Utah Trip

We went to Utah this past weekend for Baby Stone's blessing. We left Wednesday afternoon, it always amazes me the sheer volume of stuff we need to take with us. Here's a picture of just our flip-flops.
But we somehow managed to get loaded up forgetting only a couple cruxial items. Here's the beasts in the car on the way out of town.

Here's a little video clip. This is Alana's fun name spelling game. She likes it because she gets to just say A for most of it :) It's because some of us are from cAnAdA eh!



We got there and I didn't take the camera out for any of the fun Utah stuff because I was having too much FUN! We played with Katie, Kent, Afton, and Stone the first day. We went to several parks and had a lovely time being OUTSIDE and not frying (although we did get some suntans). The kids loved frolicking about and rolling in the grass. It was lovely. Kent's family came from the Middle East (ha-ha, just kidding, from in the middle of the country and east of us, more specifically Iowa and NC) that night so we were dismissed from the Griffiths and sent away. Although, to her great credit and as a testimony to her patience and good will, Katie offered to continue putting us up even though she had five people arriving any second.

But we moved along even though it would have been super fun to have 9 adults and 7 kids under their lovely roof for the next three days :) We went over to the Ballards house (that's BallaRd not Ballad - a Ballad is a boy duck). The parent Ballards were on their way home from Girl's Camp but 9 year old Kennedy opened the door for us and immediately said, "Where have you BEEN!" It made us feel good :) We've missed the Mighty Mighties.

The next two days were just fun. The kids loved running wild and playing, it was very agreeable to all, Ryan and I hardly saw them except when it was time to eat and go to bed and we were all happy with that. Ryan and I played with Jared and Trish. We played tennis two mornings and, as promised, I was TERRIBLE. Sometimes I hit the ball but it mostly didn't go to the right place. It was sad sad sad. But Trish, Ryan and Jared were really good. Ryan and I won maybe 2 sets out of like 20 or something terrible like that. We also went swimming and that was lots of fun too. Peter and 3 year old Gannon had so much fun fighting with each other, they were adorable. They missed each other when they weren't together but as soon as they were within a foot of each other they were shouting and kicking. Good times. They will be best friends. They kind of remind me of Jared and Ryan. . .

Here's Gannon, Afton, and Peter in the tub after an especially gritty park trip. I am telling you these are three of the sauciest two and three year olds you will ever come across! They are awfully cute though.

We had a picnic at a park (the weather was just too nice, we spent most of our time at parks) with all Kent's family and ours, Ryan's parents and Jess and Mitch came up too so there were enough "Livingstones" around to make it a real party :) Tiffy Fletcher even came down from Salt Lake to join us for the picnic. Grandma Griffith taught us a card game called "Farmers Rummy" which I was really good at except I lost both games due to poor dealing on Terry Livingstone's part. He's gonna have to practice. It was fun even though I didn't win. Kent's sister Michelle and her family were there and she's got five kids and thankfully the older two, Luke and Josh, are boys who are close to Jeffey's age so he could run around with them for a while and get in some Boy Time. He is very patient with the girls but he needs some Boy Time occasionally.

The main event was the blessing of Baby Kent, he is an adorable little pleasant baby - by the way. Their ward was packed because they blessed 5 baby boys that morning. Yes, 5. All Boys. Yikes. That nursery is in for it in 18 months :) Kent did a wonderful job giving sweet Stoney a lovely blessing. They are a darling family. Kate was a gracious and fun hostess and we all loved it.

We were sad to come home to 111 degree weather but we came home anyway.

Today is Tessa's birthday so we are ramping up for hers and my Amanda sister's birthday party this afternoon. There will be pictures of all that fun tomorrow, so stay tuned :)