Best Family Ever!!

We drove from Utah to Portland.  It took us 2 days and we arrived on Tuesday July 16.  Adam and Savannah graciously welcomed us and allowed us to ditch our children with them while Dan and I ran away to run the Ragnar.  I think they were a little concerned about adding 5 children to their household for 3 days, but they gamely tackled the job.  The kids told me they had a great time and said that Adam and Savannah were, "Awesome!".  I agree!  Not only did they plan fun excursions for each day, they also took photos of it all.

I feel very blessed to have such great family.  The children do as well. They would have been perfectly happy to stay a lot longer (me too!) and were sad when it was time to go.  Why is there never enough time with family?!!

Savannah and Adam took the kids to a couple different parks and a splash pad.  Much fun seems to have been had by all. I was surprised how much my children enjoyed playing with the baby.  And the baby seemed to like them back.  There was some arguing over who's turn it was to play with her, which was kind of cute. Even Marian wanted to play with Piper!  I've never seen her interested in a baby before.

Here are the photos that my awesome sister in law documented their time with:

Pp

This is the Place!

On Monday (Hooray!  I'm only a week behind now!) we went to the "This is the Place, Heritage Park".  It was super fun!  I was really sad we didn't have more time to do stuff there.  We met up with Deborah and her crew, and my friend Beth (who had just moved to SLC from AR).  Let me say again, it was SO much fun!  I'll get the writing done now so you can choose to look at all the photos, or just stop now, secure in the knowledge that it was awesome.

We looked at cool stuff, neat buildings and monuments.  We visited the petting zoo and all the kids got to ride the pony rides.  They had a good time.  The kids got to learn to card wool.  Check out the picture of Rylee with her sad-sad face.  She was sad that she couldn't get the wool right.  the lady there was lovely and so great with the children (of which we had MANY!).  We visited the blacksmith shop, which was quite educational.  We stopped by the ice cream shop and did partake.  There was a splash pad by the train, so we got distracted by that and the kids somehow managed to get soaking wet.  They dried off a bit on the train ride.  I was sad to say goodbye, but we had to leave.  The kids were disappointed to leave, as was I.  There was still so much to see and do, but there was also a lot left to do to get ready for the next part of our journey.  So I regretfully left and the fun day was over.

Onward to Utah!

We got to Utah (much later than I wanted!) on Friday night.  We spent the weekend at Dan's grandma's house and had a fun-filled, action-packed time there.

Saturday morning, I went to the Jordan River Temple.  Awesome!!!

I also visited my friend Megan, but I forgot to try to talk her into a photo with me.  (Sad.)

 Saturday evening, we drove up to see my friend Jen.  We were college roommates 20 years ago and she's still awesome and we had a delightful time.  It did not last long enough.

And on Sunday, we went to Deborah's house for dinner with her family. 
It was a little crazy, but nice. 

Delaney had fun with her cousins.

Rylee and Samantha were fast friends.

Ha ha, Simon crawled out of his pants.

How many parents does it take to get the pants back on?

 How many silly faces can you count?