Rewind: Utah (and a billion pictures)

I posted our pictures from Zion already, but I never wrote about our trip in general. Ben's oldest brother turned 40 this year, and for his birthday, his wife arranged a whole family reunion in St. George. It turned out that *everyone* was able to be there-- the first time in years! We decided to make a little longer vacation of it and stayed in Utah for a week.
We flew in early Wednesday morning. Early. We left at 4:30 AM from our house. I didn't actually sleep the night before...
Anyway, after landing in Salt Lake and picking up our rental car, we drove down toward Provo and stopped at a Walmart in Orem to get winter stuff. The boys wanted to go play in the snow. We scored the very last sledding/surfboard thing in the store. The store had pretty slim pickin's for kids gloves, too, and the boys had to make do with girls purple gloves. How embarrassing. :-)
We picked up my little brother Christian from his dorm at BYU (just finishing his freshman year), and headed up Provo Canyon. We made a couple of detours before just deciding to go to Sundance. We hit a big rock in the middle of the road on the way up, and just as we were pulling into the parking lot at Sundance, the "low tire pressure" light came on in our rental car. Oops. The tire was punctured, and Ben spent the next hour changing the tire on the car-- the fact that the rental company failed to include the correct tools did not help matters. But Ben is a real man and doesn't need no stinkin' tools to change a tire!
Meanwhile, the boys and Christian headed up to the snow.
There was still lots of snow up in the canyon. In fact, it had snowed only two days before.

The back of Mt. Timpanogos is so pretty.




The first thing the boys did was hit the slopes!





Then they built a snowman with Christian.



We had to buy hats at Walmart, too. We are spoiled in Austin and don't need any winter gear.



Joseph started building a snow fort.



Pretty soon the other boys joined in.



When Ben was done with the tire, he came up, and that's when the giant snowball fight began.



Brigham, especially, loved the snowballs. Ben showed him no mercy.






He was utterly soaked by the time we left Sundance. The boys didn't have any snowpants, and we discovered their cowboy boots are NOT an adequate substitute for snowboots, but I don't think anyone minded too much.



We found these super-cute leather jackets on clearance at Walmart for $7, so we had to get one for each of the boys. They are so cute in them!! Worth the $7, just for the photo op.



The next day we picked up a new rental car, and then picked up my younger brother Benjamin (finishing his junior year at BYU) and took him out to eat at The Olive Garden.



After that we drove down to St. George to meet up with all the Turners.
I didn't take that many pictures at the reunion. I wish I would have! We stayed in this enormous house and swam, played sand volleyball, watched movies, and stayed up way too late talking. It was awesome.
Ben helped me get in the pool, and it was truly like paradise. I could even WALK in the pool!! I wish I could be in the water all the time. Of course, getting out of the pool was a different story... I was reminded forcibly of when I was 8-9 months pregnant with the twins in the summer of 2001. I was able to go swimming a few times that summer, and there was nothing like the relief of getting that baby weight off my lower abdominals, hips, and back. But then, getting back out of the water? It was like, with every step up out of the pool I was gaining 20 pounds. :-)
Anyway, besides hanging out with siblings and cousins and grandparents, we did a few other things. All the girls went out to eat for an impromptu baby shower for Karly, pregnant with her first baby girl. Ben took the boys and a couple of the other cousins on a hike straight up one of the volcanoes up Snow Canyon. It was a very steep hike, and I think most of the littler kids were in tears at various times until they reached the top. Afterward, when we asked the boys what was the best thing about St. George, the volcano hike was the unanimous favorite. Funny how selective memory works! :-)
Ben drove Joseph and Mosey and me (Brigham didn't want to come) up to Pine Valley. We drove the St. George Marathon route in reverse, and it was a little bittersweet for me to relive my marathon memories. Bitter because I'll never do it again, sweet because I'm *so* glad I did it when I could.
Anyway, I love Pine Valley. Ben loves St. George and wants to move there. I told him I'll be happy to move to St. George when he gets a good enough job there that he can afford to buy me a summer home in Pine Valley. :-) I'm not holding my breath.

But seriously, look at this! It is so beautiful up there! Only 30 minutes up the road from St. George. There was still snow on the ground.



More snowball fights.



Mosey getting ready to ambush Ben.



On Saturday we all drove to a park in Washington for family pictures. It was the first time in about 8 years that I've been involved in a family picture that I wasn't taking!
Of course it had to be in the afternoon after all the men got good and sunburned in the morning playing sand volleyball...
Here's the whole crowd:


Afterward, the photographer took individual family shots. Here's ours:


I snagged a couple of shots of Mosey while we were waiting. The other two boys were not interested.



