopoly with a bung of cheaters ;)

Sunday we spent with my family going to church and then some nap time. We had our last Sunday dinner with Meghan since she was going into the Missionary Training Center (MTC) that Wednesday.

Brick Oven for the farwell lunch

Crazy Uncle Michael

Beautiful Megs

Auntie Megs and little Rubes

Cute Meghan!

The siblings minus Nathan.

Saying goodbye

Megs is going to do so well!

I can't remember what we did that Monday or Tuesday...oh dear, but Wednesday we threw Meghan to the curb at the MTC ;) which was sad and happy at the same time and also went to my Uncle Joe's amazing house to do some fun swimming.  Ross loved it.  Ruby slept through it and didn't even get in the water silly girl.  

Swim time!

Floating - grams didn't want to get her hair wet.

Auntie Janae chillin' with Rubes.

On Thursday we went with my family to the Art City Days for a scone and some rides.  Ross went on them all by himself.  I thought it was great until I looked down at the tracks his littler train was going on...being held up by paint chips.  Seriously - I had no idea how that thing was staying up.  Oh the great times when the Carnies come out and all the safety/health codes get thrown out the window. ;)  It's tradition!  

Friday we headed with my family to St. George for the weekend for the first annual Staheli reunion!  It was ROASTING!  Thank heavens for air conditioning, pools, and splash parks.  We enjoyed a nice condo (with Ross bunking with his Papa and Grandma again - score 2!) and Ruby hanging out with us in our room.  We ate, swam, watched some good shows, played great games, enjoyed church together, visited my Aunt Connie, and just hung out.  I missed my brother, Garrett, who's been going to school down there, so it was nice to catch up with him...and his crazy mustache!  Oh Garrett...got to love him. :)  Ruby, our little trouble maker, convinced my dad to go swimming...with his iPhone - which he didn't notice until he was done 45 minutes later.  Oh Ruby you rascal!

Trekking south

Driving!

Splash park!

We had a Five Crowns tournament - played for 3 nights...I guess his mustache was lucky since he won.  He will be challenged again next year!

Garrett's trying to photo bomb!

Keeping cool

Hanging out at the concert!

The beautiful St. George temple.

Rubes and Auntie Rach

We finished the trip with going to a free concert in the park...by Nathan Osmond - gone country.  He got requests from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and sang them with a country twang - hilarious. :)  Ross loved it and it ended up being a nice evening to finish it off.  The next morning I went with my mom to do some family names at the Temple and ended up getting a little tour of the St. George Temple by my Aunt Connie.  We got to see some of the original structure that from when it was first built in 1877 - held together by pegs still!  There was a floor where they used to have little apartments for the saints to stay in while they were there and the assembly hall which is no longer used since the floor boards can't hold all the weight anymore.  I also got to peek my head in to the brides' room that my dad helped to remodel with my Uncle Steve.  It was gorgeous.  I love the St. George temple!  We packed up and headed back home and recouped.  Ross helped Papa mow the lawn (one of his many dreams come true) and we planned a date with some of our best friends -- the Youngs and Dilles.

Cuddling with Great Grandma Staheli

Mowing some lawns!

Addison with Rubes and Suzy

The boys - Matt, Jordan, and Stephen

Ross cornering Addison for a smile. ;)

The cute kiddos - Allypop (as Ross likes to say), Ross, and Addison. Ruby's photo bombing in the background. ;)

I caught Ross holding Ruby's hand in the car - so precious!

We BBQed with the kiddos, split to put them to bed and get babysitters, and headed to the Trolley for some dessert, then back to the Dilles for a rousing game of Hand and Foot.  I laughed my head off the whole time - remembering once again why we're all friends.  I love seeing our kids together - it's so fun...and also makes me feel old.  I guess I'm just supposed to keep feeling more and more old as life goes on.
You'd think we'd be done for the night, but no - Steve wanted to see Man of Steel with his bros before we left...so we went to the midnight showing - I think I'm still recovering from that insanely late night.  My dad was so nice to take the kids in the morning so we could catch up on a couple hours.  
The rest of the trip we hung out with family.  Steve was also employed by his younger brother Michael washing windows - that kid makes pretty dang good money doing it.  They got a pretty amazing tip washing my parents' place, so we made Michael treat us to Magleby's which was delish!  Father's Day was fun - Ross and Ruby gave their Papa's pictures of them with their gramps and their handprints in a frame.  Steve got a family picture and their hands traced on top of a tracing of his hand since he's a "hands on" dad. :)  He also got movie tickets. :)  We said our sad good byes with grandparents trying to figure out how to stow away our children.   

Lego playing

Helicopter and bead playing

Snuggling Grandpa

Gramps getting some intensive grandkid time.

Grandma spending some quality learning time with Ruby.

Cleaning some windows...well Michael and Steve trying to ward off Ross from soaking their already clean window.

