September 2019 Part 5: St. George Trip

Nana and Papa (Kirt and Julie) won the bid for a 2 night rental in St. George at a silent auction fundraiser, and they invited Lea's family and us to come along. We picked a weekend towards the end of September so it wouldn't be as scorching hot. We arrived on Friday afternoon. 

After unloading the car, we headed to the pool!

 

And then after the pool...

The next day, we headed to Zion National Park. This was our family's first trip to Zion, and we were pretty excited to be exploring Utah's parks. The boys found some wildlife before we even made it into the park. 

We tried to keep ourselves entertained as we waited for our turn on the shuttle. 

Once we got shuttled up to the Narrows, we found another new friend, a fat squirrel. 

From the bus stop, we had a bit of a hike to where the entrance to the Narrows was. 

We found some more wildlife. 

Finally, we made it into the narrows. The water was freezing, but it was so invigorating! We left Gabe with Nana at the entrance since we figured it would be too tough on both of them. Or maybe just too tough for Gabe and Nana was kind enough to entertain him. 

Kirt brought 4 walking sticks with him--2 for him and Julie and 2 to share. I took him up on the offer, knowing that I need to take good care of my hip. I still get really nervous about slipping or tripping. Nobody else was really interested in them...until we started walking through swift water over unstable rocks. Then, the search was on for some kind of stick to use. These boys enlisted Rachel's help to get a walking stick from this poor tree. 

Those without sticks simply relied on others without sticks. It was a bit of teamwork to make it through. 

It was pretty slow going with the younger kids, and at one point, they wanted to take a much longer rest than the adults wanted to. We had them all stay together and watch out for each other, and then we left Danny, Michael, Skyler, and Rachel to go a little further upstream and around the bend. 

I'll confess, I was a more than a little worried about going around the corner and losing eyesight of them, but it was glorious to see more of the canyon. 

Lea and I went as far as we dared with the kids behind, and then turned back. Kirt really wanted to go farther, so Kirt, Brian, Shayne, Hunter, and Cole kept going, and Lea and I turned around and led Danny, Michael, Skyler, and Rachel back to the shuttle. I wanted to keep going too, but I knew it was better for Brian to have more time with his dad. We're just going to have to go back someday. I'm such a water baby, and hiking in water was the best form of hiking I've ever done!

But not before braving the deeper waters

And carefully leading one enthusiastic girl 

and another less-enthusiastic boy who was cold and ready to be done back through the watery trail. We found Gabe and Nana, who were both pretty happy and seemed to have had a good time while we were in the Narrows. 

Then we hiked the little hike back to the shuttle. 

By the time we made it back to the shuttle, we were all pretty tired, and by the time we made it out of the park and back to our cars, we were all starving and a little grouchy. Gabe fell asleep on the shuttle back, and needed me to carry him all the way back to the car...which was a LONG walk!

We found a place to eat, and it wasn't too long before the guys joined us. 

We celebrated Hunter and Brian's birthdays with an ice cream cake! Then we played games and called it a night. 

The next morning, the boys made friends with a little bird that had hit the window. 

We packed up, and then we visited the St. George Temple

and Visitors' Center.

We all went to Sacrament Meeting together, and then headed home. 

Thank you so much for a wonderful weekend, Kirt and Julie!! We had a blast!!

September 2019 Part 4: Gabe's First Day of Preschool

This entry really should have been Part 1 or 2, but oh well! The Tuesday after Labor Day, Gabe FINALLY got to start preschool!!!!! He was so, so, so excited! 

Gabe and Michael matched/coordinated that day. It was pretty cute. Gabe's preschool was in a Miss Angela's basement and called "Chicka-Chick-Boom-Boom" after the children's book by the same name. 

Like his siblings before him, he didn't look back. He didn't get clingy. He just dove right in! 

Afterwards, he ran out to find me and was so excited about the skittles that Miss Angela sent home as part of a game we were supposed to play together. 

Somehow, at some point, poor little man got a bloody nose and got blood all over his new school shirt. 

Thankfully, his mom is pretty good at getting blood out of things, and we only remembered about the bloody nose because of this picture. Gabe absolutely loved going to preschool, and we got to be a part of a fun carpool group with two other boys in our neighborhood. This led to after school play-dates,  and Gabe was in HEAVEN to finally have his turn doing the school and friend thing. 
 

September 2019 Part 3: Nauvoo Trip with Mom

In the spring, my Aunt Ramona reached out to me about taking my cousin BreAnna's wedding pictures in Iowa in September. Since she's done so much for me over the years, including helping out at MY wedding, I wanted to do this for her. Since I have a lot of cousins though, I knew I'd be setting a precedent so I did charge her for the wedding, but at a fraction of what I normally would charge, and I got my mom to come along with me. Maybe she was going to go anyway, but this way, we shared hotels and a rental car to help keep costs down. She even pitched in some of her points for my airfare. She flew into Utah from a work trip to D.C. the night before we flew out, and then bright and early, we took a taxi to the airport for our early flight to Chicago...which got delayed. We had a layover in Minneapolis, where we missed our connecting flight to Chicago. So, we hung out in the airport in Minneapolis for a few hours. We talked about so many things, including Dad, cried about Dad and about the delay, and wandered around the airport . 

We finally made it to Chicago, but not in time to take a tour of the city, much to my disappointment. Instead, we hopped in our rental car to begin the four-hour drive to Nauvoo, Illinois. We decided to find some dinner somewhere in a town outside Chicago, and a couple of hours later, we found this hole-in-the-wall, small town diner that we thought would be really good. It really wasn't. 

