Ok so it’s Saturday-family work day complete with Colt mowing, Tan nipping the weeds that were basically trees growing by the chicken house, Seth and Addi well “helping” of course (power washing motorcycles and such)…but I didn’t have my phone to prove any of it because I left it in the house to charge. I looked up to see where he wanted the pile Tan was making only to see him “loading” the skid steer….uhhhh only he hit the ramps and the truck started rolling down the drive way!!!! I was much more concerned about it than he was. (Apparently, he’s either done it before or something like it before maybe when we lived in Ivins???)  anyways, he backed back off the ramps, and it stopped rolling, but still 😳😳😳that was plenty of a circus for me! Addi was sitting on his lap soaking it all up! 

I ran the skid steer for him last night with her on my lap but she doesn’t want to just sit there she wants to run those joysticks! 

Anyway I’m behind-but way ahead of myself so let’s go back.

Monkey bread for breakfast 😋

Maybe someday I’ll be a patient Grandma that let’s the kids help…maybe…

Saturday we went over to my cousin Kayla’s house, it was really fun to see her and visit and the kids thought her in house slide was pretty cool! 

Her pool was an extra bonus since it was 117° that day. 🥵 (Yay for always traveling with the swim bag.) however, we were sweltering out there watching them-I was glad I gave them a half hour time limit!! 

That night  Isaac played super dad and helped Grama man the troops (they went swimming at the neighbors) while I met up with my two best friends and grabbed a yogurt and got to chat and reminisce. It was so fun — if I would be better about letting then know when I was gonna be in town, we would do it more often. Ang drove clear down from Panguitch and back that night just to make it happen-now that’s a BFF!  I’m kicking myself for not taking a selfie.😉

So fun though-you’ll have to trust me. And we’ll have to do it again sooner than later! 

Sunday another breakfast helper! 

We finally caught her getting into her stash-most of the thread at Grama’s house is up on a rack but she seemed to have an endless supply! 

And a little fun at the temple and visitor center 

We got to see the temple hawk just doing his job! 






We topped it off by driving over to see the Red Cliffs temple. 

Monday was the day to play with cousins and I told the cousins we were saving Tuesday for Grampa! I had to be on my A game Monday because there was going to be a lot of people at Grama’s  house, and it was so blazing hot again so —I had a plan. 

First with a touch of family history flare to it we looked through the old photo albums from when my brothers and I were a little, and then the objective was to re-create the picture. It turned out pretty fun! 

I wasn’t going to put them all here on the block… where else am I going to put them? So here they are:

After that we played minute to win it games. 

I think everyone had fun. 

And that night we went swimming at Jen’s (the neighbor) again 

By “Grampa’s day” I for one was ready to relax! But somebody had to work- Cannon and Grampa worked out a deal on his shot gun but he found out real quick the bullets go fast. I wouldn’t let him just shoot up all of Grampa’s! So he had to earn a few😉 and Grama got a clean garage -win win right. 



Seth wanted in on it too so he cleaned all the window seals. 

It’s still takes a minute, but this girl warms up to grama and grampa pretty quick! 



High Five! Even with jealous Patch in his lap! 

Then we hit the bowling alley and it was fun. Through two frames, I had a grand total of 9, I thought oh well, the kids will beat me and that will be fun for them but then I got going a little better (and I still am a little competitive) and no I did not let them beat me or Grampa or Isaac😉 I’m smart enough to know I just got lucky but whatever I’ll take it!

Wednesday it was already time to park up! It goes fast! But that was the longest trip back EVER! Ug it was awful! Some people think we’re crazy for going through the night-no way it’s a crazy to be awake for all of that. We push pretty hard but we have to take turns driving and so you’ll at least sleep through a little bit of the drive and the kids sleep through a lot of that drive and the night is just better. But back to Wednesday.

Grandma had made a temple appointment so the cousins could all do baptisms together. That was pretty cool. Caroline even had the name of her birth mom and grandparents, so that was extra neat! 

The other kids and I just hung out at Ky and Kami’s. (Other people’s toys are always so much more fun… and then they think they need things like hoverboards. I say: “where are you going to use it? “ They answer “in the house” I don’t know,  we’ll see, now that’s what Colt wants for his birthday. 

Then we grab something to eat and then hit the road.

Except Cannon, he got to stay for a few days!! He's going to ride out with grandma Ison, and Tyler next week. He is having a blast (undoubtably being spoiled rotten) and it gave us a little more room in the van so everybody wins! 

But packing up always takes forever. Then the stop. The drive to Huntington didn’t seem any shorter than usual although it was. At one point Isaac said he was ready to just keep going, but we had Aaron‘s motorcycle on so we had to go to Huntington to unload and we really hadn’t slept so good the night before so I wasn’t very comfortable with the idea of that. But we made it to Huntington and went to bed humming and ha-ing over whether we were going to takeoff in the morning and spend the night somewhere,  or wait and take off in the evening. Grama made us a delicious breakfast like she always does and then we just decided to go for it.

It was awful! 

It’s a miracle anyone comes to see us-ever-that drive is torture! 

We usually take off early evening, survive the night, and get there around noon, but this way it literally felt like three full days of driving. The town we wanted to stop in the hotels swimming pool was not working so we just decided to go a half hour further but it was completely dark that whole extra half hour so it just felt long. . All the stops had  taken so much longer through the day because we’re trying to buy food that they’ll actually eat and have them agree on a place to eat and more bathroom stops.  It was just one thing after another! So anyways I thought we’d get to this half hour further town at about 730 but when we get there at 9:00 everything is black.  (We’d been  following a storm-thankfully we weren’t in the storm! But a cop went flying by us,  then we saw two semi trucks that had just completely blown over right in the middle of the freeway) so power was out for the whole town! We had made a reservation just while we were driving, so Isaac talks the guy into letting us into the hotel and we just head for the pool! 

It was actually the lightest place around because of the emergency lights! And thankfully, while we were swimming, the power did come back on the guy from the front desk came and had us sign the papers to actually stay there gave us keys to our room (that was previously just blocked open with all of our stuff in it.) 

This post-is way too long-and has way too many pictures so I’ll spare ya a couple  but I will say that the “amber waves of grain” were pretty impressive as the sun was setting and we are going across the High Plains, and we also saw a forest fire in Colorado that made us panic a little because one time the freeway shut down so we went on I 80 instead. 

But finally about 1:00 or so we made it back to the mini! 

Isaac didn’t want me to have to pull the motorcycles behind the van without him though so the plan was to load the “ Van trailer” as Seth calls it, on with the mini. Tanner thought that was ridiculous and said “ why can’t dad be normal?” 🤣🤣🤣 I said “Tanner pulling motorcycles with a minivan isn’t normal either!” 🤣🤣🤣  

It was all going smooth until the trailer slipped off the trailer 😳

But alls well that ends well right?! When  it was all said and done, Tanner said “it looks pretty good” 👍🏻

And last night just before dark we made it home!!! Thank Heaven! 

Last two pics

Cann trying Chinese food with Grama

The I’m out of the car seat smile at the rest stop. Tanner shared his red slushy with her “no mom she didn’t spill it!” 🤔 ???? 🤪He’s crazy that green onsie was pink front and back 🤣

But it came clean and I wouldn’t have cared of it didn’t -he was a huge help with her especially when we had split and we’re driving two cars. 

Ok 

I’m finally done! 

And so happy to be home!!! 😊