The trek back home was done all in one day.  I must say leaving at 4AM makes such a difference in the feel of the trip.  We felt like we were ahead of the game the whole time.  The kids did great, we stopped in Bakers City at the sweet playground again, once at The Dalles in Oregon, and made it home by 6:30 that night in time for baths and bed.  It was quite the trip!  We loved it and enjoyed our Utah for the umpth time. :)

  

Utah Trip Number...should we even count anymore? :)

Well, we've celebrated Steve's being done with school by hanging out and getting our house together before we left for the long drive to Utah.  It takes a lot of mentally preparing and about four different lists for me to get ready for trips.  I have to write everything down because I no longer trust this post-bearing-two-children's-brain of mine anymore.
It was quite sad actually though getting ready to leave...I had about zero motivation to do anything.  I think like i said - mentally I decided I could last until Steve finished his finals and that was just about all I was going to do.  Kind of like running - when you say you can make it to that lamppost and no further.  
Steve on the other hand (despite battling sickness) was motivated to do everything.  I thought it was quite convenient. :)  Anyway - we got the house sorted, my lists checked off, and the plan to leave at 4 o'clock in the morning.  We decided to try this since our last long road trip with babies turned into the trip from !@#$ to put it lightly. ;)  We got up, held our breath as we transferred the babes into their car seats and actually headed out by 4:30 - not bad right?  Ruby woke up for just a little while, but settled back to sleep while we got driving.  Hooray! We had told Ross when we had put him to bed the night before that when he woke up we were going to go to Papa's house.  When Steve got him up, Ross shouted out excitedly, "Papa's!  Plane!"  We told him - sorry Joe - no plane - but he was still excited to know we were headed to Papa's house.  We put him in the car with his signature two blankies and his monkey (yes - the monkey's name is just "Monkey" - we're real creative parents...also I find it hilarious that he loves his monkey but doesn't really have any passion towards any other sort of monkey.)

Wes left for Connecticut before we left so the boys had a good-bye for a month hug.

Good buddies!

I was planning to sleep on the drive since I didn't get to bed until about 1 and got up at 3:30 to get things going.  Let's just say Steve gets excited when he sees things that he thinks are amazing, and kept poking me to look out my window at the scenery.  Ross didn't need any poking - he stayed quietly awake in awe that we were driving in the dark so early in the morning...and I'm sure he was just thinking about all the things he was going to do when he got to Papa's.  He didn't say a word and stayed awake for about two hours until he finally went back to sleep for an hour.  I got about an hour total in of sleep before Ruby woke up around 7:30 where we stopped, filled up the gas, filled up Ruby, changed a few diapers and headed out again.  

Ross being entertained by Monsters Inc.

Ruby coping with the drive. ;)

Ross not making it through Dumbo

So Steve grew up doing loads of family road trips and has since come to loath certain foods when on a road trip: red vines, deli sandwiches, and sharing water bottles.  I always hate the feeling of how much junk you feel like you're eating when you road tripping too.  So I planned some pretty doable fairly healthy snacks/meals for our trek.  We did bagels and cream cheese for breakfast, we had carrots, sugar snap peas, dried mango, pretzels, and goldfish for snacks, I got croissants for our sandwiches with deli meat from the actual deli and mayo and mustard packets.  Yum!  We stopped in Baker City a couple hours later for lunch.  We went to the park by the library and LOVED the old school playground they had (you know - the safety violation code type of old school.  There was a ten foot tall skinny slide, a merry-go-round that I'm sure could get going pretty fast, and some long swings that I bet could get pretty high.  We ate lunch, ran around on the playground, and then headed for Boise.  
Ross enjoyed watching Dumbo on a portable DVD player which was nice, but didn't make it all the way through before crashing for his nap.  Ruby was fabulous.  All my panicking and worrying about how she was going to do in her car seat for so long was for naught.  We also had learned from the last trip to take a bit of a longer break in between stretches of driving.  We got to Boise and could have stuck it out all the way to Utah, but decided to stay and visit with my Aunt Renee and her family.  
We went to Luciano's for dinner.  My cousin, Brad, owns it with one of his friends.  I have to say it was the BEST Italian I've had in quite a while.  I wanted to lick my plate afterwards.  One of their appetizers - the Baked Brie with Apples and Honey was INCREDIBLE.  It was so fun to see my cousins too.  My cousin, Amber, is due with her first baby in September, and I hadn't seen my cousin's Brad or Joseph in years!  It was fun to get together with everyone and enjoy some amazing food.  My Aunt was so nice to treat us too!  

A refreshing swim

Sorry - bad phone picture - but Great Uncle Mark had to get a picture to taunt Grampa Stan that he got to hold Ruby before him.

My awesome Aunt Renee.  Love her!

My cute prego cousin Amber - have a cute baby boy soon!

We headed back to our hotel and attempted to figure our sleeping arrangements since we didn't bring any pack n plays with us.  The hotel had cribs...but they were tiny and with metal bars...probably like jail cells.  Ruby had no qualms about it, but we discovered just how much of an active sleeper Ross was that night.  He lasted about 20 minutes in the crib and ended up in the extra bed with Steve.  The rest of the night was spent trying to keep Ross boxed in with pillows and getting kicked in the face every few minutes.  He also asked for a drink of water...and for some reason Stephen decided to open up the water bottle and proceeded to dump in out on Ross.  I was trying to sleep during this moment so this is what I heard:
Ross: Drink of water!
Steve: Here.
Ross:  Whimpering whine
A cap being unscrewed...at this point I'm thinking "this can't be good"
Gush of water
Ross:  Aaaahhhhhhh! Followed by sad crying
Steve:  You've got to be kidding me!

I figured my assistance would be needed at this point so I intervened.  I discovered that all of Ross's left side was soaked.  Poor thing. I changed his shirt and we tried to go back to sleep.  Ruby would squawk about every hour or so which had me jumping every time to go put a binky back in her mouth so she wouldn't wake Ross up.  Around 4 - Steve and I switched places and I found that Ross likes to be wedged right up against you pretty much pushing you off the side of the bed.  He would sit up and the lay the other way too - all this is in his sleep.  

We were hoping to get another early start, but after a night like that one we decided to sleep in until 8:30.  After shaking ourselves awake, we packed up and headed out again.  We actually only had to stop one time for the filling up of the car and Ruby, and made it to Mapleton by about 3:30.  The kids did amazingly and we called the travel time a success!  Woot woot!  

Then the festivities began...