After all the wedding festivities were over, and my mom left town, we headed up to Ogden to play with cousins for a few days. It was definitely the highlight of Dane's trip--Zach is his BEST little buddy and he loves him so much. The one sad thing was that Dane had hand foot and mouth and passed it on to Zach by the end of the week--I felt SO SO bad. Dane's case was pretty mild and Zach got it worse. But they had so much fun together it almost made it worth it (on my side, anyway, since my kid wasn't the one getting infected).
Graham LOVES Jet.
He is so funny--he doesn't have any fear of dogs or of most things. I love this picture--Greg showed them how to get Jet to take things right out of their mouths (which I think is gross, full disclosure, but they were so happy I couldn't stop them :). Dane is standing up, trying to do it, but keeping his mouth a good distance away from Jet's so he won't actually get too close. Graham is right next to him and TOTALLY LOVING IT when Jet gets right up in his face. He was laughing so hard and doing it again and again. Dane would NEVER have done that (and still won't). We think Graham is a little toughie--probably because he has to be with his big brother around all the time.
We spent two nice days at parks around Ogden and Layton. We wanted to go to the kids' museum there, but it was closed for three weeks for cleaning! Such a bummer when we found that out. But it worked out, because they were just so happy to play, especially on the sand at this park near Melissa's house. They spent maybe 2 hours just digging around in the sand together.
We went over to their house to roast s'mores one night. So fun.
Dane and Zach got really into the trains while we were there.
They were so funny pushing each other around in this baby stroller for a long time.
After a few days, I headed back down to Orem to spend a little more time with my grandparents and siblings. On the way, I stopped in Centerville to see my good friend Libby who moved back to Utah from North Carolina. So fun to catch up with her! They seem so happy and it's so great.
It was so fun seeing these kids playing together. They knew each other as babies but are just so much bigger now. We played in their awesome backyard for a while and then went for a short walk (before the kids went nutty).
Then we went down to my Grandma Myres' house and let Graham nap there, and played in their yard for a while. We got to help pick some more fruit off their trees. Since we don't have any fruit trees or garden here in Texas, I loved showing my kids these things.
We had a cousin dinner at Jake and Kayleen's house! They were so cute and fun to host us all. I loved seeing some of my best cousins Jake and Jolysa. The three of us are all the same age and I love them both.
Dane and Grandpa Murphy had a lot of serious talks.
We got to go see Dallin and Krystel's new place. They're in the top story of this little house. It's tiny, but very cute. I hope they love living here.
Graham and Austin looking for motorcycles together.
We went and got pupusas/Mexican food for dinner. We had to document it because Dad would be so proud!
The next day I went to my cousin Annalise's sealing in the Provo City Center Temple. It was super nice and I'm so happy that I was able to be there. Of course I didn't get any pictures though. Then after packing up our stuff, I went to lunch with a bunch of my old roommates. SO MUCH FUN. This lunch made the extra week of the trip worth it!
I lived with these girls for two years and seeing them is always the best. BYU always bringing good people together.
Our flight home was at 6:00am on Sunday morning. Yes, the FLIGHT was at 6:00am. So I woke up at 3:45, got the boys up at 4:20, and headed to the airport with my very nice in-laws. It was one of the most stressful flights I've had. Besides the fact that it was a crazy hour of the day, these other things went wrong:
-No curbside check-in
-Long wait line at the American desk where I had to check in my bags/carseats, since there wasn't a curbside check-in
-At the American desk, they told me I had to check my stroller right there and wouldn't let me take it to the gate (apparently because it's over 20 pounds), so I had to carry Graham through the whole airport and security
-Dane fell over on the escalator and I was going up and couldn't get back to him
-The Kindle DIDN'T WORK so we had no entertainment for the flight
-Graham pooped and it leaked all over my pants AND shirt when I stood up to change him
-Graham smacked my cup (completely intentional) and threw soda all over the aisle
But the amazing thing was that we were sitting next to the nicest lady EVER, who spent 20 minutes showing Dane pictures of sea creatures on her phone, who played pictionary with him while I changed Graham in the bathroom, and even held Graham when he wanted to look out the window. She was also LDS and also heading home to try and make it to her afternoon church, just like I was. I was so grateful. And even more grateful to be reunited with Tommy by baggage claim.
Every single summer, I say, "That's it. Next summer we are NOT going to be doing this any more. We are not going to be traveling like this. It's getting OUT OF CONTROL." And maybe someday I will actually stick to that. Because every summer it seems like things just get more and more demanding and we always have so many reasons to travel and visit family! We don't want to skip family reunions--those are so important to me and for my kids. We don't want to miss important gatherings like weddings. But someday we are going to have to choose, because three major trips in four months was exhausting! And next year, with another baby, it will be even worse. I am not kidding when I say that at this point, I feel like never traveling again. Of course, by "never again," I really just mean for a few months until we can build up our stamina again. But I think we are going to make this our first year of not traveling at Christmastime, and then with the baby coming in March we probably won't be going anywhere until next summer. And I am truly relieved by that thought while we are still in recovery mode and trying to get back to normal.
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