Finally, much later than we both wanted (and after missing a turn or something due to some weird thing that the GPS decided to do), we made to our Airbnb in Nauvoo. We were a few blocks away from the temple, so we actually drove by it first. The last time we were in Nauvoo, the temple was still under construction, so it was really cool to see it all finished and lit up. 

The next day, we explored Nauvoo. We had a delicious lunch at a Ma-and-pop style diner which was actually really good. 

We went to the old cemetery. 

And we wondered if some of these McClellen's were related to us. 

It was interesting to see how some headstones were probably original while some had been replaced with modern ones, most likely by their decendants. 

I'd forgotten that Edward Partridge, the first Bishop of the Church, died in Nauvoo. 

We took a wagon ride around Nauvoo. 

While on the wagon ride, we met a few people visiting from Malad, Idaho. They were in town for a wedding as well, and we thought that there would be no way it was the same wedding until I remembered that BreAnna and Ramona lived in Malad for a long time. Sure enough, they were in town for Bre's wedding, and one of them was one of Bre's bridesmaids! 

We visited a few of the homes and shops, but weren't too worried about visiting everything since we'd been before. It was really quiet, and the weather was so pleasant. They moved the sister missionaries around more, so they didn't seem to know as much about the different places as the missionaries who gave us tours when we visited back in 2002. Some stops were really interesting, but I was a little disappointed going to Brigham Young's house since the missionary who gave us the tour back in 2002 did such a phenomenal job. 

In between our touring, we were going to where my grandparents were staying to do laundry, which almost made us miss our session at the temple. I don't think I've ever gotten dressed so quickly, and the sisters who helped us rent clothing were awesome about helping us make the session. We maybe had 30 seconds to spare before the closed the doors! It was so neat being inside this temple and so nice to do a session with my mom. It is a beautiful temple, restored to be as close to the original as they could get it. 

After the temple, we met up with my grandparents, my Aunt Sherry (Grandma's sister) and Uncle Dale, and my Uncle Jon and Aunt Rebekah for dinner at one of the few restaurants in town. Afterwards, we went back to the temple so I could practice some HDR photos:

After pictures, we went to the condo my grandparents were staying at and Mom visited with them and her brother, and I culled the temple pictures, started charging my camera batteries, and other things to get ready for the big wedding the next day. Then, we headed home, but I snapped this picture for Brian, moonlight on the cornfield. 

The next day, we explored a little more around Nauvoo and picked up some souvenirs for my kids and Brian. We found this big guy hanging out around town. 

And this guy, who was even more terrifying! 

Grandma and Grandpa were pretty insistent that we go see the stone bridge that dated back to Joseph Smith's days in Nauvoo, so we stopped in there while we were out and about and I took some pictures:

Then, we were off to Burlington, Iowa for BreAnna's wedding. My mom was an amazing assistant to me, and I had a blast taking all the pictures. If you want to read more about the wedding, you can check it out on my business blog here. I enjoyed getting to know Bre better, and getting to see my cousin, Zandra, who was practically a sister growing up. 

Meanwhile, back in Utah....

After the wedding, we drove the 4 hours back to Chicago. Mom drove most of the way while I culled the wedding images and backed them up. Thank goodness she had an outlet that plugs into the cigarette lighter spot! We got to our hotel at around 2 in the morning, and my poor mom had to be up just two hours later to catch her flight back to D.C. Thankfully, I got to have a couple more hours than that before I headed back to Utah. 

Whenever I go somewhere without my kids, I can't help but think about them when I see model planes in the airport (or dinosaurs in Nauvoo), and so I take pictures that I think will interest them. Here are two such pictures. 

 I had such a blast hanging with my mom for the long weekend, and I really loved taking Bre's wedding pictures. Mom and I are trying to figure out how to make this an annual thing. So far, we've done something similar to this two years in a row (I went to D.C. in 2018 to take my friend Tali's engagement pictures, and my Mom was my assistant then too). Maybe we'll still figure out how to make it happen for 2020? If not, we might have to make 2 trips in 2021. 

September 2019 Part 2: Hale Center Theater Presents "Cinderella"

After taking our kids to go see "Newsies" at Hale Center Theater in Orem, we decided that we should make a regular thing out of taking our kids to the Theater. We got tickets to go see Matilda and Roger's and Hammerstein's Cinderella at Hale Center Theatre in Sandy. Due to Dad's funeral, we didn't make it to Matilda, but we were super excited to go and see Cinderella, especially since Rachel and I were familiar with the music but had never seen it performed on stage. 

They did an AMAZING job with the play, even if someone did re-write it at some point so the plot was different than the films I grew up watching. They had really cool effects and props, including a flying coach and a fire-breathing dragon. We all left feeling very impressed. 

We had some fun with the statue after it was all over. 

Then, we took the kids out to eat at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. Michael didn't seem to appreciate my deep affection for him. 

And what can I say? I REALLY take my love for chips and salsa seriously. (I actually think we took this picture to send to Cal and Cassidy as an inside joke). 

Rachel was so cute all dressed up that I had to take a picture of her by these flowers, and Brian had to take a picture of me taking her picture. Now if only we had a picture of Brian taking a picture of me taking a picture of Rachel...

We are excited about our future theater trips with this crew and can't wait until Gabe is old enough to join in the fun!