Utah Visit

Last week, the children and I made the long trek to Utah for a much needed visit with my parents!  My amazing parents have been called to be mission presidents in the Alpine- German speaking mission.  That consists of the western part of Germany (the mission home is in Munich), Austria, most of Switzerland, and Lichtenstein!  They are SO excited (and a little bit- okay, a LOT bit nervous) to go, and they are going to be absolutely WONDERFUL!  Seriously, those LUCKY LUCKY missionaries to get to have them as their presidents.  So, the kids and I went to go and visit them and try to help my mom pack up the house a little bit, and to help her get set up electronically (blog, scrapbook program, etc.)  It was a really nice visit, and we had a great time.  We will ALL miss them terribly, but know that they are going to be serving the Lord, so in turn we will be blessed.  So we had a great time while we were there.  It was a bit scary for me to head out there and drive the entire 500+ miles all by myself.  I have a bit of a bad track record when it comes to driving in the car.  But, we made it work.  We were able to stay at my aunt and uncle's house that lives in Fruita (just outside of Grand Junction) and it is EXACTLY half way from our house in Denver to my parents house in Bountiful!  So that made things a lot easier for me. It made the trip a bit longer, but it's alright, because we are still alive to tell the tale right?!
    While we were there, we did lots of fun things.  I was even able to go to the Young Womens Broadcast with the girls in my family!  It was SO much fun!  All the Nelson girls that are available to go get to attend, and we have so much fun.  This time, we actually sat on the SECOND ROW of the conference center!!!  It was crazy!  I haven't ever sat that close.  I even got to talk to Sister Dalton (the General Young Womens President- who conducted and spoke later in the meeting) She is the nicest woman ever.  Anyways...after we got to go to the Garden Restaurant where we had a scrumptious meal included in our fabulous company of all the girls that attended and my Grandfather as well.  It's a tradition that after every Young Womens, or Relief Society meeting that we get together and go to the Garden Restaurant.  I haven't been able to do this for quite some time, so it was super fun to be able to do so.  My sister Rachel even came up from Provo to join in the festivities!  So we had a great time.

Ummm....can you tell we're related???

  We were also able to hang out with my Nelson cousins a bit! A few of them at least.  My mom and I headed down to IKEA for the morning and my cousins Emily McDonough and Brynn Stewart met us there, and we had a great time.  We found some GREAT stuff (well, I did at least) and had a fun time being able to put the kids in the nursery!  YEAH for nursery's at stores!  I love my cousins dearly and truly miss being able to be with them all the time.  After IKEA, we headed to Chick-fil-a for some grub, and it did not disappoint!  I love that place. It's clean, the service is great, and the kids place is nice and clean as well.  It was just really fun to be with everyone.

Brynn, Emers and Moi

All the cutest little kiddies ever-minus the Paytster...he was using the restroom.  From Left to Right: Lincoln, Joseph, Claire-bee-doos, Truman aka batman, the Lilster, Morgie and Kate

We also were able to get together with Cole's parents and we had SOOO much fun!  We went to the Treehouse Museum in Ogden which is seriously SO much fun!  They are the best, and the kids were SOO excited to see them.  Sadly, I didn't get any pictures with them with the kids, but just know that they were there! :)

Cant get enough of that cute little smile!  She really mastered walking while we were in Utah!  It was so much fun to see her toddle around.  What a princess!  LOVE the pink, pig tails, bows, little shoes, everything!

Payton was LOVING this baby doll!  he played with her for so long!  He even took her over to a little hollowed out log and layed her down and fed her her bottle and put her down for a nap.  SO CUTE!  He's never done stuff like this before, so it was so cute!

Musical prodigy in the making

Checkin out his "map" that he drew

He sold me a ticket to China, and Neverland.  Who knew?!

She had SO much fun tooling around!  She is lovin the walking thing!

We also had the opportunity to go to the Jazz game with my Dad and Bryson!  Well, by we I mean Lincoln and I.  The other kids just stayed home with Grandma B.  Wow did Link have a great time!  He got an ice cream cone and ate the ENTIRE THING!  I can't BELIEVE how much he ate!  There is NO WAY I could ever eat this whole ice cream cone, but he downed it- no problem.  Such a cutie.  It was fun to be with Bry and my Dad for the game.

We got some good stuff done while we were there.  One whole room packed up!  Wow- we sure worked longer than that, but that is all that we got accomplished. It was nice though.  It was fun to be with my mom, and to spend some time with her.  The kids got all dirty and loved to be playing at Grandmas with some new toys. 

We tried for a cute pic in the tub, but didn't come up with much!

Best one for sure!  Everyone's looking and somewhat happy to be looking!

I can't wait for next month when we get to go on one last trip before they head for Germany!  Thanks Mom and Dad and Cleve and Maxine for letting us come and be with you guys for a little while!