Utah & The Summer Staycation

This summer we were just wanting to spend time with our family. Since moving to Texas 5 years ago, we have only spent a week here, or a week there, which really doesn't give the kids a chance to get to know cousins or grandmas & grandpas. So we bravely bought round trip tickets for a 5 week stay, which involved flying with all three boys, our luggage, carseats, and backpacks, from Houston to Dallas to Las Vegas, to St. George. It was a sight to behold. They boys were better than expected, and we had a great time!

The first week we got there, we spent time at Grandma & Grandpa Robinsons House. They had all the rooms ready for us. Penn & I slept in the cowboy room, and Luke & Isaac slept in the America room.  Ultimately Penn & Luke ended up sleeping in my bed while Isaac got a Queen bed to himself. The first week we were there we were able to visit everybody and give a lot of hugs! I was most excited to see, well EVERYBODY! We are lucky to have such awesome people on both sides of the family! Isaac LOVED seeing grandpa Robinson, he took them on several 4 wheeler rides down to the Virgin River. Penn really thought Grandpa was neat and talks about him all the time.

The second week we were there, we spent the week at my sister Lisa's house in Layton. We went swimming, played in the backyard, and even went to Lagoon. That was the funnest day of all. Isaac braved the giant white roller coaster! I'm so proud of him! Luke celebrated his 3rd birthday on the night that we got there, and Lisa made a wonderful dinner and chocolate brownies. Luke ate 3 brownies to celebrate his birthday and was up all night ralphing. Now his nickname is little Ralphie. The next night he ralphed again! I felt bad for him, because he kept saying "oh, my belly hurts." poor kid. He was super good natured though and slept in the bathroom on towels just in case. Of course, I slept right next to him. What good memories, huh pukey lukey? Ugh, No THANKs! Being a mother is really hard sometimes! Mostly this vacation because I was super tired, and sick from expecting this little baby, and when I say sick, I mean really pathetic, tired, feeling lazy, and super nauseated. I have never been this pathetic, thank goodness I had a lot of help from grandmas, grandpas, aunts, and uncles, to entertain my kids! While we were up north, we saw the Robinson family in Logan for the day. Grandma Robinson who is in her 90's looked great, and uncle claire, and my cousin Mindy and her children, aunt sharon, and aunt sylvia were all there. Logan is so beautiful this time of year. It made me very homesick to be in Logan and seeing those lush green mountains.

When we got back to St. George, we were able to do a lot of great things, mostly visit family, but I was really excited to see Dallin because he is leaving for his mission to Chile! He will be a great missionary, and It was so neat to be in the session when he recieved his endowment, that was a neat experience to have most of the family there! I am really going to miss him. Oh, and by the way, Harrison has gotten so tall and handsome! He has always been super smart, and it was fun to hear about all the neat things he has achieved in the last year.

I was especially happy to see Cheryl too because she has been very sick going through cancer treatments, and although she didn't feel so great, she has come a very long way, and I was happy to see her and her darling little kids Tucker & Macy. Melissa was fun to see too, she is a sweetheart & has been a huge help to cheryl during this difficult time. I am amazed at their family's faith and I am grateful to be a part of such a kind and loving family.

Later, Bryan flew out & met us there, while there he did some hiking, sight seeing, and even took the boys out to have some man time. We had an amazing time, mostly because we were able to reconnect with our family and that was the purpose of the trip. It was so neat to see how the nephews and neices have grown, and to see their cute personalities. Oh, and while Bryan was there we stayed at Grandma Mary Anne & Grandpa Penn's house. That was really fun because the kids got to throw rocks in the ditch, play upstairs at Grandma Mary Anne's, eat as many chips ahoy cookies as they could get away with, have "man showers," play at the park, eat yummy tomatoes, grapes, & sweet corn from Grandpas garden, play with "ACEY" (Macy Mary) and swim at aunt Julies pool. Julie even had a get together at her home where all the family came so we could see them.

It was all so very nice. I really appreciated all the help with the boys, and laundry, and all the fun we had enjoying the kids and the funny things they said. A couple of notable places we went were the Jacob Hamblin home, The Red Hill (DIXIE ROCK) The St. George temple visitor center, the Brigham Young home, and Penn's Property in Central which is full of treasures for boys -like eagle feathers & real red lava rock!The last day we were there we spent the day in Pine Valley. It was a perfect sunny day, and the boys had a great time playing and spashing in the creek.

That night my parents took Bryan & I out to dinner at Pizza Factory- their breadsticks are super good! Also it was really hard to say goodbye. I really can't handle saying goodbye, I really, really hate it!!! The next morning julie and Mary Anne drove us to Las Vegas- we were able to visit Nicole for just a few minutes before heading to the airport. It was wonderful getting to reconnect with her again. I really did not want to say goodbye to her either. That was really, really hard. Isaac was so cute, he said, " I remember you!" He probably did, we sure did spend a lot of time over there with Nicole & Tonka when we lived there. 

Even though it was no fun to say goodbye - the good news is next time we go to visit we will have a new little baby girl to take with us, so that will be extra exciting.

Here are some pictures of our trip and our favorite people