trip to Utah

Back in the beginning of July we were able to make a trip to Utah and I am finally getting around to blogging about it. My parents were driving out for my niece, Mallory's, baptism and we decided at the last minute to make the trip with them. It was a fun, and very hot, week. And it was so good to see so many people we love and miss. 

Tatum loved having so many cousins around and the fenced in yard at Nathan and Stacy's house was great. Here she is playing in the sprinklers with Nathan's kids.

Libbie is such a good sister/cousin/daughter/niece/girl. :) She is so good to keep an eye on the little ones and always more than happy to help them out when they need it. She is really just a sweet young woman. And growing up way too fast! Here she is helping Tatum jump on the trampoline. This trip was Tatum's first trampoline experience and she LOVED it.

More sprinkler fun. We definitely got our fair share of water activities in during this week. Like I said, it was a hot week. We met the Eskelsens and the rest of the Cardon cousins at a park but all the slides were too hot to play on. Lucky for us the park's grass was getting watered so the kids all ran through the sprinklers. I wish I would have gotten a better shot of some of the expressions Tatum was making. She thought it was the greatest thing.

I love this picture because of the way Tatum is looking at Claire. You can tell she just thinks Claire is the coolest and wants to be doing whatever she does. I am so glad that Tatum has so many older cousins to look up to. They are all great kids.

We definitely made sure to get plenty of snuggle time in with Nathan and Stacy's newest addition, Tyce. So tiny and sweet!

Tatum just observing the crazy. :) Just kidding, Tatum certainly has her fair share of crazy in her.

My turn with Tyce. :)

So many toys! Tatum didn't know what to do with herself, there was just so much to play with! She liked this little outdoor ride on toy and loved it even more when daddy tied a rope on it and pulled her around. Helmet required, pants optional. And little miss Claire there in the background learned how to ride a two wheeler all by herself so she was showing us her new found skills.

Notice the big kid (aka Daddy) on the trampoline in the background.

Trying so hard to get some air.

Tyce is definitely the smiliest baby I have ever met. It was so fun to get smiles out of him.

Tatum got lots of practice for when her little brother gets here. She loved Tyce a lot (maybe a little too much). Tyce doesn't look too sure of her though. :)

Splash pads! We tried a few splash pads while we were there. This one was definitely the best and we went a couple of times. It had a little stream that Tatum especially loved and then these fountains were at the end. We have wished many times since we got back that there was a splash pad like this one around us.

This is a different one that we tried on the fourth of July. Not as good, in my opinion, but still fun.

Happy Fourth of July! My family has apparently gotten quite unpatriotic so we didn't do sparklers or anything and we only kind of watched fireworks. But it was still a fun day spent all together. After our BBQ we took a walk to a park and Tatum and Claire got to ride in the wagon. Tatum was a little grumpy I guess.

Nathan was just entering his food coma and the giant tire seemed like the most comfortable place to relax I guess.

Three cute kids on the walk back. Tatum would try to say anything Claire asked her to say. It was pretty funny listening to them.

She finally learned how to eat a popsicle. I think it helped to have a bunch of older kids showing her how it's done.

Back at the best splash pad ever. :)

On Friday after the boys went golfing and the rest of us took the kids to the park and the splash pad we headed up the canyon to check out a natural water slide. Apparently we did a good job wearing Tatum out because she stayed asleep when Brennan got her out of the car. So he carried her like this for the first part of the hike.

Then we used the hiking backpack my parents have had since Crystal was Tatum's age. It does the job!

It was seriously SO HOT! And we were hiking at the hottest time of day on a trail with no covering at all. The baby inside of me plus the baby on my back were just a little too much. Luckily Crystal saved the day and carried Tatum the rest of the way. (Brennan was already carrying Finn, he didn't just leave me hanging. :)) It was so hot my mom almost passed out when we finally made it to the slide. It was kind of freaky. I guess she just told Nathan that the top of her head was just really hot and asked him for a hat. And when he looked at her he could tell she wasn't doing well so he ended up getting his shirt wet and putting that over her head. Crazy lady!

Here is a little video of some of the group taking their turn down the slide.

That night we headed over to Archer's first birthday party. Archer is Callan and Aubrie's (Brennan's brother and sister-in-law) little boy. This was the first time we have met him! The party was so cute and you could tell they did so much work decorating and then it rained so everything had to be moved inside. Sad day. It was so fun to see Archer and Aubrie and the rest of the gang. We got to see Dustin and Kim and there three little kids at the party as well as a few other times, but I somehow ended up with no pictures of it. It was fun to spend some time with them and meet little Jack. Especially because they leave for France in a week and who knows when we will see them next!

Saturday was Mallory's big day, her baptism! It was really great to be able to be there. Somehow we didn't manage to get a picture of us with Mallory but here is one of her with grandma and papa. Such a pretty girl.

Later that day we headed to Bridal Veil Falls and let the kids splash around in the water and throw enough rocks to get in trouble. Why is throwing rock so much fun? I don't know, maybe one day Tatum will be able to explain it to me.

After that we had dinner at a park and then improvised with the equipment we had and played tennis baseball. Despite several mishaps Tatum still managed to have a great time, pant-less again for some reason. She was sitting on third base, in her own little world, when 8-year-old Gavin managed to hit a line drive that hit her right in the chest. It scared her more than anything, but seriously what are the odds?! Then she went wandering off to the playground that was right by the baseball field with a tennis racket in her hand. She had already been down the slides and they were very manageable so I wasn't worried about it. It never occurred to me that she might decide to go down the slide while sitting on the tennis racket. But she did. Which made her go a little faster and wipe out at the bottom. A bloody lip and some scrapes up her back from the wood chips were the result of that brilliant idea. Silly Tatum.

A little action shot of Brennan playing tennis baseball.

My less than stellar attempt at getting a picture of Tatum in the 4th of July dress my mom made for her. It was pretty darn cute!

Eating dinner at the kids table. She thought she was pretty neat.

Another exciting thing that happened while we were out there was that we bought a minivan! We were hoping we might find something since the used car market is better out there and if we didn't we would have had to fly Brennan home for work and Tatum and I would have stayed another week with my parents. But we found something. Nothing fancy but we love it! And although it might not look like it, Tatum loves it too! :) I just took this picture after 16 hours or so in the car. She was a real trooper on the way there and back but she was ready to be done. So was I so I couldn't really blame her.

Whew. It feels good to be one step closer to being caught up. I wish I would have blogged about this trip sooner so I could have done it justice, but it was a good time and we are glad we got to go.