Mt. Rainier

So Beautiful! This is the tallest point in Washington, and I think the most gorgeous. Mt. Rainier is actually a volcano, could blow anytime just like Mt. St. Helens.

Vineyard?

This is the most crazy Vineyard I've ever seen. They had normal vines growing right next door, but I've never seen them up like this. Those vines are about 10 feet in the air. I wonder if it's easier to harvest this way?

Small Town Resturants

Not even sure what city were were in at this point. We were on our way to Washington and were starving to death. This cute little place did the job. Real home cooked food tastes so good when you're on the road.

Sicily had a hard time finding her straw today. At one point it went up her nose. I think she might have done it on purpose to get a laugh out of us.

Messes

This is what happens when you stick 6 kids in one bedroom. They have loads of fun, YES, but man can they make a mess.

This is Tuff

Tuff is my sister Amy's, cute little Boston Terrier. He has got to be the funniest looking dog I have ever seen, but he sure is a sweetie. So friendly and good with the kids. I was shocked that my Dad let Amy bring him down to hang out at their house. But the kids all love him.
Amy and I drove up to her house together with the 2 babies and Tuff. Cy is just in a diaper because, if you've ever had kids, you'll know that sometimes diapers just don't do their job. So we had a quick rest stop recovery and Tuff got a walk. Everyone was much happier when we got back in the car.

Gossner Cheese

What good is a trip through Logan, UT if you don't stop at Gossner Cheese. Best Squeaky Cheese in the world!

And flavored milks...YUMMMMY! Root beer, strawberry, orange, vanilla, chocolate, and good ol' whole milk. WE LOVE GOSSNER'S!!!

College Friends

Utah State University ROCKS!!! So nice to have so many good friends. Left to right: Jared, Suzy, Mike, Rachel, Debbie, Kamaile, Janet, Amelia and Jeremy.

And the one that kept us all in line, April with her hubby Chris. She was the best RA ever. And never evicted me when I totally got caught burning candles in my room. Thanks April! :)

And since we're mostly all married now we're no longer small in numbers. This is what happens when you're from Utah and love kids so much. Not exactly sure how many kids, give em a count. 15 kids, I think, from only 6 girls. Not bad odds.

We missed a few of our friends. Hopefully Stacey is feeling better. We missed you JaNick, Brittany, Paul, Brian, Jacob, Matt and Emily. Hopefully next time around we'll have bigger #'s.

At the Park

My kids were so excited to see Seagulls. Seagulls are the State bird of Utah, because they ate all the crickets that were eating the Pioneers fields. Personally I think these Seagulls have eaten more donuts than crickets. They were the fattest Seagulls I've ever seen. :)

The kids just couldn't push each other fast enough. I volunteered to help out. London got sick after about the 5th time I pushed them. But still got on later when some random Dad gave them a push.

I just love her little face!

More Cousins

When you have 13 kids and 8 adults in one house, eating accommodations run rather slim. So we kicked the big kids outside, which they didn't mind in the least. Plus, if they spilt their food it was ok, they were outside.

Sleeping with that many kids can be a bit of a joke. They split up the floor, you know Boys side, Girls side. We literally had 11 kids all in a row, sleeping bags and pillows. They loved it! Good times!

Family

Evan, Suzy, Marlene and Amy. 4 of the 6, only missing Guy and Mark. It was so nice to see my siblings this vacation. It's been a long time since we've all been together. Soon, soon.

The Best Trampoline

Nephews and Uncles

Spencer's Baptism

What a wonderful day for my little nephew Spencer! He was so brave in front of all this family. He's normally so shy so all this support was probably a bit overwhelming. But we love Spencer SOOOO much and are so proud of him for getting baptised. CONGRATULATIONS!

Fun At Grandma Kenisons

Now Utah is not as warm as this picture makes it out to be. I think it was almost 80 today. But we had to jump in the Freezing water anyway. It took Sicily about 10 mins to get to where she'd actually sit down. But once she was in she would not get out.

