Last minute amazing vacation, Part 2: UTAH

Since  BK had to go back to the "real world" and work for a living, the boys and I decided to take our little rental car up north.

On our way out of town we stopped in to see my good friend Emily, and had a quick, fun little playdate, in which my boys mostly terrorized her daughter (mostly Spencer)--but it seemed they all had a good time, nonetheless.  I loved catching up with Emily!

We stopped in St. George on the way up, and had a picnic at the St. George Temple, where BK and I got married.

We went to the Farmer's Market the next morning with Grandpa Stanger.  There was a park nearby, and so we let the boys play for awhile to get some wiggles out.

My ragamuffin children:

Landon also had the "best day ever" playing "mud-guys" with cousins Natalie and Noah:

It took about 3 showers at least to get the dirt-smell out of his hair.

Again, IMALOSER for not taking pictures of anything else in the Utah portion of the trip.

BUT

We had a good sleepover with Megan.
We had a lovely visit with Misty and my three DARLING nieces.
And on our way out of town we had a quick visit with Uncle Gary and Aunt Sandra, and cousins Stacey and Shelby.

The boys slept in the car on the way back to Vegas, and I listened to conference on the radio. (I love Zion.)  It was heavenly.   I also discovered that Cafe Rio has a drive-thru in Cedar City, and so I ate a pork salad while driving from there to Vegas.

We spent one more day with Tara and her kiddos and then took the red-eye back to Texas.

I always love when complete strangers are kind to me in airports.
Because of a handful of kind people, I was somehow able to get my double stroller, two children, two backpacks, two carseats, two pillows, and two blankies on and off the plane (without checking any of it.  We're cheap!!).  Of course it turned out that at least one of those people were also Mormon.  But that's not surprising to me.

One older couple helped me carry the backpacks to my seat on the plane.
And another man helped me carry the backpacks off the plane, and then went back and got Landon's carseat for me.  He then insisted on carrying it all the way to the curb for me.

On the plane, luck was on our side, and the only extra seat on the plane was given to the poor person assigned to sit on our row, thus leaving us the extra seat on OUR row.  I immediately moved Spencer to Landon's car seat:

 And Landon got to be a "big boy" with a real seat-belt for the trip.

Both boys slept and were amazing on the flight.
It took me about three days to recover from the lack of sleep, but the cheap price was so worth it, I would do it again in a heart beat.

I came away from our vacation realizing how blessed BOTH BK and I are to come from such amazing families.  I loved how willing everyone was at the last minute to accommodate us and entertain us.  My boys were amazing travelers, and I left the vacation feeling completely uplifted and loved.

Thank you to all of you!
Come to Texas soon!!