Summer Vacation!!!

We had a great vacation which included seeing everyone in Justin's family and mine. We started our trip driving to Utah. Justin and I decided to go straight through. It took us just under 26 hours and that included 10 hours of pure silence while the kids were asleep. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought, although we were exhausted when we got there. Our adventures in Utah were with my family "The Riggs Family" and we had a great time. Thanks to my sister, Michelle, we all stayed at her house and enjoyed all the company. We went to the Salt Lake Cemetery were most of the prophets are buried as well as my great grandmother, Esther Hansen Beckstead. We went to temple square and watched the Joseph Smith movie. Seven Peaks was another day and we had a great time there, especially the kids. Saturday was a split day where the men were able to get in some bonding time at the racetrack and the women headed out for a night on the town. Well, American Fork isn't a big party town but they do have Cafe Rio and a movie theater. Sunday ended things with sacrament meeting and then my nephew was ordained an Elder and we are all there for that. It was the first time in a very long time that we were all together and it was so fun.

Then we headed to the Vernal area for "The Hayes Family" reunion. Justin's brother Jared and his family live in Dutch John, Utah near Flaming Gorge. It was beautiful. We started our trip with a tour of the Dam and went to some very scenic overlooks. The men and children got in some fishing, we played games and we rafted the Green River which is always a winner. The water was a chilling 55 degrees but that didn't detour the kids from hopping in a time or two. We saw lots of fish, river otters and ducks. We then took a drive into Vernal to the Dinosaur Museum and the kids loved that as well and we topped it off with a stop to the snow cone hut. Talk about a lot of ice. The large snow cone was probably 8 inches in diameter. We had a great Family Home Evening and it was so great to be with one another. We also learned a new game of Pass the Pigs, quite hilarious.

All in all a great trip. We split up the drive home and stayed at a hotel in Amarillo which the kids thought was fabulous. Emma even "needed" to take a shower in the hotel room. My kids have lead a sheltered life. I think we have stayed in a hotel once before with them and that was about 5 years ago. So they thought that was cool.

Well, we have been home for a few weeks now and starting to get into the swing of things, I had a hard time at first, you know "vacation let down". But things are in full swing now...

Here are a few pictures for our adventures...