Our trip to UTAH!

Well Craig and I left on Thursday night to head to Utah. We got about an hour outside of where we live and realized I had left my cell phone in the Accord where we took it to get parked to sell. Whoops! So we went back because I needed to have it so that this girl could get a hold of me to buy our PS2 from us there in SL. So we got back on the road and enjoyed the drive. We saw about 150 jack rabbits on the side of the road here in New Mexico. We hit a WICKED rainstorm that we both thought was totally awesome. However it did slow us down a bit. It lasted a little while and then we were smooth sailing. So we went from Gallup in NM over to Arizona to go straight up to Utah when after about an hour of crusing along, we saw a sign that said "Welcome to New Mexico!" WHAT???? We were supposed to be in Arizona and entering Utah. Well it turns out that Craig had turned left where it said to get on the 191 but then just kept going and didn't take the next turn where the next sign was. So we drove a good 45 minutes out of the way back over into New Mexico. So we had to back track. So lame but it was funny and we just laughed! Anyways...the drive wasn't as bad as one might expect. Craig and I thought it flew by. We left at about 6pm and then went back for my phone and then headed out again around 7:00 ish. Craig was Mr energy drink and went the whole night without so much as a wink of sleep. He said he was fine the whole time. He drove clear through the night and into the morning. We got there around 11:00am. Crazy boy~!! We slept all day while Jamie tended Linkin boy. When we woke up, my parents took us to Sizzler where we met Jake, Samantha and Nikson for dinner. I love Sizzler. I don't know what it is but it's sooo good so that was Craig and I's number one choice for dinner since we don't have one here. ha ha! All you can eat shrimp. mmmmmm! Friday night we went to Craig's parents for dinner and to hang out and play games. It was a lot of fun. They got us Cafe Rio take out (our request) which was SOOOO good and much needed for my belly! It's all about the food people! I was very happy and thankful that they got it for us! mmmmm! So Saturday, we spent the day cooking and getting ready for Linkin's big birthday party. Decorating and what not. It started at 5:00 and it ended up being a total blast! We had the party in my folks beautiful backyard. I'm sorry to say but if you look at the pictures of the slideshow, you will see that it's beautiful~!! :) Which by the way, everything I mention here will have a picture in the birthday slideshow. There was so many pictures that I just put them in a slideshow instead of posting them all. The theme for the party was monkeys. I put together a little grab sack for the kiddies. Yellow bags with monkey faces. I made monkey faces on brown cups. I made Linkin his own Monkey cake. We made a normal cake for the adults to eat. Krista was there and helped come up with the banana idea on the top. I had banana milk, banana candies of all kinds decorating the table, Banana twinkies, I made cupcakes and Craig decorated them to look like Monkey faces. Craig and I made a homemade bean bag toss with monkeys on it. You throw the bean bags into the monkey's mouths. My sweet mother made the bean bags for it with this darling monkey fabric. We had pin the monkey on the palm tree for the kids to play. I had a craft table where the kids made a monkey with paper plates and foam. We also had a Monkey pinata! We had palm trees for decoration. In the grab sack for the kids I had a little keychain of a barrel with monkeys inside it, they had monkey tattoos, an activity pad, a palm tree pen, a monkey bracelet, and some banana candies. It was fun! We had a good group there. All of our families almost plus a few wonderful friends (Josilyn and Tyson, and Jos's Mom - YOU GUYS ROCK!!) Linkin got some great gifts. He got some much needed clothes and some really fun toys. He loves his walker from Grandma and Grandpa (Thomas). He just cruises around walking with it and has a huge smile on his face. I'll have to post pics of that later. He has mastered the piggy bank toy Tyson got him where you put the large plastic "coins" in the slot. I think it would be hard for a baby to do, but he does it well. Then he claps for himself. It's cute! He loves all the other toys too. He honestly plays with everything. It just depends on the moment. He's pretty ADD so he goes from toy to toy real quick and even with all my child care toys, he manages to give them all a try each day. He's funny! Loves to make messes!