After pictures, Ben and the boys and I went on a short driving tour of St. George, and then went back to the house for more swimming and a pizza party.
Many popsicles were consumed. Especially by Mosey.



I took pictures of all the grandkids I could get a hold of.




Here they are, in alphabetical order:
Brigham:


Carter (Tracie's youngest boy):


Isaac (Ty's middle boy):



Cassie (Tracie's second girl) and Reese:

Cassie again. I had to include both pictures of her because she's so cute and awesome and I love her:



Joseph (my crazy boy):



Josie (Angee's younger girl, getting treated for leukemia-- I think she is almost officially in remission, and boy, doesn't she look happy about it?!):



Kaitlin (Tracie's oldest girl):



Lilly (Angee's oldest girl):



Max (Ty's oldest boy, 9 months older than the twins):



McKenzie (Tracie's 2nd to youngest, and her 3rd girl):



Mosey (who wouldn't deign to look up from his book for me to take his picture... I think he was reading a Junie B. book which was an unusual experience for him since we don't have any of those books at our house!):



Reese (Reuben's girl, his 2nd child):



Zachary (Ty's 3rd boy):



Not pictured were Ryan (Reuben's 1st child), MacKay (Tracie's oldest son), Jack, Luke, and Benjamin (Liz's three boys who were getting ready for bed I believe), and Olivia, Ted's baby girl who was still a month away from being born!

Sunday morning was check-out time. Everyone packed up and said goodbye. Sad! We went to Sacrament meeting at a local church (gotta love Utah, a church on every street corner), and then drove home via Zion and Bryce.
I already posted my Zion pictures, so here's Bryce:




Joseph is much more cooperative in getting his picture taken these days-- as long as he gets to choose the facial expression!


My two cute boys. Again, note Joseph's choice of facial expression. Aww, isn't he charming?! :-)


Brigham never fails to deliver, however. Isn't he dashing in his leather bomber jacket? Gosh, he's getting so grown up looking. Stop it, just stop it already!!


Staring out over the depths of Bryce Canyon. Just moments after Mosey threw a snowball that HIT the shoe of a man who was standing next to us, resulting in Mosey getting escorted promptly back to the car by his father.


On the way out, we saw this group of prong horn deer (I think?) next to the side of the road:



The next day we went up to Thanksgiving Point to see a 3D dinosaur movie at the Imax, and go through the awesome museum they have there. Susie and her 3 boys joined us.

If you look close, you can see the nasty bruise healing on Mosey's right cheek. He and the backyard concrete had a little get-together while Mosey was cavorting on his scooter.


The boys' favorite part of the museum, hands down, was the water room. This room had this gigantic set-up with water and sand and plastic animals and trees. The water was pumped to various parts of the system from which it flowed down to drains. The boys made dams, rivers, islands, beaches, and played in there for probably well over an hour. Brigham was pretty much in engineering heaven. If we had one of these at our house, he would never sleep, never eat, never do anything but design dams and waterways.


Max, Zachary, and Isaac were pretty entranced as well. It was so fun to see all the boys working together.





The museum also had a digging room where the boys dug for dinosaur bones.


It was a really fun day. In the evening we met up with Benjamin and Christian as well as Tyler, Ted, Liz, and their families for dinner at La Dolce Vida (I think?), a yummy Italian restaurant in Provo. I'm afraid we kept Benjamin and Christian there too long while they ought to have been studying for finals... (at least, Christian should have been! I think Benjamin had things well in hand).
The next day, Tuesday, was our last in Utah. We drove up to Salt Lake to tour Temple Square. First we went through the Conference Center where we got a nice, if a little long-winded, guided tour. We saw the originals of the famous Arnold Friberg paintings of the Book of Mormon. Everyone got their picture taken by their favorite:

Joseph and Abinidi (we just got through reading about Abinidi):


Brigham and Alma at the Waters of Mormon:


Mosey and Abinidi:


Ben and Nephi rebuking Laman and Lemuel:


The Brother of Jared and I (or is it the Brother of Jared and me? Gah, I don't know!):


Then we went across the street to the Temple. It was a gorgeous, warm spring day, with not a cloud in the sky:


We went into the Tabernacle and listened to the organist for a while:




Took some (more) pictures:



And finished up in the North visitors' center to see the Christus:


Then it was back to the airport and back home to real life where we discovered that Mister had *only* escaped twice... Grrr, that dog. Anyway, it was a wonderful trip! Yay for homeschooling that lets us take off for a week whenever we want!