We Are Going to Miss Them

Dee's brother and his family have accepted a two year position with his company in Utah. We are very excited for them. What a wonderful opportunity!

They came to visit for one last time before they left and we got to have the kids spend the night. We had so much fun. The little girls all slept in Leighton's bed and Madeline was nice enough to sleep with Carly (she is a bed hog.) Robb got a bed all to himself. There are benefits to being the only boy.

We got a picture of all of them first thing in the morning.The picture seemed familiar and I found this lurking on my computer.

Same kids (missing one), different couch.Look how much they've grown!Psst. Don't tell anyone, but I am going to miss this one most of all. Why? Well, it could be because she is the cutest 5 year old I know. Or because she always says just what is on her mind. Or because she is my favorite. But, it's really because she will be the one who changes the most while they are gone. The good news is that they have moved close to my family and we can see them when we make our summer trip to Utah.

The Zoo

No trip to Utah would be complete without a trip to Hogle Zoo. It is still my favorite zoo. The kids waiting patiently to get in.

And in case you were wondering, Yes my sister dressed her boys in bright orange because she is a freak like me and is deathly afraid of someone taking her kids. What can I say, it runs in the family. Leighton loved the merry-go-round.
So, did Jensyn. Can you see the glee in her face. She didn't want to get off when the ride ended.

I must interrupt this post for a short story. Carly has a thing for mirrors. If she can see her reflection or shadow she will look only at it. She has even been known to look at herself in other people's sunglasses. She will usually continue her conversation, but visually you have disappeared.

OK back to the zoo.

Carly was having the hardest time getting on her ostrich. I didn't get it, she always got on her horse so easily. I was pushing from the bottom and she still couldn't get on. I finally went around to the other side to pull her over when I noticed this...

You guessed it, she was too busy looking at herself to actually try to get on! Then she spent the entire ride watching herself go around and around. She was in pure heaven!

Jensyn loved all the animals but seemed to like the meerkats the best. She didn't want to leave this window.

No trip to the zoo is complete without measuring up to the gorillas. My nephew kept saying he was the 'adult female' long after we had left the gorillas. We started to get some weird looks.

On the ride home, the girls were marveling at how close the mountains were. I thought some of you not from Utah might enjoy the pictures, too. And yes , Mom, I took the pictures while I was driving. But, I did it without looking which is why I took 15 and only got three decent ones.

Bear Lake

My favorite place to play in the water.....Bear Lake. The water is BLUE and there are no snakes or sharks. What else does a girl need? The girls LOVED it too! They loved it so much that we ended up going back later in the week.

I love this picture of Jensyn. Her chubby little baby body is the best.

Leighton loves the beach. She takes a little bit of time to warm up to the water.

Grandma helped them make their own lake with a river.

Leighton had the best time searching for shells. She hit the jackpot. All the white=shells.

Sand angel.

Dee had told them all about the Bear Lake Monster. She is kind of like the Loch Ness Monster. Well, we spotted her and made sure to take a picture for him.

Through the window with water spots.

On our way back to Grandma's we stopped at Devil's Slide. It is a rock formation that looks like a huge jagged slide. The girls have begged to slide down it every time we pass. Once they got a closer look, they changed their mind.
They also learned about skunks. Apparently the opossums that we have in NC have over powered the skunks. You rarely see one. A large portion of the road between Bear Lake and Grandma's was full of dead ones and the girls spent the entire time like this.

Lots of Fun in Utah

O.K., so maybe getting my children up to watch the Pioneer Day parade only one day after they had spent an entire day flying was not so much fun. But, doesn't Leighton look thrilled?

O.K. What about Carly? Whoops, she isn't even awake!

Jensyn is always good for an early morning....

play in the gutter water. YUCK!

Quote from the guy in front of me: "I'm not getting up one more time for the flag, but if the prophet goes by I will stay on my feet for as long as I can see him!" That is how you know you are in Utah.



Leighton got to drive Grandpa's race car onto the trailer so he could take it for some testing. She was so proud of her steering abilities until Uncle Kyle came up the driveway and asked 'Who parked the car so crooked?'

Jensyn was all buckled up for safety. I think she figured she could do it since it looked kind of like the five point harness in her car seat.

You can take the redneck out of the south, but you can't take the south out of the redneck.

Hence, the baby with no clothes on.

We had a fire and roasted s'mores and then told stories. My niece wanted to play a game where you start the story and then the next person stops you and continues the story until the next person stops them and so on and so on. Mary started this story about princesses and fairies and saving the maiden. It went around and started getting pretty good. Carly was supposed to end it. Apparently she couldn't think of any way to end this epic so she improvised with the lyrics to her favorite song from Twisted Sister.

She looks around at all of us and says, "I guess, You're gonna burn in Hell."
We all burst out laughing. My Dad had a coughing fit, I nearly wet my pants and I'm sure the neighbors were wondering what in the Hell we were doing out there.