Cousins, cousins everywhere. Aspen, Jennie and Preston had hours of fun in Grandmas basement. I think they tore up 3-5 pieces of paper in order to make it "snow." Aspen tried with all her might to get us to hike up the Mountains to where the snow was so we could go sledding. My persistence that that would take hours did not really matter to her. So instead they made it "snow" in the basement.

Sicily and Cyrus shared their "phones" for quite some time. They were both TV remotes, so when one wouldn't "work," (aka beep) they'd switch to try the other one. In the end they held them up to their ears, stared at each other and talked on the phone. So cute!

We're Home!!

We drove from Houston, TX - Seattle, WA and back, over 5,000 miles in 4 weeks. NEVER AGAIN!!

We absolutely loved seeing all our family, only missed 1 brother and that's because he's in the Navoo Pagent. We love you all, we'll FLY back for Thanksgiving. Hopefully then we'll be able to see those we missed.

The rest of the vacation posts are forthcoming, gotta unpack first.

High School Friends of Old

A fun part of coming home is catching up with old friends. Now I don't say old meaning OLD, I just mean they're friends of old. So confusing I know. :)
These are some of my awesome friends: Tori, Eva and Jeremiah. There would have been more but the Swine Flu took out a few, not literally though. We meant to stay just a while but ended up being there quite some time. It's so fun to catch up with everyone.
Tori lives way far from my parents and told me to take the Redwood Road exit off of I-215. I took the first one I saw then had to follow that dumb road clear past 5400 S. exit. I didn't know Redwood Rd had an exit that far. So combine that with rush hour we were 30 mins later than we could have been. So annoying.

So since I found the longest way I could to get to Tori's house, Jeremiah offered to have me follow him to get back to my parents more easily. So sweet! As I followed him I noticed his awesome license plate. Took me a bit to figure out why it said Bullfrog, but then it clicked, "Jeremiah was a Bullfrog." Had to take a picture.

Elephant Rock

Well, we didn't make it quite that far.
While Phoenix and Sicily took naps today, London, Aspen and I went for a hike up Mueller Park Canyon. If you've ever been on this hike you know it's a good 2-3 hours, one way, to Elephant Rock. We hiked 40 mins up and 40 mins back. It was so much fun to do this with my kiddos. They've NEVER been in the mountains and definitely never hiked like this.

We did do Timpanogas Cave 2 summers back which was a fiasco, to say the least. Lesson to the wise, NEVER do that hike till your kids are ALL teenagers at least.

This hike was much more fun. Beautiful day! And the forest has grown SO much since I was up there last, which only made the hike better, almost all shade, so nice. I am really looking forward to all my kids being grown enough that we can do this on a regular basis and all really enjoy it.

Hill Air Force Base

Every time we come home we go to this museum. It's the best, the kids love it and they never remember it from the time before so it's always new to them. :) You start out outside looking at all the bombers and carrier planes. They are MASSIVE and I'm always impressed by their size.
The first interior building has all the OLD airplanes. Starting with the Wright Brothers air crafts. Then moving through to WWI, WWII and the Vietnam fighters. There's also an off room with all the uniforms from the different areas in the world where the air force is stationed.

The last building is the coolest. All the modern air crafts, fighter jets down to the Stealth Bomber. Quite a few Black Hawks and other helicopters in here too.

All in all it's a supper cool museum and best of all it's FREE!! So go visit with your kids, boys and girls, they will all love it. Plus, you can teach them to respect our Soldiers and all they do for us.

Assembly Hall

On Temple Square there is this beautiful Chapel. I'm pretty sure it was eventually used as their Tabernacle. Originally it was used at the Conference Center. If anyone can correct me on this please do, it's not too easy to take a tour with little ones. I love this building all the same. If you look close, Phoenix is in there running to catch up with all of us.

Tabernacle Organ

We were lucky enough to be on Temple Square when there was an organ concert. It was amazing, though we had to keep the kids outrageously quiet because the acoustics in the Tabernacle are outstanding.

Forewarning to you. This video is a little fuzzy and NOT steady, I suggest closing your eyes and just listening to the music. I was videoing and dealing with kids at the same time. So sorry.