Adventures in Utah

This is a picture Anna drew after we got to my parent's house in Utah

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind.  We drove from Illinois to Utah (stopping in Lincoln, Nebraska and Cheyenne, Wyoming).  Then Scott flew back to NorCal for his second week of work.  So far he enjoys the job and the work environment.  He can wear jeans to work.  And no one tells him how long his hair should be.  Of course, those aren't the most pertinent differences, but still noteworthy.  He is currently staying with his sister in San Francisco and commutes down to Silicon Valley.  It takes him about an hour.

I spent a few days in Utah before heading out to CA to house hunt and I got to see my sister and brother and families during that time.

 Here are my kids with my brother (Will)'s kids.

L to R Anna, Emma, John, Rachel, Whitney, Megan, Grant and Matthew.

We got to spend a little time with them before they had to head back home to Oregon.

My parents only moved into this house (from Rhode Island) a few weeks ago.  So they are still getting settled, and I'm sure we are not helping matters.  The kids were very excited to use the fire pit in the backyard.  Here we are making doughboys.

A doughboy is a piece of canned biscuit dough cooked over the fire on a long wooden stick and then filled with pie filling (or jam, but mostly pie filling).  We used to eat them at ward functions in my ward growing up.  One of our home ward friends made and gifted Scott and I with a pair of doughboy stick for our wedding.  Here are Matthew and I eating our doughboys.

 Matthew cooking his doughboy.  See the special stick.  Those sticks belonged to my parents.

We also had hamburgers and hotdogs.

Matthew wanted to wear my sunglasses to protect his eyes from smoke.

Grant and Anna were really excited to use the fire pit and then they both fell asleep in the afternoon...hard.  We tried everything we could to wake them.  Well, reasonable methods at least.  The could not be roused.  They were both upset when they did wake up and found they had missed using the fire pit.  We'll do it another day I'm sure.

 My sister, Ruth, and her family also came through town from Washington.

We went to the Thanksgiving Point Museum of Natural Curiosity (among other places).

The zip line was a favorite!

Here are some of my kids with cousin Magnus (in blue).  He and Grant are the same age and up to a lot of the same tricks.  They had fun playing together.

 Cool climber at the museum.

 Me, Ruth, Gideon and my mom

Yes, Gideon, you are very cute!

And Anna, John, Magnus, Gideon, Matthew, Emma and Grant

It was so fun to have cousin time.