Okay, so it's been quite a while since I've ventured out on a road trip with allll of my children without Chuck. Like, since the semi-disastrous one when I was pregnant with Jack while Chuck was on a crazy hike and Will refused to sleep at night and I slept in the station wagon for two nights hahahaha. SO, what convinced me to break my six-years-in-the-making vow never to do such a thing? Getting to see the Swensons of course! Shelly and the boys were there for Thanksgiving and my kids had the whole week off school and Chuck said GO! and that sealed the deal!
Clyde was psyched to co-pilot the adventure. He was adept at passing back snacks and gathering the trash as it was passed back forward:
We drove down Sunday evening and were thrilled to break up the trip by staying overnight with the always hospitable Blues! Alas, they had work and school on Monday morning so we split - after talking a picture of Lily and Will in their matching shirts from Grandma :).
The kiddos and I headed south, peppering the drive with plenty of stops - Target for Nutella uncrustables and various D.I. locations ;).
Once in Lehi, our first stop was Thanksgiving Point. We were all thriiiilled to be out of the car and able to run around and play for a few hours!!
We spent some time in the Museum of Natural Curiosity and had a great time, as always.
Carma always loves the little market area, cute girlie.
Then we headed over for our maiden voyage into the Museum of Natural History... is that what it's called? Or is that the place in New York City? Either way, it's basically the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point and a total favorite of Quinner's family and we loved meeting them there to check it out:
Carma and Leila might be twins from the back...
They also might be tricky to keep up with haha! They were here and there and everywhere... although Leila did not last long at the shark exhibit ;).
Everyone loved the sand castle area, although the highlight for Carma was the automatic dryers. Girlfriend had a suuuuper fun routine of washing hands, drying hands, plunging hands into the sand, repeat. For like ten minutes.
We did a bit of fossil excavating on our way out, no big deal:
And then it was time to head to our home away from home for the rest of our trip: Quinn and Eden's house! Ohhhh man we love them.
The next morning we sent Quinn and Isaac off to school and then headed back over to Thanksgiving Point to meet the Swensons (a million thanks and points in heaven to Eden for accompanying us there!!) and this cute handholding reunion between Jack and Jaxen made the entire thing worth it:
And what followed was such a fun few hours of playing and laughing and running around and general craziness while Shelly and I tried to steal as much time as possible to talk off to the side in between counting kids ;).
It was so fun watching the kids interact and group off in various arrangements as we wandered around the various realms within Natural Curiosity (note: realms is not the actual term, but it's the best term).
Is there anything funnier than watching kids inside the wind tunnel thingamajig? I submit not...
I'm not saying that Swensons always outperform Izatts in athletic pursuits... but it seems to be a recurring thing haha.
7/9 kids acquiesced to be photographed and Shelly and I immediately called it a win and then sent them all to get buckled in their respective Uplanders....
while we risked taking a couple extra minutes to hug and cry and take a picture and re-proclaim our undying love for each other! Shelly has provided a ridiculous amount of service and love and friendship to our family over the 9+ years we've known each other and I aspire to hit her level of Christlike love and strength someday.
We spend the rest of our time in Utah soaking up alll the cousin time we could and pondering how bummed out Chuck would be if we extended our trip and ditched him for Thanksgiving haha. Jack continued to be baby Jett's number one fan and was thrilled when Jett appeared to return his affection.
Eden and Quinn nonchalantly flexed their killer arm muscles by giving Clyde one million starts on the tire swing (kid's eleven now, that's no joke!).
Cutest little adrenaline junkie!!
Sam and his gang came over for the evening. Quinn and Sam were less than willing participants in some quick family photos....
so I rounded up some wee cousins instead! I let the youngest three off the hook, but here are the three/four year olds. I love how Carma's looking back and forth at her girlie cousins like she can't believe how she lucked out!
Here we have the (for the moment!) five year olds and their variety of funny faces and poses haha:
aaaaand the big kids -- aka the three brave souls who kicked off the posse of Braden grandkids ;).
All too soon it was Wednesday and time to head back to real life (boo) and Chuck (yayyyy!). We said goodbye to baby Jett who is less and less baby and more and more real boy every time we see him:
Carma and Isaac fit in a little bit more coloring time and the cutest hug before we piled into the van for our drive.
I'm so so glad that this trip went as well as it did. Clyde and Will and Jack and Carma are four of my favorite people ever and traveling with them gets easier as they get older and so I feel like prayers are definitely answered ;). ALSO: Quinn and Eden are basically magical people to stay with. So gracious and generous and welcoming and we have mostly resolved not to abuse their hospitality... although hosting us twice in a month may have pushed our luck a bit haha.
The drive home was apparently uneventful, as this shot at the Burley D.I. is the only picture I have from it haha. Also, currently experiencing serious non-buyers' remorse that we left those amazing sunglasses on the shelf....
No comments:
Post a Comment