Road trip: Thirty minutes in Oregon

Paul and Daneen just had an ADORABLE baby boy up in Oregon.  While I'm on this side of the country, I decided I had to swing up there and meet my new little nephew!  However...we didn't want to infect the little one (or other cousins) with the Great and Terrible Stomach Bug(GTSB).  So, we hung out in Utah for a couple of extra days to make sure it was all cleared out of the girl's systems.

We had more time for...

stories with Grandma,

a visit to Gateway Discovery children's museum,

4 out of 6 thumbs up

The girls loved playing with the balls in the beehive.

Whit tried her hand at rock climbing.

And Caroline showed off her sweet moves on stage.

Also visited Thanksgiving Point's Museum.

5 out of 6 thumbs up.

Watch out for that Megalodon!

The kids especially loved the fossil dig at the end.

 I had a great visit with Linda and Dee, 

two of my dental hygiene classmates.

And we met Grandma for a quick lunch at Wheeler Farm.

At this point, both girls had been symptom-free for two full days, so we decided it was safe to hit the road.  Boise was our fun stop.  We managed to squeeze a whole lotta fun into our two hours there.

First we stopped by Bronco Stadium

so Brandon could see the blue turf.

Awesome!

They have a great little Hall of Fame there, too.

We got to see a Heisman Trophy and other

random sports memorabilia.

Then we had a fabulous (but way too short)

visit with Angie and her kids, some of

our very first friends when we moved to NC.

We decided to let the kids take a dip in the backyard pool

while Angie and I visited.

They thought that was a GREAT idea.

After our swim it was time to head up to Oregon to meet Colt

and visit with Paul, Daneen, and their kiddios.

 Look at that sweet little boy!

Loved snuggling up with his newborn goodness.

The girls had fun playing together for a little while.

We celebrated Carson's birthday...a little early.

And we even got to see Celeste while we were there.  Bonus!

And then it happened.

Caroline got sick.

Again.

You have got to be kidding me.

There go our plans for the weekend.  I stayed in a hotel room with her all day long, both of us sleeping off and on throughout the day.  Luckily, Brandon was able to play with Carson and Sydney.  And Whit was on her way back to Utah with Gigi and Grandma Cuca.  But it was pretty miserable for C and me.  I finally gave in and called the doctor and found a place to have her checked out.  They found that nothing else was wrong with her--no ear infection or urinary tract infection.  So, just watch what she eats and let it pass.  But that doesn't help when you want to be snuggling with a newborn.

So....we said good-bye to Colt and Paul and Daneen and Carson and Sydney.  After spending about 30 minutes with them.  If Colt ever wonders if his Aunt Andi loves him, I'm going to remind him that I drove 18 hours to see him for half an hour.  Is that love or what? 

 On the way back to Utah, we drove straight from Oregon to Salt Lake with not a single fun stop along the way.  That is NOT the way we road trip.  The kids were SO good, too.  I decided to try a little retail therapy and stopped to shop at H&M before heading out to my folks' home.

Yep, it worked.

I found a whole bunch of cute new shirts at great prices.  Just what I needed to lift my spirits.  :)

Caroline is STILL not 100% over the GTSB, but she is ALMOST there.  And she has been SUCH a trooper throughout the whole ordeal.  Maybe I should have bought her some new shirts, too.  Nah, I don't think retail therapy works on 4-year-olds.

Road Trip: Bear Lake

One of the things we were most looking forward to this summer was spending a long weekend up at Bear Lake with Andrew's siblings, his parents, and all our nieces and nephews.  So fun!!  Between the rainy weather and the intermittent vomiting from my girls, it didn't go quite as we had anticipated.  But there were still lots of fun moments in between.

The scenery in Logan Canyon is breathtaking.

I was tired and wanted a nap, but couldn't

stop looking at all the gorgeous cliffs and trees.

You should have heard the screaming in the car when we passed this

caravan of 30 (or more) Porsches along the way.  Whoa.

We stayed at Ideal Beach.

They had these beautiful rolling green lawns,

some fun pools,

a perfect playground....

 (Caroline was especially fond of the merry-go-round),

and we were right on the beach.

Awesome.

The little ones had fun playing in the sand. (dirt?)

The worked together to build some

 pretty elaborate pools and moats.

C was happy as could be.

We rented jet skis one day.

Yee. haw.

It was my first time on one.

Took a little getting used to.

But we had fun.

Andrew called this ride "GiggleFest."

Vivi and Care Bear laughed the entire time.

The next day, we rented a boat.

I hear it was fun.

 The 11-yr-olds in the tube

B's favorite part of the whole weekend:

the water trampoline!

 Woo hoo!

When there was a torrential downpour outside,

we watched movies,

played cards,

played with Play-doh.

and played Ticket to Ride.
That's a lot of playing.

We also took family portraits with the whole lot of us.
Can't wait to get those back from the
photographer and see how they turned out!
I hope they're better than these ones B snapped of me and Drew.

It looks like my Grandma-Cuca-gene kicked in
and I forgot how to smile.  Boo.

I should have asked for lessons from the 4-year-olds.

They've got the smiling thing down pat!

My favorite part of the weekend?
Just hanging out and visiting with our family.
Such a rarity when we live so far away from each other.

We love our cousins!

Road Trip: Andrew's side of the fam

Last summer, we had a reunion with my side of the family for Grandma Cuca's birthday.  This year, the hope was that all of Andrew's siblings could get together.  And it worked out!  We came from three different states and all converged on Andrew's parents' home.  Hooray!

We had a busy week.  

First, celebrating Angie's birthday

 with a delicious dinner at Market Street Grill.

Then cupcakes for the kiddios...

and cheesecake for the adults. Yummy yum yum.

Made our annual visit to BYU

Admired the art and exhibits around the Joseph Smith Bldg

And met our cousin Jessica for a quick visit over ice cream.

Also stopped for a short, but super fun visit with Anna and Gouch.

Celebrated the release of Tony's latest book:

Mormons:  An Open Book

with lots of family and friends.

We got to flip through the book and check it out for ourselves.

 It's awesome.

Checked out the shopping at City Creek.

Cool view of the temple from the sky bridge.

Watched the fountains choreographed to music,

kinda like a little Bellagio.

Also walked across the street to temple square for a little while.

 The Christus.

We also had a blast playing kickball and softball at the park one night.  But I didn't get any good pics.

Unfortunately, this week was also the beginning of The Great and Terrible Stomach Bug 2012.  Oh. my. gosh.  My girls got sick, sick, sick.  They have never been as sick as they were this week.  And we were on vacation.  Lovely.  It made for some rough days.  Very rough.  I felt so bad for them.  And sorry for myself.  It lasted (off and on) EIGHT days for poor Care Bear.  And we passed it on to cousins and aunts.  No fun at all.  Andrew and I had to do a lot of tag-team parenting, one of us staying home with whichever daughter happened to be sick that day.  Which was especially lame because this was the only week of the month that we got to spend together.  I'll leave it at that and hope for healthier days ahead.