Our Trip

As I mentioned, my in-laws had Jess, Lex and Soph for five days and then hosted all the rest of us except Christianne for four more days.  As you can imagine, their food budget tends to spike when we show up.  Thanks, Dean and LaRita!  You are angels!

We have had a great trip.  We went to Richfield for the fourth of July, catching their parade and evening fireworks display.  (Christi's mom grew up in Richfield and Grandma Larsen and lots of cousins still live there.)

Waiting for the parade to start

Collecting candy

After the parade, Grandma Larsen fed us all lunch (and later dinner!) and had a birthday cake for Taylor.  She also let Sophi and Lexi play with play-doh.  For some reason, she added corn starch to the mix.  I've never seen the kids play with corn starch before, but they sure enjoyed it:

On Friday morning, Christi's brother Matthew took me on an amazing three-hour ride on a four wheeler.  (The four wheeler I used belonged to another brother-thanks, Danny and Breanna!)  It was an amazing experience through some absolutely amazing country.  We had a little issue with a broken belt and me having to wait an hour and a half in 100 degree weather while help was summoned, but that was at the end of the trip and didn't detract from the amazing ride:)  Here a couple of pics:

Eagle Arch

Eagle Canyon  Bridge

It has been a great trip, and from what Christi tells me, it has been very cathartic for her to be able to have some time on her own.  Hopefully we're all geared up for the home stretch.  23 more days until the judging for the Parade of Homes. Yikes, that's soon!!!

-Jer

Taylor's Fave Five

What a week and a half!!! Friday the 15th, we left for Island Park, ID (six hour drive). My brother Matt's in-laws have an unbelieveably beautiful cabin on the reservoir up there, and we were able to stay for five nights and have a family reunion. It was the first time in many years that my mom and dad and all of my siblings were together. All 13 of my parent's grandkids were there. We missed Tyler's wife, Laura, and hope to see her soon, but everyone else was present. It was a lot of fun:) We rented jet skis one day, visited Mesa Falls and Sawtelle peak, and played lots of games. We had our annual Thai food night, which of course I love:). The cabin was plenty big enough for all 22 of us comfortably. I'll post some pictures soon.

We got back from ID on Thursday night and left Saturday afternoon for Richfield, UT (2.5 hour drive) for a short reunion with Christi's family. Saturday night we drove from Richfield to Ferron (1.25 hour drive) to stay at Christi's parents house. We went to church in Ferron and then I had to drive Taylor back to our house (2.5 hour drive) so he could get ready to leave for scout camp. We got home about 8:15 last night and then spent 3.5 hours packing and prepping for his camp. He left at 8:00 am this morning. Christi and the kids are still in Ferron. They have to come home tomorrow in order to be ready for Jesi's medical procedure on Wednesday morning. Yeah, we're busy!

Last night as Taylor and I were eating cereal for dinner, he commented on it being a rather pathetic Sunday meal. He obviously missed his mom's cooking! I asked him what his favorite food was. He gave me this list:
-With a goofy grin on his face: IHOP's cinnastack is hard to beat!
-Mom's homemade chicken soup with rolls. (an excellent choice:)
-Arby's roast beef sandwiches
-Subway meatball marinara or turkey and ham
-He stopped for a few minute then remembered: Grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup.

The kid is pretty easy to please:)

Jer

We love Ferron!

We spent the weekend in Ferron with my parents and had such a good time! It is always so good to go home. I think myself very lucky to have a husband who would suggest going to his in-laws for the weekend!! He loves it there as much as I do. The kids had fun going on "adventures" (exploring around Grandpa's farm). We packed a picnic and drove to see some Indian writings, and the kids had a great time hiking the red cliffs. They also loved playing ping pong, putting together an erector set, playing board games, cooking with Grandma, getting ice-cream from Gilly's, and of course, watching March Madness. (:

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for making it so much fun to bring our family there-- we love you!