Chuck and I shifted some plans around a bit and thus ended up with a free week - no work, no swimming lessons, no scout campouts. When this happens and you have Lagoon passes and a million awesome cousins in the greater Salt Lake area, you pack up the cars and head to Utah!
Well, only one car was ours - the van. I drove that with Carma and Will because I heart air conditioning. Chuck and his passengers, Clyde and Jack, took one for the team and drove Dan's car down to his sister's house because they heart Dan and don't mind sweaty backs. Or fixing oil leaks apparently ;). Can we all appreciate Chuck's brilliance and willingness to figure out how to do stuff? Because if I'd been driving and all of a sudden the car was just pouring oil out about fifty yards before I was supposed to get on the freeway, I might have cried. Chuck just calmly pulled into the gas station, called me, and went to work fixing it. The kids and I ate McDonalds ice cream cones and watched haha.
Buuuut I digress. Our first leg of the Utah trip was spent in Kays to see Grandma Thomas!! We love meeting up with her every summer when she comes out west to visit all the family here. Carma loved trying to hop a ride with Grandma and alternatively trying to push Grandma's wheelchair as they headed into the museum!
By all reports, these kiddos all had a great time at the interactive children's museum (I stayed home with an under the weather Willy boy). Pretty cute pictures of Grandma and eight of her great-grandkids!
Courtney and I sneaked off for a quick adventure that afternoon. I gave the newly-permit-ed girlie the keys and she did an amazing job getting us out of the neighborhood before we traded spots. Mad props to anyone who learns how to drive on the ruthless streets of Utah. There's no law there, man. Everyone just does their own thing and using a turn signal is a sign of weakness yiiiikes. Good luck Court!
That evening Carma and I crashed the Mutual activity at the church! Well, the end at least. They had a baking/cooking challenge with a secret ingredient and Carma and I got to come and taste test. Courtney and Mallory were super cute to watch in their native habitat around other teenagers haha.
More fun moments: Anna shared her Elsa dress with Carma and the joy was prettttty cute. Ice cream on the front porch was also a hit, as were all the awesome books Grandma had for our kids! And swaddled Emmy is possibly the cutest.
Few pictures of Grandma with our four. Love love love!
The next morning we packed up and headed for Lagoon! After getting a couple shots of these two accidentally matching cousins, of course. Carma is only five months older than James and I foresee them getting into some mischief as some point:
Group selfies as we head into the park! (and me and Chuck later in the day, tired and sweaty).
Carma and Jack and I partied in kiddieland pretty hardcore. The lines were short to nonexistent, so we hopped around and hit up all the rides a couple times.
After Wicked a few weeks prior, I was smart and limited myself to the carousel. Mama didn't raise no fool ;).
At some point we met up with Chuck and the older boys and at some point Melissa and some cousins met us at the park as well! I followed everyone around and gave enthusiastic thumbs up as they went on spinning, crazy rides that looked terrible:
Fun fact: Carma doesn't know how to operate a bumper car hahahaha. I feel like after Courtney and I coached her from the sidelines a bit she managed to turn her wheel and make kind of a forward motion. She loved it either way!
Few more Lagoon memories:
Of course, my favorite part miiiiight have been when Carma and I found some shade and an outlet and rested and had applesauce and charged the phone for a while. Oh also Carma performed some interpretive dance on the stage.
We said goodbye to the Izatt side of the family and peaced out from Lagoon to head south to Quinner's house! Well, first we paused and dealt with the aforementioned oil gushing ;) but we still made it with plenty of daylight hours for the kids to explore and play in the backyard:
How my kids had energy to jump on the trampoline after the day at Lagoon, I'll never know. I barely had the energy to climb up the hill and follow them to take pictures... but I rallied and did so. For the blog.
The next morning we parted ways: Chuck and Clyde headed off for a special 'father-son who's about to enter middle school' adventure: back to Lagoon for the day! They hit up allll the big rides and alllll the waterslides and thought these two measly pictures would appease me ;). I was expecting none, so actually I'm thrilled haha. By the sounds of it they had a super fun time and especially enjoyed the one-on-one time in the car there and back. I love Chuck's commitment to us talking about potentially awkward subjects with our kids early and often and having follow-up discussions and getting to the point where they aren't awkward... well, very awkward ;). And as always, we're grateful that Clyde is such a great guinea pig for our parenting - I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M SENDING A CHILD TO MIDDLE SCHOOL THIS YEAR!
Quinn and I got ambitious and took nine kids to the local splash park! (Splash pad? What are those things called??) Three of Sam's kids, three of mine, and all three of Quinn's.
The main name of the game was counting. Quinn and I were constantly roaming around counting to 9 to make sure we had all the kids. Very stress relieving - not ;). We always started by getting eyes on Sam's kids; we felt most responsible for those girls haha.
Luckily it was a pretty small area but super fun!
The five year olds had a grand time and did sososososo good smiling for me!
The three year olds struggled haha. Love them anyways.
We managed to keep track of all nine kids and get them safely back to Quinn's, where we plopped them all in front of a movie with pizza and treated ourselves to some Words with Friends. Quinn peer pressured me into downloading this game and I started out TERRIBLE and have improved marginally.
We hung out in the backyard as well, eventually joined by the rest of the fam: Eden (did I mention she worked the night before? and still welcomed our crazy family into her home?), Chuck and Clyde, and Sam, Terri, Remi and baby Sammy!
Oh yeah, at one point I was lying in the grass and at one point we got SIX kids piled up on my back: Miko, Isaac, Jack, Hazel, Bailey, Will. I feel like I'm okay if this ends up being my legacy.
You can't have all 12 Braden-side grandkids in one spot and not attempt a group picture - also these rocks are perfect for group pictures.
Aren't they all just so cute?
Yes. Yes they are. In age order, youngest to oldest: Sammy: 3 weeks, Jett: 7 months, Remi: 19 months, Carma: 3, Leila: 3, Miko: 3, Isaac: 5, Jack: 5, Hazel: 5, Bailey: 7, Will: 9, and Clyde: 10.
Okay, I took a chance and had the five year olds stick around for a picture and they did soooo great! Once Isaac and Jack got their crazy faces out of their systems haha:
More random pictures around Quinn's house. Eden did Carma's hair in this amazing like crown braid hairstyle and Carma was obsessssssed with how she looked like a princess. So cute.
And as always Chuck and I took any and every opportunity to steal Jett and indoctrinate him to loving us:
Our final outing was to a park by Quinn's house the next afternoon before we headed for home. This made me laugh sososososo much - Carma not being thrilled at sharing a swing with Leila. Such poetic justice after last summer's pictures of Leila not being thrilled at sharing a swing with Carma!
Ahhhh I love watching my brothers be dads.
And then it was time to drive home - all together in the van this time. We dropped off Dan's red car at his sister's house and the information we gained there about his family-only nickname was WELL worth any effort on our part to get the car to Lehi ;). We hit up Wendy's for the Frostys and took our usual break in Burley (where my kids fruitlessly ogled the chip aisle) and made it home safe and sound. We love being able to see our Utah family so often during the summer!!
