UTAH!!

We traveled to Utah with my Mom on Sunday the 1st of June. The trip was long...but the kids did GREAT!! We arrived in Idaho and went to the graves of my Grandparents to put in some planter hooks and hanging baskets, my uncle Bruce(Mom's brother) met us there. We fixed the planters into the ground with cement and fixed some flowers in baskets to hang...It looked really nice!! We took pics of the kids on the memorial stone for the schenk family...my Mom said when she was little they took pics of her and her brothers/sisters on top of this same stone! CUTE!! When we were almost done the clouds came and thunder and lightening and rain!! We all bailed to the cars! But as you can see from these pics...the weather was beautiful before!!

We then went back to Pocatello and had dinner with Rob (my brother who lives there). That was fun to see him, and his new apartment. Dinner was funny, Malachi, Asa and Uncle Rob told jokes to each other the whole time!! Lots of fun!! Then we left to head to Provo to see Justin ,Cari and the new baby Korbyn! We got there about 1am...Cari was awake and we all visited and held the baby until we collapsed at 4am!! The next day we just hung out and watched Cari with her new baby...she is doing an AMAZING job!! It looks soo natural and easy for her! I am amazed that my BABY sister is a Mom!! Korbyn is sooo cute!! That night we went to a baseball game of Justin's....all were excited to meet Korbyn!!

Then on Wednesday we met Jen at a pool in Lehi and let the kids swim...It was sooo much fun! Jen looks great!! We caught up while watching the kids swim in a very fun pool/water park! Of course we both forgot to bring our camera's! Darn et!! The kids had a blast! I left Tierzah with Mom and she cried most of the time that I was gone! Poor Mom/Tierzah! I should know better! :) The next day was Thursday and we decided that we wanted to go to Temple Square and see some of the things we weren't going to have time to see when we went to see Melody! It was Melo's p-day so we weren't going to be able to see her. We had sent her an email the night before telling her we were going to come sometime that day, but we didn't know when! It was kind of a bummer that we weren't going to be able to see her...the kids were definitely disappointed! We got there about 1pm and went into a parking garage we drove around for about 1/2 hr looking for a spot....soooo frustrating! We finally parked and missed the Joseph Smith movie by about 10 minutes...so we decided to find restrooms and have all the kids go potty..then go and see a few things and come back for the next showing! I saw some bathrooms down a hall so we went there. On the right side was the Family Search center(lots of computers) I said to Mom "I wonder if this is where the Sister missionaries check their email? Wouldn't it be funny if we saw Melody here?" We walked a few more steps and then I saw a Sister from behind that looked like Melo, I said "Mom is that Melo?" She said YES IT IS!! We walked a little more and said quietly Melo, Melo...she turned around and it was her!! If we would have found a parking spot right away we would not have seen her...she was there to check her email only for about 15 minutes then had to drive some of the sisters to run errands, That was the only 15 minute spread we could have seen her there at the Square that day!! AMAZING!! It was fun we got to walk with her and some of the Sisters on the grounds for a little while! Ariella calls Melody her best friend...she hugged Melo the WHOLE time we were with her, Melo kept saying "why aren't you talking to me?" and Ariella would pull away look at her and then just hug her again...it was sooo cute!! We took a tour at the conference center, and in one place there you can see over a railing to a fountain a few floors down and across from where you are standing there is a mirror....Ariella got really excited and said "Mom the lady over there is wearing the same shirt as you!!" It was my reflection in the mirror! The tour guide said that made her day...it was very funny!!(see the 1st pic below) Here are a few pics from that day!!

The next day we went to Jen Korth's house and she took pics of my kids and of Cari, Justin and Korbyn! It was a lot of fun, and she did a GREAT job! We all went out to lunch and let the kids play for a little while. Cari and Justin left to go show off the baby at work, and Mom and I said goodbye to Jen. Then We took the kids and went to a few book stores looking for a Christ picture that I wanted to buy to hang on my wall at home. I finally found one and bought it, it is really nice! Then we went to visit my cousin Meliana(sp?) in Sandy. Her new baby Elias is sooo cute and my kids had a great time playing with AJ and Chaz. They are all sooo cute. It was fun to visit with her, she is playing single mom right now while her hubby is in Iraq, she is amazing!! That was fun too! And again no pictures! But here are a few from Jen's photo shoot! They turned out really cute!!

Then Saturday we spent the day relaxing at Cari's and spending time with them...I also had to pack up the car. It was lots of fun!! I held the baby and got my fix when ever I could! We stayed up pretty late, my brother got there at about 1am we said hello to him and then went to bed. The next day we had an appt to have a tour with Melody at 11 am. So we all got up and left the house by 9:30, but before we did we took a few pics of the babies together and the kids with Cari's Korbyn! Here they are....so cute! The one with Korbyn and Tierzah looks sick and wrong...like it is not real...she is sooo huge and he is tiny....looks photo shopped or something...It is real!!

We then left to go and meet Melody! The kids were super excited(I won't lie, so was I). It was Mom, Me and the kids, Rob, Cari, justin and Korbyn...so we had a good group! We got there and the weather was GREAT!! It had been raining and cold all week! So that was nice! Melody looks and seems AWESOME! She is LOVING her mission! She took us to "God's plan for the family" I "WON" melody said(I cried first, surprise surprise!) Then she took us into the Tabernacle and she did the acoustic demonstration...the kids LOVED that! Then we walked to the beehive house, but didn't have time to do a tour there, so we went back to the temple grounds and took lots of fun pictures....here are some of them....

After the Temple photo shoot with Melody(aka: Sister Nelson) We all had to say our goodbye's. It was really hard for me...I definitely "won" again! I first said goodbye to Melody, then to Cari, Justin and Baby Korbyn....Mom and Rob stayed and hung around with us for a few more minutes while I took care of Tierzah, then we walked to the Van and said goodbye....it was definately hard to drive away knowing that Mom was not following in the car behind me!! We headed to Boise for the hotel where we stayed the night...the kids were great so I played the good mom and took them swimming when we got there...even though I was EXHAUSTED!! Here are some cute pics of that!!

We then went back to our room and crashed, got up the next morning and left at 8am Portland time to come home....the kids did AWESOME...we made the trip in 8hrs....which for me and 4 kids is GREAT!! It was over all a really fun time...lots of great memories....so glad we went!!
Signing off!!