Our Trip to Utah

Last week John and I went to Utah to spend Easter with my family in Utah. The trip was really fun. We were REALLY busy all week to the point where I kept thinking "Man I'm tired...I need a vacation!" A vacation from a vacation?? Anyway, the trip was fun and I'm really glad I went.

Daniel had to stay home because of school and work. There was NO WAY I was going to drive by myself with a baby for 12 hours to Utah so we checked out airplane tickets. We noticed that flights from Santa Barbara Airport were only about $60 more than flying from LA. Since the Santa Barbara Airport is literally 5 minutes from my house and when you think of 2 hours down to LA and 2 hours back plus with gas $60 is not that much more. I am SSSSOOOOO happy I did it. I will always do that from now on. The flight was non-stop to Salt Lake and it was fast and convenient.

When we arrived at the airport I noticed a family from our ward was flying on the same flight as us. They have WAY cute kids and since I'm now their Primary Chorister they know me and were excited to see me. When we very first got on the airplane everyone got situated and we noticed it was really hot. They announced that there was a problem with the engine and they couldn't turn on the air until the problem was fixed. We sat there for 20 min. in a small stuffy space with NO AIR!! John didn't handle that very well at all. He was already tired and hot before we got on the airplane and now things were 10x worse. He started screaming and there's only so much I can do in a small smothering hot space to help calm him down. The question I'm wondering is why did they board everyone onto the airplane when they were having engine problems and couldn't turn on any air? In a small space like that on a hot Santa Barbara day we were all boiling! I was getting death glares from everyone around me but really? Come on!

Once the engines were fixed they turned the air on and John finally calmed down and fell asleep minutes after we were in the air. The rest of the flight was smooth and he stayed sleeping until we arrived in good ol' cold Utah.

My sister Brittanny came and picked me up from the airport with my little nephew Tau. He was sleeping in the back and woke up with John sitting right next to him. He was SO excited and started saying "Baby John" over and over. We went and ate dinner at Golden Corral which is where my mom works so she could show off the baby to everyone!
While we were there the Utah Flash (the Basketball team for UVU) came in to raise money for a charity thing they were doing. Their mascot was going around playing with all the children and Tau thought he was the coolest thing in the world. He wouldn't eat his dinner and kept dragging me around everywhere trying to show me "da fox"!
Tau thought it was pretty cool when da fox came over and helped him eat his dinner. We couldn't get him to eat so as least he got something!

The next day my sister Misty and I got things ready for my older sister Brittanny's baby shower. It was a really fun baby shower if I do say so myself!! (I was the one that threw it so I have to say that!!!) I hope everyone else had fun to. The food was yummy, the games were fun, and my sister got some really great stuff for her little girl.


Thank you Katie for the bows!! She really liked them and we had fun testing them out on the boys since we don't have any girls to dress up yet!!!

On Easter Sunday we ate a huge lunch (mostly left over food from the shower that was really yummy) at my sister's house then I went to stake conference with my dad and afterwards we had a big dinner at my stepmom's sister Judy's house. The picture above is John with Sharon's dad Jack (Sharon's my stepmom). John absolutely loved Jack. Jack started singing and John fell asleep in his arms for a while. It was great for me to be able to visit and eat my dinner without a little boy climbing all over me!
Then my dad had the magic touch and he slept on him all through dessert! I was in heaven!!!

We had strawberry shortcake with fresh plump juicy strawberries and hand whipped cream and also a really yummy circle fruit pie thing that was really good.



After that we went to my sister's house and we made our traditional Easter Chocolate Apples. My nephew Tau decided to give himself a chocolate makeover. Best makeover I've ever seen!

On Tuesday we all went down to my grandparents Ranch up Nine Mile Canyon and spent all of Tuesday hanging out and letting the kids find Easter eggs in their front lawn.


We spent the night, had a great breakfast and hung out until around lunch time and realized it was just starting to snow. My brother-in-law Shane called my sister and told her to be careful because there was a big storm hitting and he didn't want us to get stuck in it. We packed up our stuff and went over to say hi to my Aunt Ravenna and have lunch. She made us a big pizza (one of the best tasting I've ever had!) John liked them A LOT especially since my uncle Hal and aunt Ravenna gave him his first sucker!!

We stayed for only a little bit. (Just long enough for John to eat his entire sucker, poop all over the place and have to get a quick bath!!) I felt bad leaving only after a short visit but we didn't want to get stuck in the snow.....Didn't happen!

We left and got on the freeway and the snow was barely coming down in flakes. It wasn't too bad so we decided to try to make it all the way home hopefully before hitting anything bad. We weren't even half way home and the snow started to dump on us. It was so cold that the windshield wipers completely iced over and Brittanny couldn't see the road at all. She pulled over so we could try to fix them and ended up getting majorly stuck on the side of the road. It was so slick we could NOT move. Any further to the side and we would pretty much fall off the edge and down a big hill. It was snowing like crazy and cars were zooming right past us. Especially some big ol' semi trucks which happened to crash not long after they wizzed by us. So now we were stuck with 2 kids and no way of getting out on our own and the road ahead of us was closed because some people think big trucks are invincible! A very nice couple stopped and let us use their cell phone (none of ours had reception in the canyon) and I called my husband to see if he could call my dad and get us some help. As I was on the phone a truck that had passed us earlier and had seen us trying to push our car out turned around and came back to help us. These two guys were lifesavers!! They had a chain in their truck and managed (after a while of trying) to get our car out of the snow. My mom, Brittanny and I got out of the car so it would be easier to maneuver. We left the boys in the back seat because it was snowing WAY too much and it was way too cold for them to come out and poor little Tau started bawling when a stranger got into his car and started driving! Poor kid had no idea what was going on. John sat oblivious in the back seat but poor Tau had a hard time.

They finally managed to get us out and on our way then we got stuck waiting for over an hour in the same spot while they cleaned up the big semi accident. By the time we got home the trip that was only suppose to take an hour and a half from my aunt house to my sister's house ended up taking over 4 hours!! The kids did surprisingly well being stuck in a car for that long. It was quite the adventure :)

On Thursday I spent the day at my sister Misty's house hanging out and watching movies then Brittanny and my mom went to Cafe Rio for dinner (my favorite restaurant) and we went up to Salt Lake to visit Daniel's dad and step-mom before I went to the airport.

They LOVED playing with him and feeding him.

John's kind of decided on his own that he's too good for a spoon!

And then we came home!!