Grandma let Leighton paint her nails. Leighton insisted upon a different color for each hand.

After that Grandma wouldn't go anywhere without Leighton. I think she was hoping that people would assume Leighton painted them. I wonder if it worked.

They helped in Grandma's garden and Grandpa set up a pool for them to swim in.

They had their own sleepover with cousins on the deck.

Complete with a redneck drive in.

The t.v. pushed up against the screen of the window. We used to do this as kids and it was one of my favorite things to do.

We took a trip up to see Great Grandma Clark. Uncle Brandt saddled Queenie for the girls to ride.

Carly was a little irritated that she had to be led around. But, Queenie had just been bred and was not too happy to be away from her man. Even Jensyn got a turn. She loved every minute of it.

Our visit with Grandma Clark was short and sweet

and from there we headed to Bear Lake.

The Day That Would NEVER End!

The Plan: Plane departs Raleigh/Durham at 6:15 p.m. EST. Plane arrives Minneapolis/St. Paul at 8:05 p.m. CST. Eat dinner at a wonderful airport restaurant. Plane departs Minneapolis/St. Paul at 9:45 p.m. CST. Plane arrives Salt Lake City at 11:35 p.m. MST. Girls in bed by midnight.

Total trip time: 7 hours, 20 minutes (not including drive time to/from the airport.)

What Really Happened: Plane departs Raleigh/Durham at 6:15 p.m. EST. Plane arrives Minneapolis/St. Paul at 8:05 p.m. CST. Eat dinner at a wonderful convenient airport restaurant. Plane departs Minneapolis/St. Paul at 911:45 p.m. CST. Plane arrives Salt Lake City at 11:35 p.m.1:55 a.m. MST. Girls in bed by midnight3:30 a.m.

Total trip time: 79 hours, 2040 minutes (not including drive time to/from the airport.)

What did we do to pass the time? We found a quiet spot away from everyone else and .............................

acted like fools.

You thought I was going to say slept.

This hill was great to run down. I even talked them into rolling down it once or four times. When they would stop running, I would ask them if they were tired. If the answer was no, I sent them back to the top.

Why would I do such a thing?

So that the kids would fall asleep immediately once they got on the airplane.

It worked for these two. Don't they look like kittens all intertwined?

It did not work for this kid, though. She was so big and got to sit across the aisle. She deemed these two men her boyfriends and chatted their ears off until they both fell asleep.

We were very excited to see Grandpa when we got off the plane.

I wish I would have gotten a picture of the girls with their luggage. We flew Delta and I wasn't about to pay for checked luggage. I made Carly and Leighton use their roller bags and backpacks. Jensyn had her backpack with her airplane 'stuff'. I carried three bags. When we would get ready to get off or get on, I would say 'backpack up' and they would all get their backpacks on and line up behind me. We got a lot of smiles as we walked down the terminal. I am not sure if they were smiling because they found it amusing or because they pitied me.

An Update, Sort Of!

Just wanted to let you all know that we have finally booked our flights to Utah for our annual summer trip. We will arrive in Zion on Wednesday, July 21st and return to the Old North State on Tuesday, August 10th.

I do have lots and lots of other things to post, and promise to get to them this week. I equate blogging to visiting teaching. As long as I get it all in before the end of the month it counts, right??

Babies can have Slurpees, Right?

Look at that smile, everybody loves Mountain Dew Slurpees!

Num, Num!

And I thought the chili taco was hard to get away from her. She nearly went through the roof when I tried to get my slurpee back.

WE'RE HOME!!

We had a wonderful time in Utah. We didn't get to see everyone we wanted, but we will try extra hard next time. I have a lot of pictures to post, after work this weekend. Stay Tuned!!

Camping Fun, Take Two

Since it rained, and my brother had to leave early (LONG story) ,his kids didn't get to roast marshmallows up camping. So, we had a pseudo campfire in the fire bowl at my parents and the kids had a blast. My oldest and dearest friend, Jessy, came over with her girls, Kambri and Devyn. It was so fun to have them there. I wish we lived closer so we could have fun like this with them more often.

Devyn dancing and roasting at the same time, talented child!

The whole gang!

Carly and Kambri.


Carly enjoys her s'mores. She was going to town and not paying attention to where she was putting her marshmallow covered hands. A little grass with your marshmallow?

We tried to get another picture of all the grandkids. Bridgie would not participate....
(l to r: Carly, Grace (Alex's), Gloria (Alex's), Adam (Alex's), Jensyn, Leighton, Kannon (Coree's), and Bridger (Coree's).

turns out, Bridger wanted the entire shot to himself. Is he not adorable?!?

He let me take several pictures of him, he posed and smiled forever.

Note to far away friends and family: Southwest has tickets for $90 one-way and we have plenty of room. We are only an hour and a half from the beach and we have a Crate and Barrel and a Saks 5th Avenue. Book your flights now!!