Utah!

With summer comes a trip to Utah. Not that we wait until summer to go to Utah. We just feel no guilt because we don't have to pull our kids out of school to go. Now, we all know that my mom is nuts in every sense of the word. My grandma Jepson, my mom's mom, is 100 this year. When I tell people that they usually say something like,"wow! That's cool." They are in fact, correct. However, grandma died. In 2004. She would have been 100 in October. Two questions, why did we have a birthday party for her and why did we do it in June? Two very good questions. I am convinced that grandma does not care at all about her mortal birthday. I think she's busy. People would say my mom was just using it as an excuse to have people get together. I don't think so. I think my mom just wanted to celebrate her mom. With good reason, grandma was awesome! She was pretty short, probably like 5'0 and when she would sit on a chair, when she would laugh really hard, her feet would pop out in front of her. She loved to read and as a little kid when we would go stay at her house, she would read us the book, Twig. It's a really cute story about a little girl named, Twig. Twig turns into a fairy and lives in the back yard of her apartment building. I love the book and I love that grandma read it to us every time we were there. Grandma made amazing homemade white bread. She NEVER made wheat bread. I truly think she probably thought wheat bread was against the word of wisdom. She used Downy fabric softener and Bounce dryer sheets and her house always smelled so good. She always had ice cream in her freezer and would make us chocolate cookies. Fact, they're brownies. If you made the mistake of calling them brownies she would get feisty and tell you that they aren't brownies, they are chocolate cookies. She always had those oatmeal cookies with white frosting from the store. They would sit in her cookie jar for so long they would be crunchy. I went my whole life thinking those cookies were made crunchy. After she died I tried one right out of the package and two things happened. First I was able to bite into it instead of using my back teeth to break a piece off. Then I spit the nasty soft cookie out of my mouth. I was truly disgusted that it was soft. I haven't eaten one since because they aren't crunchy like grandma's. She had a pet bird named, Chirp. She would bring Chirp to our house when she came to visit. He was green and yellow and so cute. I loved listening to Chirp as he sat on the nightstand where we kept our shoes. Grandma always kissed on the lips and when I was a teenager  I would try to turn my head so she would kiss my cheek but she wouldn't have it. She loved cheese and candy. She was stubborn and very set in her ways and I miss her a lot. Annnnyway, we made the 12 hour drive down and A did so amazing until the last 45 minutes. Then she was done and just wanted to be out of the car. We stayed in Heber for the night because that's where grandma was born. There was a campfire where people shared memories of grandma. I heard it was great but I was trying to get a little baby to calm down. She finally gave into sleep and that made the entire family happy. We were staying in cabin's at a girls camp that the church owns. It was a pretty sweet set up. All the cousins wanted to be in one cabin. We thought that was genius because they could stay up doing whatever shenanigans children do at all hours of the night and the adults could go to sleep at a decent hour. That way we would have the stamina to deal with the cranky kids that were up being wild and crazy people until all hours of the night. Our plan went off without a hitch and the next day we played blindfolded tag.

  It was so funny! Everyone playing had to be blindfolded and they stood inside a circle. Each player had a guide that told them where to move. The person that was it had a bopper and their guide tried to guide them into people. It was so funny! Some people would guide their players right into the bopper. Truly, it was pee your pants funny!

There was a very small zip line that they got to try. Well, the actual zip part was short, but they had to climb up a 30 foot pole to get there. The littles were pretty nervous about it. I was so proud of them for shimmying up to the top.

That afternoon, T was awesome and taught K had to long board. He told him that he would be a pro by the end of the week. K feels like he is in fact a pro and wants a long board of his own, even though the picture above was the last time that he's used a long board. 

Playing a family softball game was a must on my list. I loved playing it but it did make me miss my dad a whole lot. He loved playing softball with us and could be heard in the outfield chanting,"swing batter, batter, batter, batter, swing!" I missed seeing him sit on a chair next to my mom. Nonetheless, the game was awesome!

Little B didn't like understand the concept of taking a turn in the outfield. He batted after almost every other batter. He loves it because he can usually hit the ball. He's so dang cute standing up there in his little hitting stance that no one insisted on him waiting his turn in the line up. 

I think M lasted one time before she was off playing with the other cousins that didn't want to play.

Little B up to bat.

K running home. He almost passed his little cousin, C, who was running the bases in front of him.

I know this looks like the same picture as the other one. It's not. Little B just batted so often that the other people in the pictures don't move much.

This is the only time little B was out there. He stood there for a few minutes and then he ran back in so that he could hit. Again.

We borrowed B's mom's boat and went boating one day. Oh the fun that was had! There was tubing and skiing and wake boarding. 

I did go tubing with four of my sisters and a niece. I didn't want to get wet because Deer Creek is         fa-reezing and there was a breeze which made a wet body feel even colder. I agreed to go tubing in the hopes that I wouldn't get too wet. I had no intention of falling off. I was so confident that I didn't even take my $2.50 specials off my face. Welp, I didn't fall off but I got a lot more wet than I wanted to. The stupid rope kept splashing me in the face. G was on the tube with me and she kept laughing at me. I should have pushed her in. Rats! I wish I would have thought of that then. Next time G, next time.

Little B wanted to kayak and G's husband, J was so nice and jimmy rigged a tow so that he could pull little B around. What a guy huh? So nice and kind and helpful. Unlike his wife who laughs at people in their time of need.😉 We loved our time in Utah. B was able to go to a couple movies and I was able to have some much needed sister time. Our kids got to play with cousins and friends and when it was time to go home, we cried. We love our family and it's always hard to say goodbye.