Kip, Jean, and In Between: Utah Vacation

When my blogs weren't going to anyone I lost a lot of my oomph in doing them. Now they're being automatically sent to you all again and I need to get back in the habit.

In July, we went to Utah for vacation. We hadn't been for about 4 years and life was so stressful before we left. I had crazy book stuff going on with delays, etc. And Kip had stressful real estate stuff going on. And then going to Utah is always stressful to me because I feel like I can never see all the friends and relatives that are there and I feel guilty about that, and I feel like we never get quite as much time as I want with the people we do see. So I was super stressed by the time we actually headed out to Utah. But I shouldn't have been because it ended up just being the most wonderful vacation.

Starting with our 6:30 am plane ride from Evansville. We had one short layover and no babies/toddlers and it was the easiest travel I can remember since Mark was a baby. We got into Utah in the early afternoon, which was amazingly fantastic, and then we just chilled.

The next day (or day after; the details are already foggy for me) was Kip's dad's birthday so Shelle and I made a cake and we celebrated. Shelle had bought this tent trailer and the kids just spent hours in it playing board games and imagination games and whatever.

That Friday we were supposed to go fishing with Jake, but he had a late call at work which postponed things enough that we skipped the drive to the reservoir and just spent the evening making hobo dinners and talking to Jake and Sarah. Sarah had (Sarah-style) made all these goody bags for the kids and they loved them and had a blast with them. It was so low key and lovely.

Before that, we'd hiked Adam's canyon. We left Kip's parents' house at 11 and didn't pack lunch because I, being brilliant and all, was like, "It'll only take a couple hours so we'll just eat when we get home." If you've ever hiked, you're laughing at that, aren't you. Because of course it took 4 hours and the kids (and I) were really just dying of hunger. They still made it to the top, which was this gorgeous waterfall and we played there for a while. If I'd just brought a few snacks, we would have stayed longer and enjoyed it more. As it was, we headed down the mountain because we were hungry, and getting hangry. But we made it and I learned to always take snacks hiking.

Saturday we hung out with Kip's high school friends and BBQ'd.

Sunday we went to church with Kip's dad, then headed to temple square to walk around. Afterwards, we went to Grandma's and met up with Jake and Sarah. We visited with Grandma and Ginny for a while. Then we headed over to Mom's grave, which we found after a bit of looking, and the kids gave her some cookies and some flowers. Which I think Mom would have appreciated. After that, we went to Jake and Sarah's for a delicious pasta dinner, which made us all happy, but especially Mark because we'd been eating hamburgers, like, all week and he hates them, but he loves pasta.

Monday was the 4th. We went to see Jake and Joker at the K9 demo and then hung out with my friend, Anna-Lisa, whom we'd invited. After that, we headed to Kip's uncle and aunt's house for another BBQ and some fireworks. It was in Alpine and they don't have official fireworks, but everyone brings their own personal fireworks to the park and set them off. It was the craziest, most interesting, and did I mention craziest thing I've ever seen. People must have spent thousands and thousands of dollars and they just set them off all over this park and it was crazy. Ash was just falling from the sky on us and it seemed kind of unsafe, but also just so fascinating. I prefer normal fireworks shows, but I'm glad we went to see the weirdness of a community fireworks show.

Tuesday was our last full day and we spent the afternoon with Kip and Shelle's friend. We got pizza (again Mark was relieved) and played games. Braden is in the process of developing this game and it was really cool to play. I hope it makes it big because it was the best game I think we played on vacation.

Wednesday we left Mark to stay with his California cousins for a bit extra and the rest of us went home. Again, the travel was so easy that it was like a dream. We got home in the afternoon and stepped out of the airport into storm-cloudy skies, and I thought, "Home sweet home."

The pics are all below because I just did not have energy to post them in the right places. I need to find a way to get pictures easily to my computer so that it can become less of a pain and time suck to do this.