Utah!

My ulcer meds are like these chalky magic pills that I choke on but save my life. I went from three weeks of debilitating nausea to RIGHT AS RAIN within two doses. It couldn’t have come at a better time than right before a 10-hour car ride to my best friend’s house in Roy, Utah.

We borrowed my parent’s new van because it has a DVD player inside of it.
Also, the driver side door opens… so there’s that huge plus.

The kids were total champs on the drive over, and Danny and I remarked several times over how other parents are deprived and how sad that is. We’re talking… the baby didn’t even FUSS until we were in the home stretch ON THE WAY HOME. As in: after nearly 20 hours in the car, she finally lost it on hour 19.
Three little champs, all in a row.

We stopped at Glen Canyon Dam to let them run around.
“Stop all those Dam giggles,” I said. Which only made them giggle more which was the point.

Danny is afraid of heights, so we cheered for him as he walked the bridge.
Because he’s mine, he walked the line. And we all clapped for Dad.

We got back on the road after getting our wiggles out in the visitor’s center. I got out wiggles I didn’t even know I had by chasing The One Who Cried at Hour 19:

We ended up behind Minnie Winnie, and I did my best baby voice, “Aw, wook at da widdle Minnie Winnie, is so cute!” We taunted Minnie Winnie behind her back for going so slow, and then discovered that Minnie Winnie was driving behind her twin. This only brought on more taunting.
We taunted as we passed them.
But the joke was on us. We pulled into Kanab and were somehow BEHIND THE TWINS. How did that even HAPPEN?

We rolled into Utah SO LATE (and losing an hour to Daylight Savings Time didn’t help!), crashing hard at my friend Tia’s house. The next morning, we got up (SLOWLY) and then spent the day at Temple Square. My brother, Steven, joined us for a tour of the Conference Center and a look around the Tabernacle.

“Are we all related?” our tour guide, Leon, asked.
“Yep!” I said, “This is my husband, my kids, and my brother, Steve.” It was a glorious narcissistic moment for me.
As we stood outside the Salt Lake Temple at the reflection pool, Lacy asked, “Do some people call this… Holy Water?”
Adorable.

The kids tried to take naps on the skylights on the roof of the Conference Center.

They were running test on the lights in the Tabernacle, and we sat and enjoyed it for a few minutes. Sitting is such a luxury when you’re chasing Alice Michelle. She ran around the benches in the Tabernacle saying, “Want Nursery.” I can respect that. I mean, this church is HUGE and INCREDIBLE. Can you even imagine what the nursery in it might look like?


Steve went with us to the Visitor’s Center before heading back home and kindly snapped a picture of us… we miss him already.

And though we didn’t find a nursery in the Tabernacle, we did stumble on a kids’ play place by the Family History Center. The kids played for over an hour with dress up clothes, paper crafts… Alice staked her claim on a baby buggy and no one else was allowed near it -ESPECIALLY not the little girl who had left it a few minutes after we arrived and who tried to come back 40 minutes later. Alice ran her buggy into the corner farthest from the OTHER mother. She had to protect what was hers, you know.
There was a really cool photo back drop, and the kids had the Family History Folks take a few snapshots of them. They asked us to hop in for one, so we did. But my favorite is the one with the Proper Pilgrim and The Kid Wearing a Kimono and Sombrero.

I didn’t realize while they were snapping that picture that Alice was furiously dressing herself to join, so when we found her of course we had to take another. And another.
“I’m Calamity Jane!” she shouted out.

She did NOT want to get out of those clothes.


We strolled over to The Lion House for a bite to eat, and I think the kids enjoyed that more than anything. They had Jell-o, so they win.

After eating, we shopped around Deseret Book and met up with Danny’s MTC companion and his family. I didn’t take any pictures and I’m so mad about that! We love meeting up with them and their kids are so fun. We took them to the food court at City Creek Mall and the kids were bummed when the Mall Cop kicked them out of the play place.
One of the kiddos tried bribing the cop with a stick of gum to let him back in. He didn’t waver. He had some pretty flinty integrity, that one.
We walked back through Temple Square on our way to the parking garage and snapped a few more pictures.

The kids crashed hard after a 9 hour day.
“Did you learn anything new?” I asked them as we drove away.
“No,” Lacy sighed, “Wait… that my feet will hurt after walking in my boots ALLLLLL day.”
Fair enough!
The next day was my sister’s sealing, luncheon and reception. Another BIG day! We’ll save it all for another post.