Trip to Utah--Kristen's wedding!!!

 Have you ever taken a really really REALLY whirlwind trip somewhere and squeezed in a ridiculous amount of things and people into a very short period of time?

We have! That was our trip to Utah in July! :) We flew out super early on a Saturday morning. The boys were perfectly happy and behaved on the planes, thanks in large part to cheap, kid-size headphones, free television for about 45 minutes, and very large and squishy Einstein Bros. bagels.

Saturday night, I went to downtown SLC for our dear friend Kristen's bachelorette party, which was at a dueling piano bar called Keys on Main. The guys playing piano were definitely talented, but it also definitely wasn't my kind of scene. Boy am I Mormon. Fun to see Kristen, though. ALWAYS fun to do that. :)

The next day we did the church thing with Kenn's parents and then we got to have dinner and games with the WHOLE family!!! It was awesome! Beckett and Caleb loved running around with their cousins and getting all the extra attention from their aunts and uncles.

Beckett and Aunt Laura

Caleb and Mookie (sorry Mook, I know your face isn't so cool here, but Caleb's is priceless!)

Beckett showed Amber some Thomas tricks, close up

Then Monday was the day of the wedding! After a morning of the boys seeing 'Cars 2' again and Kenn and I going to see the final HP, we got all gussied up and drive up into the mountains for Kristen's wedding to Ryan. It was gorgeous, at a place called Rose Sachs Gardens.

mama and B

there's the lovely bride!!! 

Caleb, for some odd reason, clammed up and became completely shy when Kristen tried to say hi to him. It was like she was too pretty and dressed up, he froze! It was so funny, and yet sad (considering she lived with us for a whole summer!), but she got down on his level and tried to re-introduce herself. It was awesome. :)

The boys both loosened up a lot after dinner (crepes! delicious!), and they ran around like a bunch of crazies. Good times were had by all, and they looked so handsome.

 So THEN...Grandma and Grandpa wanted some more time with us before we left Tuesday evening, so they took us all to the Hogle Zoo!

Seems every shot I got of Beckett was the back of his head, while he looked at an animal.

Daddy and Caleb with one of the cool dinosaurs. They had these animatronic things all over the park, and Caleb was in heaven (and scared at the same time).

Mom and the boys on the merry-go-round (Daddy won't go on, cause it'll make him throw up)

love this shot of 4 monkeys together. :)

It would be nice if I could now say we flew home that night and it was awesome and flawless...

...but it wasn't. It SUCKED. :P Our flight got cancelled because of storms over Denver (where we were connecting), and we did NOT want to hang out possibly overnight in the airport with 2 kids, so we got on a different flight the next day, and then waited for about 2 hours to get our suitcase off the plane (after we'd already waited for about 4 hours to get on the plane/find out why we couldn't get on the plane/see what was going to happen with our plane). Luckily we were able to just go back to Kenn's parents' house, but it was a really long night, super frustrating, and I had to do laundry when we got there. That certainly didn't help things.

We got home Wednesday night, though, and it was mostly good, so all is well that ends well.

But it was a REALLY fast trip.

Elves

Every night before bed, Kenn comes upstairs with a cup of water, and puts last night's cup out on the ledge by the stairs.

The next morning, it's always gone, taken downstairs to the proper place, i.e. the kitchen sink.

I asked him once why he never just takes his cup down himself, and he said he doesn't have to.

"The elves will do it."

Hey, we DID something! Something outside! In Texas!

That's pretty much how I feel anytime we actually go somewhere new. All proud of myself for being 'adventurous' and not boring.

And usually, we've gone and done whatever it was because Nate and Candace invited us to. They are definitely the brains behind these operations.

Like this time! They invited us to join them at Hamilton Pool on July 5th, and it was fabulous. The waterfall wasn't as big as usual, what with there being a drought and all, but it was still super fun, especially for the kids.

We brought some cheapie water guns for the boys

Beckett liked just chillin'

Look at that view! It's basically a swimming hole in a big cave-ish type enclosure.
You actually have to hike on a rocky trail for a quarter-mile to get to it.

This is Caleb reaching for a cookie from dad

There's a path that goes all the way around the entire thing, right up under the cave side.

the view from the path under the cave

and this is how tired Beckett was on the way home. lovely, isn't he?

Super fun day, though. Nate and Candace brought a bunch of inner tubes and a little boat thing, and everyone enjoyed just floating in the water. Caleb had a good time squirting people he didn't know with a water gun. It was awesome, and I think I would love to go again sometime.