We had such a fun, crazy, busy, and happy weekend for Memorial Day this year. It was a really quick trip down to Southern Utah to see our family, and I was kicking myself all weekend because I forgot to bring my camera. I was really wanting to get pictures of Rachel with her Grandparents and with her cousins and Jacob and my siblings so that we could show them to her and she could remember them since we only get to see them occasionally, living so far away. In fact, all of these pictures (minus the first one) I stole from Jacob's sister Katie and from Jacob's dad from Face Book. (Thanks guys!)
Here is my little Rachel-girl all ready for the ride! She actually did really well considering how long we kept her strapped down in the car, about 9 1/2 hours each way!
One thing I thought was crazy was how nice the weather felt in Southern Utah. I spent most of my life there and always thought it was the hottest place on earth, but I hadn't spent much time in Arizona obviously. I never thought I would go to St. George to get out of the heat!
The first couple of days we spent with my family. We played at my sister LeAnn's house and I got to meet her sweet little baby, Rosie! We also rounded up all the kids and took them to the part one of the days which was really fun, and we had a funny incident happen while we were there. At the park there was a tire swing that the kids thought was a blast. They kept talking Jacob into spinning them around on it, and like the good uncle that he is, he did. And when they told him to spin them faster, he did. Well, it wasn't long before every kid that had been on the tire swing was feeling pretty sick. LeAnn, with the wisdom that comes with the experience of having 6 kids, had us wait around a while at the park (even though the kids were too sick to play) because she said as soon as we got them in the car someone would throw up. Well we waited around for the kids stomachs to settle a little and while we waited long enough for LeAnn's kids, we didn't wait quite long enough for Caralee's Sydney-girl apparently, because as we were getting into our cars, Caralee called me on the phone asking to use my wet wipes before we left. That's right, poor little Sydney girl lost her snacks as soon as they got into the car. I felt so bad that she had to be sick, but I just couldn't help laughing.
Friday we left to go spend some time with Jacob's family. We had no clue they were planning on spending Friday night up on Cedar Mountain, and if we had we totally would have packed differently. We packed clothes and flip-flops to spend time in Sunny St. George, and definitely weren't prepared to go spend time on the Chilly Cedar Mountain. Thankfully my sister LeAnn let us borrow a few things for Rachel so that she didn't have to freeze. Although I'm not sure Rachel would have cared. All she wanted was to be outside. She didn't care that it was cold or that the wind was blowing, or that it rained during the night and was muddy, or that there were little snow flurries the next day. She just wanted to be outside and she coaxed anyone she could into taking her out there. If I had brought shoes other than flip-flops I would have totally spent more time outside with her exploring on the mountain, but instead she had to convince everyone else to take her out.
Doesn't my sister-in-law, Katie, take the best pictures? I especially had to snag these ones of the aspen leaves because Jacob absolutely loves seeing the sun shine on the aspen leaves and hearing the wind going through the aspens.
Rachel's Uncle Bill went frog hunting so that he could show the two older girls a frog. Rachel thought it was so fun to see!
I think Rachel's favorite part about going to the mountain, even more than the frog, or going outside, was her Uncle Josh. Every time she saw him she would point and say, "Josh!" She thought he was so fun to play with and he was such a good uncle and kept taking her outside to play even though I'm sure he didn't always want to.
I love how in the next two pictures Rachel is just happy looking at her Uncle Josh.
Now since we have been home, Rachel will pick up my phone and pretend she is talking to Josh.
While we were all together with the Bulloch's we decided to get a family picture. It is hard to get everyone together and this will be the last time for at least two years because Josh just got his mission call to Panama and leaves August 1st.
You can see from all of these pictures how thrilled Rachel was to be getting her picture taken. Right next to the place we were taking pictures was a park with swings, and Rachel spotted it on our way over, so the whole time we were taking pictures she kept saying and signing, "Swing!" She wanted to play on the swings so bad!
This trip was especially fun because we got to meet to new nieces on Jacob's side that we had seen before. Audrey and Lila were born last August but because of one thing or another we haven't been able to see them til now. It always amazes me with even babies that little how their personalities show through. They were both such sweet little girls, but so different from each other.
The four Bulloch grand kids, all girls. My little Kent is going to be outnumbered when we visit them next!
This family picture will be outdated for us in just a few months! I'm grateful that they snapped a few extra individual family pictures though. I just love my little family!
Isn't this Rachel girl so stinkin' cute!
In short it was a busy, crazy, fun weekend in which we didn't get to spend nearly enough time with either of our families, but I'm grateful for the time we did have. It was fun to get to see everyone that we hadn't seen for a long time.
