Off to another vacation...

After two days at home to rest and do laundry, we were off on our 2nd Sabbatical Trip.  This time we were headed to Wellsville, Utah to visit my family.  We left on July 21st (in the afternoon) and stayed the night in Boise.  The next morning in Boise was a leisurely one with swimming and reading and then a stop at Cabella's before hitting the road one more time to Wellsville.  We got to my parent's house at around 6:30--just in time for dinner!

 The kids eating blue cupcakes that Aunt Solviej made. 

 My niece Rachel plays volleyball in school and so her mom got her a volleyball net to play while she was here in Utah.  They had a friendly game going that night and Maggie joined in.  

 Maggie, Emily, Tad and Hayden

July 23rd

My sister Megan and her 3 kids flew in this morning to stay for a week.  My other sister Tiffany had already been here for a week or so already.  My brother Tad and his family had moved here about a month ago because he started a new job in Salt Lake and are living with my parents until they find a house.  And my sister Charee has been living with my parents for a couple of years while she goes to school.  She has less than a year to go!  So all 5 of us were there together for a couple of days.  

 kids playing in the dorm room

Every time that we are all together, my mom invites over cousins that live in Utah for a Cousins's Party and has dinner for everyone.  After Megan arrived, we went out to lunch at Cafe Rio, and then pretty much helped my mom in the kitchen for the rest of the day until the party started.  

Sydnee, Marshall, Jaycie, Emily and Remi

Tysha, Garrett, Bella, Megan, Me and Noah

Colin, Micah, Cora, Mailei and Paige

Rachel, Lydia, Karlie, Grant, John, Maggie, Hayden and Emily

Heidi, Maclyn, Katie, Bucky, Lincoln, Quade, Kort, and Myka.

Me, mom and Tysha

They always have the most beautiful clouds and skies over their house!!

We pretty much talked until it got dark and then everyone went home and we went to bed.

July 24th

My sisters Charee and Tiff, and my brother Tad, with most of their kids went on an all day 4 Wheel (Rhino/Razor--whatever you call them) trip up into Logan Canyon.  They left really early in the morning and then got back around 2 or 3 in the afternoon.  This is a picture of them at the beginning of their ride.  When they got home, they were covered in head to toe dust.  It was quite funny.  They had a great time, though. 

Cute picture of my mom sitting in her rocker out on her front porch.

My family and Megan and her kids all went to the Pioneer Days parade in Wellsville at Willow Park.  It wasn't the best parade ever, but it was fun still.  Luckily we found a spot in the shade because it was hot!

Megan, Noah and me

Colin, and Paige with the other kids behind them

Cora, Emmett and Megan

Maggie and Lydia

Noah and Colin in their Mickey Mouse hats

Colin, Cora, Emmett and Paige behind them

After we got back home and had lunch, the other guys were back with my dad's Razor, so they all went for rides.  Paige and Grandpa

Maggie driving Garrett around

Garrett driving Bella

Garrett driving Colin

Garrett and Colin

At about 5:30, Megan and two of her kids, plus my whole family drove down to Ogden to go to the Pioneer Days Rodeo.  We've gone quite a few times, but Megan has never been.  Everyone else was too tired to go.  

They always start the rodeo by having these guys jump out of planes and they have flags strapped on to their feet.  The last one is always the American flag.  We all think it is so awesome!!  

These pictures are a little out of order, but it's all good.

All of us at the rodeo

I think this is so cute of Noah watching something at the other end of the arena.

Lydia took most of these at the rodeo.  I love this one of the sun behind the trees. 

I thought this one was pretty cool, too.

After the bull riding, they have these motorcycle guys do some stunts.  They did some backflips in the air, which was pretty awesome.  Then they ended the night with fireworks.  It's always a late night--we usually get home around 11:30, but we all really enjoy it!

July 25th

Today was a pretty leisurely day.  Giving baths, going to the store, reading, wrestling...

 All the kids love Hayden.  He's a junior this year--is that 17?  Anyways, he is one good kid and loves to play with and wrestle all the kids.  Here he's wrestling with Noah...

 Then the other boys joined in.  Colin and Emmett helping to hold him down.  

He is such a good sport.  I'm not sure what Noah is doing to Hayden's face...

 This is how the girls play.  They are so cute together!  Maielei, Cora and Bella

 Paige joined in, too.  

All of us, minus mom and dad went to lunch at a place called Rumbi--really yummy hawaiian food. 

