We stayed in Murray, and just like two years ago, we rented a really big house to stay in together. Monday night, when we had all arrived, Mom and Dad gave each grandchild a towel with their name embroidered on it. They also had matching shirts for everyone. Each shirt has a number on the sleeve that represents the order in which we came into the family. The kids think the numbers are really cool. I am number 6, Nate is 15, Natalie is 17, Kelton is 20, Damon is 27, and Arie is 30.
On Tuesday morning a bunch of us went to the Salt Lake Temple in shifts. I had never done a session there before. It became more memorable when Nate and I were asked to be the witness couple, which is something we have never been asked to do before. I really enjoyed the live session and found it easier to pay attention to real people instead of the movie.
All of us purchased a 7 Peaks Pass of all Passes prior to our trip. It turned out to be a great deal because the pass was around $30 and it got us admission to the water park and fun centers around the area. It also came with a $20 food voucher, per pass. And due to an error, we also got $20 vouchers, per pass, for arcade tokens. On Tuesday afternoon, most everyone headed to the Lehi Fun Center. I stayed with Arie at the house so she could take a nap.
From what I understand, these weren't so much "Bumper Boats," but were "Spray and get everyone soaked Boats."
Kelton, Hannah, and Christian
Callie and Natalie
Go Karts...
Natalie and Uncle Chad
Kelton and Uncle Rob, followed by Bryce
Damon and Nate
Natalie, Callie, and Kira on one of the rides. Poor Kira is hanging on for dear life.
On Wednesday we all went to the 7 Peaks water park in Salt Lake. It was a really hot day, which was good, but it brought out a pretty big crowd. Our kids are all so different with water. Natalie loves it and had a blast. We eventually ended up leaving her there with aunts and uncles because the rest of our kids were ready to leave. Kelton loves the water too, but does whatever he can to keep it away from his head. So, he's not fond of the water slides. Damon was not a fan of the water park. He got really upset if he was splashed and wanted nothing to do with even the little kid slides. Arie doesn't really seem to enjoy being in the water either. Overall, the water park wasn't a huge success with our family, but we were able to use our food vouchers to buy some good food for lunch.
On Thursday morning our family (minus a sleeping Arie), Melanie and Jade, and Christy and Hudson went to tour the Sweets Candy factory. All of the kids were so good during the tour. Then we loaded up on candy in their shop afterwards. They had giant bags of things on sale for less than the little containers we planned to buy, so we really did come home with a lot of candy. And the kids had so much fun picking out their own flavors of salt water taffy.
Thursday night my Grandma and Grandpa came over with my Aunt Deonne to have dinner with us. My cousins Kevin and Jennifer came too. Grandpa and Grandma's short term memories aren't what they used to be (we answered a lot of the same questions over and over again), but I think they are doing pretty great for 94 and 92 years old.
I love this picture because I guess it just goes to show that you are never too old to put bunny ears on your own mother.
On Friday, we spent most of the day back at the Fun Center. This was the first time I went. We spent our time playing laser tag, a round of glow-in-the-dark mini golf, and using up our token vouchers on arcade stuff. We won enough tickets to get Kelton a large stuffed snake, Natalie a stuffed dolphin (like Callie and Kira), and Damon four cute stuffed puppies. We also had enough money on our food cards to get lunch.
Friday night we took family pictures in our matching shirts. I was relieved that my boys were cooperative for the large group picture. We didn't have anyone there to take the picture for us, so Erica set a timer on her camera. Thanks in part to a stuffed elephant from the fun center sitting on the tripod, we got a pretty good shot, given the number of small kids involved.
Our family.
After pictures we had a piñata for the kids. Each of them took a few swings at it. Then grandpa finished it off in the only way fitting for him... with a golf club.
On Saturday we all headed out to go home. We were in no hurry because we were stopping in Flagstaff for the night and would have nothing to do at the hotel. So we went to Temple Square before leaving Salt Lake. We hadn't made it over there yet because it was a bit hard to get places with Arie needing two naps a day. Melanie and Jade came with us. We didn't do a whole lot because it was hot and all the little legs weren't very fast. We took some pictures, went right up to the temple, and went to see the statue of Christ in the visitors center. We wanted to go to the Church History Museum, but it just didn't happen.
I think it's sweet how children respond to this statue.
The older kids just wanted to touch him.
Natalie has her hand on the nail print in Christ's foot--which is the reason for her face.
Then as we were leaving Temple Square to head home, something really neat happened. We were in our car, stopped at a red light, when Elder L. Tom Perry of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles walked across the crosswalk, right in front of our car. He was all by himself, dressed in street clothes--which I didn't know they ever got to do. :) He stopped at the corner and waited to cross the other way. There was a family on the corner with him, and he said hi to them, but I don't think they knew who he was. I wished we were out walking instead of in our car so we could say hi and have the kids shake his hand. But we had to be content with just pointing him out. And, I wasn't even smart enough to pull out Nate's iphone and take a picture. So I have no proof. You will have to take my word for it. But do you know what I noticed? Just like always, he looked so happy.
Other random stuff and pictures:
I put together this game to play. Everyone had to figure out which picture was which grandchild. Melanie got the most right. My dad and Tennyson gave up after about two seconds.
1) Christian. 2) Kira. 3) Jade. 4) Natalie. 5) Callie. 6) Maddison. 7) Kelton. 8) Dustin. 9) Bryce. 10) Easton. 11) Hannah. 12) Hudson. 13) Damon. 14) Trevor. 15) Shalae. 16) Denae. 17) Brayden. 18) Emily. 19) Arie.
The basement of the house had a large gameroom in it. I spent some time playing pool with my Dad and Melanie. On a different day, we played pool in teams--Melanie and Dad against Nate and me. Melanie and I played some ping pong too. I wish we would have had more time to play more, because it was really fun.
There was also a nice theater room in the basement. We took advantage of it one afternoon and Melanie rented Oz: The Great and Powerful. As fun as it was, I couldn't stay awake and ended up taking a nap after about the first 20 minutes.
These girls had a ton of fun playing together. Maddison, Callie, Natalie and Kira.
These two boys are exactly the same size, despite being a year apart in age. Christian is a year older than Damon.
Look at these cute babies. Arie and Easton were taste testing the non-edible stuff for us. Easton is one month older than Arie.
Mom, Christy, and the elephant taking family photos.
Kelton became Hannah's little shadow. He wanted to do everything with her, eat next to her, etc... It was really cute. I heard him say, "Where's Hannah?" dozens of times during the week.
And last, but not least... These pictures can't go without notice.