Sunday- I requested that we stay home and not go camping until Monday and have roast dinner and relax. We skipped church by the majority vote not to go. Me against everyone else. ha hahah! I had to throw that in there! It makes me look more righteous. h ahah! Anyways... the dinner was simply amazing. See I've had this problem lately cooking roast. It will NOT turn out NO MATTER WHAT I try. So that was a request I had to enjoy a nice juicy tasty roast back home and my Dads marvelous mashed potatoes. They are seriously so so yummy! We had big thick cooked carrots and corn on the cob as well. MMMMMMM!! Told you it's all about the food. Jamie and the kiddies came over for dinner and I had this great plan to sleep outside in the backyard under the stars. Well it started to sprinkle a little so we set up the tent. We played outside all night. Played with the fishies in the pond, played duck duck goose, and played lots of other fun games. At one point, Jorgen got this idea to put the little kid chair on his 3 wheeler and have Linkin ride on there. So with close supervision, we let him do it. We stuck Linkin on the back and Jorgen cruised around super fast. Linkin was thrilled. He smiled the whole time. It was so funny! Jorgen was also pretty pumped about it. He thought he was so awesome! ha ha!!                                                                                                                                                                                  One it got dark out, we all climed in the tent to tell "scary stories". Well Grandma went first. She told this story that this Mom and her kids went for a drive late one night without the Dad. She said her car stopped going and that she had to pull off the side of the road to this dark place. She said they were sitting there when all of a suddent there was a THUD on the side of the car. She kept trying to get the car started, but the THUD kept hitting the car like it was getting closer and closer to her side of the car and her door. Finally her car started moving and she drove off really fast and they got home and when they got there and got out, they looked and there was a hand stuck to the side of the car under the handle. It had long creepy fingernails and it was trying to get the Mom out when she peeled off. SOOOOOOOOOO the point of me telling this story is that it SHOT the rest of storytelling for the night because the kiddies didn't take to it very well!!! Well Jorgen was horrified. ha hahaa! He didn't want to tell ANYMORE scary stories the whole night. He was clutching Craig's legs. It was so funny. We (Jamie, my Dad and I) were totally laughing and joking about how we are with a bunch of little kids and Mom busts out the first story of the night as an R rated horror film. We determined that she watches too many forensic crime shows. ha haha! Poor Mommy! It was fun! We ended up telling some lame goofy stories after that.                                                                                                                                                                                                          So after we pretended to be asleep for a while and the kids fell asleep, Jamie and I snuck out of the tent to go watch The Office with my Dad. Craig was zonked with the kids and didn't want to wake up so he stayed out there! We stayed up until about 1 and then Jamie went home and I slept on the couch. Weird night. Especially for it being my idea to sleep outside on the grass, and then I slept inside while they all slept outside. ha haa! Oh well! Craig's sweet to sleep uncomfortable to be with the kids because they needed to have an adult out there probably.

Well well... Monday we left around noon to go up to the Uintas. Another request of mine. ha hahah! I'm so demanding. No, my parents and family was all for it. So we went up there, found a spot to camp and backed the trailer in, set up camp, ate lunch and then left to go hike up to our waterfalls. I say "our" waterfalls because they are pretty hidden and not many people know of them. We will go up there and spend all day and no one will hike by or anything so it's pretty cool! Also, it's a traditional spot we've been many times. I always loved to run and climb the actual spots where water was falling and splash in it. Sometimes I would sit under the falling water on a lower rock. It's a blast. This year it was super fun too but it didn't have as much water as it has before. Usually the water will go all the way to the other side and this time it was only covering like 1/3 of the scape of rocks. Anywho...we had fun playing and took lots of pictures...so enjoy those! When we got back to camp, my Dad made us a yummy steak for dinner and my Mom made us baked potatoes and broccoli. It was yummy. We hung around outside for a while and then we decided to put Linkin to sleep in the trailer so we went in and once he was asleep, we played Racko a couple times. Enough times that we all won. Oh wait, Craig never did. It took him until the fourth game to remember the correct way to play. ha ha! He's a nerd. Then my Dad did a bunch of magic tricks. That was awesome. He's funny. He's one of those magicians that WANTS to reveal his secrets. But I tried to not let him. Anyways...then we played Yahtzee. One of my favorite games that I'm usually good at and I took well uh yeah... last place!!! Whoops. Oh well. Mother Dear won! She's so good at games. I don't get it. She always wins Racko too unless my Dad's playing. For some reason, he dominates that game. ha ha! Then we watched a movie. It's Broken Bridges with Toby Keith. It was a great storyline. Not so good acting, or put together, but a good story! Then we went to sleep.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Well Tuesday after we got home, I went to sleep for about 3 hours. I'm not sure what anyone else did, but once I woke up, we went to Jamie's house and said goodbye to her and the kids, and then we stopped by Justin's to say HI and BYE to them and Colton. It was good to see them. Then we headed to Craig's parents. We were driving there and almost there when his Mom and My Mom both called at the same time and asked if we were ok. Supposedly, there was a tornado said to be in the works right where we were at. The weather was wicked. Wicked awesome!! Craig and I loved it but I was scared a little and wanted to get in the house. Craig was just smiling the whole time. and laughing. ha ha! Dork. Him and weather. We got in and the storm stopped. Camille was there and we played buzzword (which is a great fun game). We didn't stay long as we still had to pack and get ready to go so we could leave in the morning. Right when we left it started pooring again. ha ha! So Craig went to sleep fairly early and I stayed up until 3 in the morning packing everything and getting it all packed into the car. We were able to leave at a reasonable time because of my sacrifice!! :) The drive home was entertaining and fun. I took mega pictures. I was fascinated by everything. Utah is truly amazingly beautiful and when you live there, you take it for granted. It's gorgeous! (in places!) So if you are interested in those pictures, they are in the slideshow below. We were just past Moab when we got NAILED with hail. Bad!! It was sooo loud and they were seriously at least the size of golf balls. We went through some like large marble size ones and then came out of it and I called my Dad to tell him and then WHAM, one came sideways and slammed into the windshield. My Dad was like "holy crap" I could totally hear that... and then it started caming down fast and hard. My Dad put it on speaker phone at his work and they all listened to our hail storm experience. They heard the sound of our car being dented in every location. h aha! It seriously is completely hail damaged all over. The hood and the roof and the side of the car a little too. There is like 100 or more dents. EEK!! Sucks. But we were both still smiling because we are thrilled with mother nature. ha ha! We are seriously nature tree huggin freaks. We should just live in the woods! Not. I'm too obsessed with the internet. Well that was our trip!

Comments

[Jenn]

WOW!!! You weren't kidding when you said you guys were so busy the whole time while out here! That is awesome! Happy Birthday Linkin! Love the pictures!