Mother/daughter road trip!

Last weekend my mom and I had the chance to take a quick trip to Utah to meet sweet baby Bailey. It all came together pretty last minute, which worked out well since it gave me less time to focus on the fact that I was LEAVING MY CHILDREN for 72 hours.

So it's a little blurry, but here we are getting ready to leave Boise Thursday afternoon. And yes, I'm wearing a Star Wars shirt; our family (read: Clyde and Chuck, and by association, Jana and Will) is hardcore into the epic trilogies right now. Definitely more to come in a future post.

Last minute good-bye to Cody.

We drove my mom's car down and since her tank was 3/4 full I opted not to top off in Boise, but see how far we could make it instead. And then I kind of stopped paying attention - whoops! We were rapidly approaching 'empty' and not as rapidly approaching Snowville - we were still about forty miles out. My risk-taking (and often stranded) mom was sure we'd make it - "My car ALWAYS gets 30 miles after the fuel light comes on, and it's not even on yet!" but I erred on side of caution and stopped at a podunk gas station in the middle of nowhere. There wasn't even a town associated with the gas station - just a lonely Sinclair, charging $3.70 (!!) a gallon to silly, silly people who don't fill up their tank before they leave town.

So we bought one gallon of gas :).

Well, almost a gallon. It was pre-pay inside, so I went in (carefully avoiding the LIVE BABY RATTLESNAKES that were fairly unsecurely caged in the gas station's lobby area) and handed over my debit card as I told the nice lady I'd like $3.70 on pump #3. The clerk took my card, turned to run it, and then slowly turned back to me: "Oh, sometimes I forget to tell people first, but I have a $5 minimum to run a card." Hardcore, right? Luckily I had cash :).

We arrived safely that evening at the Smith residence for an overnight stay there. Gloria and Reed offered dinner AND lively conversation - Reed regaled us with recent stories of employee incompetence at the pizza restaurants and we pretty much laughed until we cried. Then Heidi came home from work and I kept her up way too late on a school night so we could facebook stalk people and giggle!

The next morning my mom and I made our way to Orem. We had planned to stop at the Salt Lake Temple on the way, but I definitely drove right past it, despite (alleged) large signs telling me where to exit. Luckily, we were in Utah, where beautiful temples abound so we made our way to the Mt. Timpanogos temple instead for a session.


And then it was time to see Bailey, yay!

Grandma Pam meeting her first granddaughter!

Chuck and I have several nieces and a nephew on his side of the family, and now we have a beautiful niece on my side!

She even obliged us by waking up for a bit - isn't she a doll??

That night my mom and I went our separate ways and both stayed with good friends.

I crashed at Ben and Courtney's apartment and we fit in a quick photo op the next morning before Courtney left for work. Isn't she so cute in her scrubs? Cute enough to cancel out my grubby "I'm still kind of asleep" look, eh?

My mom and her good friend/college roommate Sandra.

Then it was back to Sam and Terri's house for more baby-holding! Although we did manage to do a little bit of shopping (I find it hard to resist a new Saver's and D.I.) here and there.


It was so neat to see my brother interact with his daughter. Bailey is definitely very loved :).

I loved her little wrapped up hands!

Terri's sister Dana was able to visit the same weekend, and it was really fun to see her again. Plus I found out she loves the TV show Bones, which I have recently become EXTREMELY obsessed with. Not even joking, it's semi-unhealthy. Anyways, it made me love Dana even more than I already did :).

Saturday evening we left Orem and headed back for Smiths' (my mom had to be back in Boise in the early afternoon on Sunday so we figured we'd shorten the return trip a bit). It seemed appropriate that since I was kid-free, I continue in my regression and pretend to be 17 again, and Desirie and Heidi were happy to help me!

First we made a somewhat obligatory stop at a party, where Dez definitely told people I was 14. And then 30. (Eh, split the difference and you're pretty close to the truth - 25).

Then we jumped on A.J.'s trampoline for a while. I was pretty stoked to show off my awesome toe touches, until Dez and Heidi shot me down by doing like sixty in a row. Turns out I have a lot to learn about being 17; they have some pretty sweet moves.

We tried to do some more 'circle head' pictures, but Courtney's absence was seriously felt and our photogenic-ness suffered as a result.

But definitely an A for effort, right? Pretty much the whole time we laughed and laughed and then it got too cold so we went inside and laughed some more and A.J. and I compared cool Star Wars shirts and Dez said my super awesome line of 'get to know you' questions reminded her of some teacher (a cool teacher, Heidi promised me) and I played with Heidi's hair. We headed home at midnight (yep, definitely 17!) and I made Heidi stay up even later so we could talk some more!

Oh, how I love Heidi!!

And that was our fun road trip to Utah! We made it safely home Sunday afternoon and it was LOVELY to see all of my boys again. Chuck did an excellent job while I was gone - the little boys were appropriately fed/dressed/bathed/changed/entertained AND loved the whole time (and they were apparently pretty much on time to church, show off!). I really appreciated how supportive Chuck was of my 'weekend away' - and I'm glad he now understands how it IS possible to spend a whole day doing nothing but changing diapers and making PB&J's :).