 Tiffany and her boys were leaving today, so we got a sibling picture.  

 And a grandkid picture.  Emmett and Karlie are the only ones missing, I think.  

After they left, Megan, Solviej and I sat on the porch visiting.  Garrett took Maggie to Smith and Edwards (a store in Ogden) and Maggie got herself some cowgirl boots and a cowgirl hat.  

 She's such a cutie!

 After dinner, the kids usually go outside and play.  They came in soon after for a creamie because it was so hot out there.  I love Emmett's sweaty, dirty face.  He was playing hard!

They went back outside to play and pretty soon after, Noah came in crying.  I guess he got stung by a bee twice--once on his back and once on his forehead.  We put some lavendar on it and gave him some medicine and he was fine. 

We got the kids in bed and then made lunches because the next day we were heading to Bear Lake for the day!

Pioneer Day

Garrett came back to Utah a few days before we were supposed to head back to Oregon so that we could experience Pioneer Day 'Utah style'. We wanted to go to Salt Lake, but decided to stay in Logan since we didn't have a lot of time. So we went to a local park (Willow park, I think) where they had stuff going on and walked around looking at the booths while we waited for the parade to start. There wasn't a lot of stuff to do...Lydia went down one of those jump house slide things...
We met up with my cousin Tysha and her kids Sydnee, Cody and Joey to watch the parade.

Maggie, Garrett, Paige, Joey, Lydia and Tysha

Sydnee, Maggie, Joey Paige and Garrett (looking really excited to be there)

Bella keeping herself busy

One of the floats

It wasn't the best parade I've seen...but they were pretty generous with the candy--the kids were happy. We left the park and got some lunch and then went to this place called the American West Heritage Center right there in Wellsville maybe 5 minutes from my parent's house. I think this was the funnest part of the day. Plus, everyone got in free since it was pioneer day--score! This is from their website:

"We are a nonprofit organization devoted to celebrating and preserving the heritage of our area, which is Cache Valley, Utah, and its surrounding regions. We do this primarily through living history activities, events, school programs, exhibits, and outreach activities."

If you come in the summer, you'll be able to come to our Daily Adventures (June - August; Tues - Sat), where living history demonstrations, hands-on old-fashioned fun is to be had at four sites representing four different time periods, including:
A Shoshone Encampment
A Mountain Man Camp
A Pioneer Family Settlement
A 1917 Farm

These were taken at the Shoshone Encampment

Then we went to the mountain man camp that was really interesting--the guy there (dressed as a mountain man) told stories of Jim Bridger and Lewis and Clark and other mountain men. After that we went to the Pioneer Family settlement...

Going into one of the pioneer homes

Inside the mud hut...


Then we went to the 1917 farm while Garrett listened to a 15 minute talk and demonstration for a gatling gun. We also went on a covered wagon ride while we waited for Garrett. Lydia got to sit in front...

Part of the pioneer settlement
Lydia and Paige riding ponies

We had to leave this place at 5 and head home because we were going to the Ogden Rodeo with my parents and cousin Tysha and her family.

It was so hot even when we got there and continued to stay hot all night. I thought Utah cooled down at night?! Anyways, the rodeo was awesome--I love all things "cowboy". The beginning was my favorite part...they had 8 or 9 guys skydive out of a plane and land in the arena one at a time. It was so cool to watch them come in and land. The last one was carrying an American flag...so cool to watch it waving in the sky and then to sing the National Anthem and honor the soldiers who were out on the field--I love America!!!

I think the girls really liked the rodeo, too. They all love horses, so they were in heaven getting to see all the pretty ponies. The girl's favorite part was the crowning of the new rodeo queen. They actually put a tiara on top of the queen's cowgirl hat. Paige really liked that. They loved that each girl had a different color outfit--Paige especially. We all really like the bull riding, but of course they keep that until the end.

I like that that they play fun country music throughout the rodeo (I'm the only one in my family that likes country.) At the end, they had these freestyle motorcross riders do some awesome jumps and tricks. I have never really seen anything like this, so I thought it was pretty cool.
This is such crazy stuff!!

They also had some great fireworks for Pioneer day. Paige and Bella were exhausted...they crashed before it ended.

Dad, Bella and Mom

Poor Paige crashed in my arms

Joey, Eric (Tysha's husband--hard to see him), Cody, Tysha, Dad, Bella, Mom, Sydnee (can't see her head) and Maggie. So, I have to say that Utah showed us a pretty good Pioneer Day!