Utah = more family fun

Most of this trip has been about being with family. And it's been sooo much fun! The kids have LOVED being with all their cousins again -- on both sides of the family. We started with a big camping family reunion for my mom's side of the family. Very fun, very dirty.

First, here's the lovely back-drop for our camping trip...

Gotta love Mt. Timpanogas. Someday I want to climb it. But not while being the single mom of three kids on a three-day campout. Just "someday," okay? :)

Here's Samantha with cousin Brittany, showing off their adorable dirty faces. They were BFF's, for a little while anyway. (You know how that love/hate girl-cousin thing can be, right?)

And here's one of my cousin, Hannah, with her little baby niece, Naomi (guess that makes the baby a second cousin or something?) I just thought it was too cute, this clean little baby in her white jammies, all covered in mud, poor kiddo! (and poor mom, too, I'm sure!)

Ah, the pinata. What's a family reunion without a pinata?! This is Spence, trying to hit it. After his turn, it started ripping, and one or two pieces would fall out every time someone hit it. We could NOT keep Spence from running up to grab those pieces, despite the bat still swinging dangerously around his head!

My dirty, dirty boy! I told him to look at his hand because it was soooo dirty. First, he had to wipe it across his face, of course...

End result... ha!

And Samantha... Well, she got so filthy her blue jeans turned black, not to mention her cute face. But she was embarrassed and kept hiding from me when I tried to take her picture. ha!!

But I did finally catch this cute one of my dirty girl...

Another baby cousin, Regan, munching some watermelon. Gotta love all the cute babies!

Somehow, Anna managed to stay pretty clean, and so did Grandma, surprise!! :) Actually, I think my mom looks just gorgeous in this pic, despite the fact that she was in terrible pain...

Another one who managed to stay pretty clean, but only for the fact that I never let her out of the stroller...

I gotta throw in this sweet one of Sammie, sleeping. She's such an adorable angel when she's asleep, isn't she?! Reminds me she's still such a little baby-kid, even though she seems so grown up. Precious.

Next stop, my brother and sis-in-law, Blaine and Lisa, had us over for the 4th. Good times! These baby girls got to be GREAT friends, whenever they weren't trying to steal each other's bottles, or poke each other in the eyes. Here they are, getting into Lisa's camera stuff, sneaky babies...

And here's Brianna, sporting her just-out-of-the-pony-tail hairdo, so cute!...


For the Fourth, I ran a 5K. "Ran" is a big overstatement, though. I was slow, and my lungs were burning. But I finished, and here's my after-pic, to prove it...

Yeah, Blaine and Lisa wouldn't run it with me (they preferred sleeping in on their holiday, can you believe?!), so I had to take my own sorry after-pic. Oh well! ha!

We took the kids to the Morgan town parade. It was great. Lots of candy. I didn't take tons of float pics, but here's the group, lined up to catch some candy...

Samantha really wanted to get that one stray piece in the middle of the road, even at the risk of being run over by the parade. I told her no, like a good mom.

Here's little Brianna, looking so very enthused and patriotic!

And Spence, well, he was all about how much candy he could shove in, and how fast...

He basically sat in his seat with his bag, and when they'd throw candy, he'd start to move but the other kids would get it faster than he could leave his chair. So then he'd cry, and one of the older kids would take pity on him and give him a few pieces. I think it was all a ploy... free candy and very little effort.

After the parade, we took the kids to a little carnival/fair thing. All they wanted to do was the bounce house, so we let them have a go for a couple dollars....

Spence sneaked in an extra turn when no one was watching, sneaky boy! Then he bawled and threw himself on the ground when I told him we had to go home.

Back at Blaine and Lisa's, the kids like the carnival idea so much that they set up some games of their own. Here's Bryson and BJ doing the ring toss over some soda pop bottles...

Here's Samantha and Britt, getting ready for the fishing pond in the window well...

And, well, here's Brandon. Apparently he dressed up as a... something?... and let the kids throw things at him. I'm sure that was a very popular game!

For the evening, we had a great bbq with Lisa's side of the family (delicious ribs, I'm telling you!) I didn't take my camera out for that one, but it was a fun time. Afterward, we went to watch fireworks. Natalie LOVED them!...

Really! This was her face almost the entire time....

I didn't get any great shots of our whole group, but here's Brianna, just chillin' -- and Lisa and Blaine, too...

Samantha was pretty happy to be with cousins...

And Spencer is not pictured because he got tired of waiting and asked if he could sit in the car. He was fast asleep in the car by the time things got started.

That's all for now folks. After UT, we spent a week with my family in Blackfoot... then back to Caldwell to hang with Bishop family. All that is still to come, I'm sure you can hardly wait!! For now, I'm off to get us packed for Redfish Lake!