What We Did on Our Utah Summer Vacation 2011

*****Warning, long post with lots of pictures!!!!*****

Well, we survived our annual summer trip out west!

And when I say that "we" survived, I mean ME! I was in Utah with the boys for almost two weeks before Matt joined us for our third and final week on vacation. Our trip probably would have been longer but Quinton starts school EARLY (relatively speaking) in Alabama so we had to come back eventually!

We started out our journey well enough - the Mobile airport has a little play area for the kids and that proved to be a great distraction! Nice face, Quinton!
One of our first stops in Utah was to visit our friends, The Christensens. Sawyer was happy to find someone smaller than him to boss around - or push in a swing! This is Gwen, Evan & Mariah's newest addition. She was such a sweetie!

This is Gwen's older sister, Jane. Much like her mother, Jane is a lovely conversationalist and likes to play mommy to Gwen.

Wes, the oldest of the three Christensen kids was nice enough to let Quinton spritz his glasses for a good cleaning...you can tell Wes had younger siblings!

Lucky for us, we were able to meet up with friends, the Knowles, who were in town from Tulsa and then, we also ran into some Chicago friends, the Walkers, while hanging out with our Tulsa friends! What luck! We watched the draper Days parade with all of our friends!

The weather was awesome! Warm but not too hot!

The kids really thought this monster truck was cool!

What better way to cool off than an air-conditioned bubble that bounces over water! This 'ride' at the carnival was too cool to pass up! Quinton, Andrew and Sarah LOVED bouncing around in the balls!

A lovely train ride for the group!

In an effort to prove that I am the coolest mom ever, I actually held this freaking boa! The original plan was to have Quinton hold it but he chickened out. Seeing as how I have to uphold my street cred, I took over and don't I look sooooooooooo excited????

Lucky for us, Matt's brother has the hook-up with Maverik and we were able to score tickets to the Days of '47 Rodeo at the Maverik Center in the box! Wooohooo! It was fun to watch the rodeao but what was even better was that Sawyer could run around in a contained area while I got to watch the rodeo! Double bonus!

We also spent a couple of days at my Aunt Amy & Uncle Stan's place in Idaho. They live on a beautiful farm in the middle of nowhere and it is one of the most peaceful places I have ever been...except for the cropdusters at 6am!

I grew up spending my summers visiting my cousins at the farm and I am beyond thrilled that my boys are able to experience the same wonder of farm life. Plus, it's amazing not to have to worry about traffic while the kids play outside!

Quinton enjoyed the swing that I used to swing on at his age!

We also did some "sightseeing" in Twin Falls which included spending an afternoon at a cool lake.

You just hafta love summertime when the hardest part of your day is climbing up a slide!

My handsome nephew, Evan. I love this guy! He is so sweet and loving and is a great helper with Sawyer and Quinton!

Ahhhh, a frozen chocolate covered banana...I can still taste it....

Shoshone Falls with my dad and the kids. My dad said that the falls were amazing earlier in the spring with all of the winter runoff, the falls were at the highest in many years. In all my visits to Twin Falls, I have never seen these falls! It was magnificent!

This is my amazing sister, Jessi! It still boggles my mind that she is younger than me and her oldest will be starting Junior High this year and my oldest will be starting kindergarten!

I love my awesome sister so much! She is a single mom and works so hard to make sure her kids are happy. She also has the most generous heart! I love you, J!

Sawyer exploring the farm.

My grandfather, John Russell, lives about 30 minutes from my Aunt's place. He has a gorgeous property with so many trees, plants, flowers and garden that he faithfully tends. This is my dad's dad and they are so alike in so many ways, I am very lucky that my boys have the opportunity to get to know so many of their GREAT grandparents!

My dad and Sawyer enjoying some fresh cut rhubarb...

It was the perfect afternoon, sitting on my Grandpa's lawn in the cool shade enjoying some nice cold watermelon...the epitome of summer!

Silly Grandpa and the kids had a blast riding around the farm on four-wheelers! Back in Utah, we spent some time with Matt's side of the family. This is my beautiful niece, Bella...

The first year or so, Sawyer was a total Momma's boy but in the past few months, it has become almost painfully obvious that he has turned into a full-on daddy's boy. We were in Utah for so long without Matt that Sawyer took to cuddling Matt's brother, Ernie, to get that lovin' feeling he missed. Lucky for us, Ernie was more than happy to snuggle Sawyer! Thanks Ernie!

This is Ernie's youngest, Max. Max and Sawyer are 9 months apart and they are so fun to watch! The phrase, "monkey see, monkey do" is so totally appropriate when it come to Sawyer and Max hanging out!

Finally! Matt arrived!

We spent a day in downtown Salt Lake City. It's been a while since we've done that so it was fun to have Wendy and her kids and Matt's mom come, too.

Here, the boys are playing on one of the big pillars in the Joesph Smith Memorial Building.

Towards the end of our trip, we headed back to Idaho for Matt's Harker Family Reunion. This is a crazy event with 100+ people all claiming to be Harker descendants. We had a great time with lots of cousins to play with for Quinton and Sawyer and I even met people I hadn't met before (or at least that I can remember!).

Here is Matt's brother, Gary, working on the dutch ovens. One of the bonuses in marrying into the Harker family is that the Harker boys like to do most of the camp cooking! Sweet!

This is my super-cute neice, Noah. Her cuteness is what makes me want to try for a girl!

There's just something about this picture that I love...maybe two things...I love Sawyer's expression and I love how strong Matt looks - holding onto his little boy...

And there you have it...I tried not to put too many pictures in this post but it's hard to pick the best or most fun since we did so many things in Utah! I didn't even post our pictures to the water park, the children's museum and other fun stuff but you get the idea...we had a lot of fun and made many family memories!