end of December Utah trip

Once upon a time we headed down to Utah a couple days after Christmas to meet up with Chuck's family and it was all worth it just to get this picture of Terri and Dave with their 12 grandkids (one more coming later this year! Not from us!):

Mallory: "Are we sure this is a great idea?"  

Courtney: "Yeah, I'm not positive we thought this through all the way." 

 George: "Just keep smiling. I ain't gonna be the one to ruin the shot."  

Eli: "I really want to snuggle with Grandma, but man that baby on her lap is loud..." 

Carma: "I don't like coldness, I see my mom but I'm not touching her, I just spent five hours in a car, what the H is going on here??"  

James: "I'm okay with being outside because I'm rugged, but Carma brings up a good point about being able to see my mom but not touch her..." 

Clyde: "But seriously, we're going through with this? Maybe it's all looking good from a distance but from my vantage point things are pretty rough." 

Anna: "Will someone make that girl BE QUIET? I only have the two eardrums, you know. Where's my agent??" 

Jack: "I could do this all day. I've conditioned myself not to show emotion. Am I freezing? Yes. Are there two kids screaming bloody murder behind me? Yes. Will I deviate from this well-rehearsed smile? Not a chance." 

Lily: "I'm trying so hard to be good and smile so nicely but I am legitimately worried about frostbite inside my cute shoes." 

Will: "This is the funniest thing ever! There's not a chance this picture will turn out and it's not even my doing! My hands are nicely folded! My eyes are open AND I'm looking at the camera! I'm smiling (okay, laughing)! I'm the MVP of this circus!" 

Bri: "I mean, my dimple and I could be out here looking darling all day, but it kinda seems like maybe we should wrap this up..."

In Carma's defense, we had just driven for like five hours, gotten out of the van long enough to get our navy blue/grey/purple/turquoise/denim ensembles on, and then hiked down a snowy hill for pictures haha. But the drive itself was pretty fun:

Oh yeah, minus the part where I had to climb into the very back (I'm sure it was highly attractive, you're welcome to fellow travelers along I-84) to run interference between Clyde ("No crossing this line! Mom, he's close to the line! Mom, he's looking at the line!") and Will (maniacal laughter), GRRRR.

Of course the '08 bunch was thrilled to be reunited and even more thrilled to bust out their 'silly faces':

 Some behind the scenes shots. Nickie was a doll and ice skated down the hill to be the actual photographer (Aunt Sue wisely stayed up in her car. We were all jealous.)

I don't have the official, high quality shots or the big group picture, but here are each of the four Izatt siblings with their families:

 Super cute, eh? 

Then it was time to thaw out back at Amanda's with delicious dinner and more extended family and a fun trivia game night, ending with a family gift exchange.

Obviously a pretty good amount of selfies were taken. The middle shot was to commemorate our D.I. run - to the good D.I., aka Centerville. And it delivered - I found like six books and Steve found an awesome picture for their living room and we ran into cousin Mike from dinner the night before so that was fun!

That afternoon we split up a bit; Courtney and Carma and I headed to Cafe Rio to meet Courtney for lunch and most e'erybody else went to the movies!

   They saw Minions and apparently giggled through the entire thing :).

At that point Lee and Aleesha and their kiddos headed home and the rest of us headed out to do some sledding. These are the people that enjoyed the outing:

 and these are the people that did not ;). Clyde and Will did have a blast, even with Will bonking his face on his first run, whoops! Thanks to Aunt Amanda for taking care of him and amping him up to go again :). Poor Carma had fallen asleep on the drive and wasn't thrilled to be woken up, and Jack in general isn't into snow and I just had a bad attitude in general haha. Jack and I made one run down which sufficed and then we headed back to the car and possible warmth.

Oh, Carma had also suffered a slight eye injury earlier in the day, whoops! The exact sequence of events is fuzzy but it involved a helpful older brother, stairs, tripping, and honestly we're not sure what actually made contact with her eye. But it honestly healed much more quickly than I expected, so that was happy. Also happy: spending time with cousins!!

These guys were so cute writing names on the etch-a-sketch. Love them! 

It's always a sign of a good visit when everyone crashes within minutes of leaving haha:

Thanks for hosting us, Amanda and Steve! We loved spending time with everyone.