UTAH SUMMER TRIP

Our Utah, 2009 trip was filled with constant fun, fun, fun!! We had such a great time and had each day filled with family and friends! Here we are up at Darcy and Jeff's house enjoying their pool. It was hotter than ever so we managed to find water wherever we could. (Carson in goggles, Max in tube and Zach)

The actual reason we decided to make our trip this year was to attend Alex's mission reunion. He served a mission to Uruguay back in 1991 and he hadn't been able to attend many reunions since we moved to California. Here is Alex with Mike Wilson, a companion and good friend.


This is President and Sister Grow with Alex and Max. Sister Grow is enjoying some of the authentic Uruguayian food they supplied.
One night we had a hot dog roast up in the canyon of American Fork. Beautiful as ever. Here is Megan and Aynn enjoying the night.

One day we got adventurous and decided to go on hike. We were told it was an easy, flat hike that only took about 30 minutes. Well, about 2 hours later we made it to the falls. Here we are at Stewart Falls which is up above Sundance Resort. It was an easy hike, but sorta longer than expected especially for Chase. I ended up carrying him most of the way back. (Alex had Max in the backpack) He was determined to see a snake in the bushes and he was also super hot so the entire time hiking back all I heard was "I'm hot. I want to see a snake." Over and over and over again. He claims he saw a snake in the bushes. We don't know if he did or not but he thinks he did because he saw the bushes move.

Me and Max enjoying the outdoors.

We went to this really cool children's museum in Salt Lake City. Kelly joined us with Quinn and Ansley and Darcy came with Carson and Sabrina. It was really fun and the kids loved it. Here is Anlsey and Chase playing in the grocery store.

Here is the museum again where Chase was in the "construction zone" operating the crane. He was in heaven!

A big family dinner. This is what we love the most, just coming to hang out with family.

Grandma came down from Brigham City to see us.

Max learned all about popsicles on this trip.

Kelly and I hiking the "Y" one morning. That same morning, Alex took Megan and Zach to hike the Y after I got home. While they were up there, it had gotten hotter and the sun was out. They saw 2 rattlesnakes and another snake. They were pretty excited and I was pretty excited I wasn't there for that. Yikes!

ZACH TURNS 7!

We were headed to Utah for a summer vacation and that happened to land right on Zach's 7th Birthday. We started our drive the day before on the 21st of July and drove to Mesquite, Nevada where we stayed the night. The next morning, Zach's birthday we drove the rest of the way to Orem. We let Zach open his gifts in the car. Here he is with his new wetsuit for his new interest of surfing.

Yeah! It was fun being in Utah for Zach's birthday because we were able to celebrate with a bunch of cousins. We had a party for him that night at Michael and CA's house. Here is the cupcake "7" cake Carol Ann made. The yummiest chocolate cupcakes...

Zach and Quinn

The kids eating Zach's favorite dinner-- BBQ hamburgers!

Zach and some of his Utah cousins helping him celebrate. Happy Birthday, Zach!

Felix's Birthday!

Many of you may not know that we have someone in our family named "Felix"... well, Felix is Zach's pet webkinz (a cat) and it was his birthday on July 1st. Zach, who is my official party planner decided to plan a party for Felix who was turning 1. Zach was busy for such a long time in his room and when I went up there I found him writing invitations for this birthday party. He decided on the kind of cake we would have and the games to play. Here is Zach's friends with their webkinz getting ready for the party!
We played some old fashioned party games like musical chairs. Here they are running around like crazy. This game was definatly the favorite!
We also played hot potato. Chase and Lexi were the last 2 standing passing the potato back and forth.
Here we are singing to Felix and getting ready for some cake. It was a chocolate cake with blue icing with loads of sprinkles.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY FELIX (just so you know I won't be doing a birthday party for a webkinz again...I actually have to plan birthday party's for real people but it was fun seeing how excited Zach was to plan this party.)

CAMP ROCK

This past week Megan and her friend Sara did a musical theater camp. They went everyday Monday-Friday and learned new dances, songs and their lines. Megan got the role of "Autum" --a girl at the camp. At the end of the week they performed what they learned. This week happened to be CAMP ROCK and they really had a great time! Here they are at the performance:

Here is Megan during one of the dances. When I asked her while she wasn't smiling much, she said she was supposed to look "sassy"!

After the performance we went to dinner all together. I love Megan's hair curly!

SWIMMING LESSONS

Zach and Chase just finished taking swimming lessons. They both really loved going to their classes each day and hopefully are a little better swimmers now. Zach is still trying to master side-breathing and Chase is still learning the basics. Here are some pictures of them:

Chase and his teacher, Mr. Franky

Chase being thrown in the air by his teacher.
Chase learning how to float on his back.
On the last day of class everyone got to jump off the diving board. Here is Chase waiting his turn.
Here he is gettin up his nerve to jump! He did it--I was proud of him, last year he got all the way to the end and couldn't jump.
Zach practicing some of his new skills with his teacher, Mr. Josh

Zach had a grand 'ole time jumping off the diving board and was doing all kinds of crazy jumps.

4th of July

We spent the 4th of July at Lacy Park, a family tradition since I can remember. Before Lacy Park, we first went to Grandma and Grandpa's and swam--it was a super hot day and the pool felt perfect. After, we loaded up and went to the park. Lacy Park is a really beautiful park and it was fun to go back there. We had a big picnic dinner and thanks to Katherine we had great seats for the fireworks show. We hung out, played games, ate, went to the playground and waited around for the fireworks. It seemed like a looooong wait for some of us (zach and chase) but in the end it was so worth it. The fireworks this year were really awesome! Here are some pictures of us:

Before Lacy Park we went to the ward's 4th of July pancake breakfast:

Zach was sooooo hot at the park that he made himself some shade to eat under, pretty clever, right?


Here is Megan walking into the park:

Here is Megan, Alex and Max eating our picnic dinner--KFC!!

Chase loved the light-up necklaces:
Max enjoyed the day and we wondered how he would like the fireworks. He was sitting on my lap, sorta dozing and when the first one fired off he perked right up and watched the whole show...mesmorized. Also, that day Max had 2 bottom teeth pop through his gums! His first 2 teeth.