Now is where I will just dump a lot of pictures of our month we stayed in Utah, so feel free to skim. We had a great time staying in Utah. We got to spend lots of time with family and see some friends. We flew Jon home after the wedding and he came back 3 weeks later for the 4th of July and then drove us home. It was a long time to be apart and we all really missed him. Jackson was face-timing with him one day and handed me the phone with a desperate plea, "open it up, get him out." It was funny, and sad that he missed his dad so much.
My kids were in heaven with cousins to pal around with...it was non stop fun. My sister Amy, who lives far away in Texas, stayed the whole month too. We probably overwhelmed my parents a bit, but the kids really loved getting all that time together.
Grandpa, is the best and was constantly entertaining and playing with the kids when he wasn't working.
We went to the Bean Museum on campus of course and had to stop by the creamery for some yummy ice cream.
Bowling at the Wilk of course.
These 3 made up a cute dance and choreographed the younger girls too. I loved that they were so excited to wear matching outfits.
We fit in some hiking in beautiful Utah too. This waterfall is battle creek falls. It is in Pleasant Grove, it is kind of a steep hike for kids, but really beautiful. The other one is just up rock canyon, Beth and Jacks and I hiked it quickly one day.
Slip 'n Slide fun.
Jon's two wonderful sisters are going to BYU right now, it was fun to see them a few times while we were in Provo as well.
We went to the museum of curiosity at Thanksgiving Point. It is really neat. My girls could have stayed there all day long, but Jackson got tired and hungry so we only stayed for a few hours.
The balloon festival is always fun, and early. This year the pig balloon, which is Gracie's fav, got a tear from running into another balloon's basket and we watched it fall, pretty quickly, to the south of us. They were burning their fire the whole time down to try and slow their fall. It was pretty scary, because that burned the balloon. All of them ended up being ok, but the balloon was not.
We had a lot of fun. We met our friends the Swensons, that just moved to Provo there. They used to live across the street from us here and we will miss them lots. I am sure they will love living in Utah though.
The candy bomber came the day before the 4th, to do a drop in Orem. We thought it would be fun to go, and it was cool to see him fly by, but it was SO crowded and so hot that day. Thousand and thousands of people. I didn't even see the candy get dropped because we were far away. Utah is funny that way, so many kids and families that things like this are just really crowded. We did take a photo of one kid's candy that he caught, we saw him as we were walking a mile back to our car.
On to the Grand Parade. Provo has gotten a little crazy mad with their love of this parade. I mean, I love it, but it has become a social thing for people to camp out the night before. There were parties, big screens, food trucks everywhere, dance parties, and all other shenanigans going on. It is a good thing that mostly students live a long the parade route because I can imagine it was awfully loud all night. We just squeeze in with Brad's family, who camps out for their usual spot, and that never seems to mind much when we show up that morning.
Jacks loves fire, and fireworks.
Yay, if you made it to the end you are a trooper, because that was a lot of pictures. I love the 4th of July in Utah though. I really think they do the best job of celebrating it. I hope I can go up for it every year.
School starts Thursday, I am not ready. Can we go back in time to this moment in the summer?
