Memorial weekend in Utah – part 1

Our 1st priority for our long-awaited trip to Utah was to meet my new niece Elliot!  We decided to stop by Josh and Meg’s house to see her on our way into town.  She was almost 6 months old before I ever got to hold her!!  Which is way too long to wait to meet a niece.  She is so cute and kissable.

Meg even had dinner waiting for us!  What a sweetie, her enchiladas really hit the spot after all that junk food in the van.  My girls were ok with dinner but were VERY impressed with their sweet backyard (complete with playground and a cute neighbor boy to play with) and big basement with a play house AND a princess room!  So much fun.  I didn’t take any pictures of them playing, but here’s another reason Josh and Meg are such cool aunt and uncle… two words: strawberry milk!  And since I didn’t want them to drink it on the couch Josh pulled out his stool from Brazil and let the girls sit on that, EXTRA cool!  Tessa looked pretty bad after a day  in the car, playing outside in the dirt, strawberry milk, AND cheetos.  She looks homeless, poor thing.

After some chatting and oozing over Elliot we headed down to the Chapman’s.  The next day was our annual COUSIN’S CAMP! Dan’s Mom is so much fun.  Here are some pictures from that day:

You can’t tell so much by the picture, but Tessa and Lily really got giggling in the swing.  Tessa running around in their beautiful yard.  (Sidenote: my girls REALLY want a back yard, they lived in the yards of every house we visited, rain or shine!)

Some flowers from the yard, so pretty!

 

Ok, not a very exciting picture, I know!  But this is my girls favorite game lately, and I wanted to document it.  They like to run in large areas of grass and then drop dead suddenly and cry out for the other to rescue them.  It’s a damsel in distress sort of thing, they take turns being the hero and damsel.  Odd, but their favorite!  Even better if they can get a boy to rescue them.  Such girls!

Rolly polly Jaycee ready to go out to lunch, is she not the cutest?  She has an adorable laid back personality too.

 

After lunch we did a craft with the girls (which they love and it’s still on my fridge) but I didn’t take any pictures, sorry.  After the craft we took them over to a fun park set up like a city with cute little buildings to climb.

Elise and Sophie are so in love with each other, it’s very sweet.

 

That’s the only picture I took, because I was in the van with these 2 sleeping beauties for most of the time (I may or may not have been napping a little myself).

Group shot!  This will be the last cousin’s camp consisting of only girls!  Now that we have baby Ray here and our (unnamed) son coming next month it will change to 2 against 6.

After dinner that night someone clever (Matt?) attached a kite to a fishing pole to make it easier for the kids to hold and Uncle Matt also made an additional kite so we wouldn’t have to share, and we headed out to the park.  At first the kids (and grandma) were more interested in the playground than flying kites.

I wanted to mention (so I remember) that Tessa loves to hang!  She’s not as agile as the Wells’ girls, but she loves to hold on.  She often looks incredibly uncomfortable and as though her shoulders are coming out of their sockets, but she will hang there FOR A LONG TIME!  I will keep asking her if she’s ready to get down and she will say, “No thanks.”  Over and over again.  If I had to venture a guess how long she held onto this bar I would say a solid 2minutes, which is much longer than her sister’s 15 seconds and beg for mercy routine.

 

Before we left I interested Sophie in running the kite up.  We told her to wait for Matt to throw it in the air and then run fast!  She took us real serious, and was so proud when it was up!  It was one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen, seeing her book it with that fishing pole in hand,  wearing her trench coat (and oversized shorts that sometimes fell off) with a huge grin on her face.  We were all cheering her on and she ate it right up!

We had such a fun day!  It is so nice to visit with family.  More from our trip to come!