Utah Day 7

Friday was a really blah relaxing day. My parents had NAMI training all day. They are going to be instructors for some of the classes they hold. Morgan and Spencer had to go back to work. In the morning Jason,Karlie, and Josslyn went to breakfast with Karlie's family. Ben and I slept in, ate some food, took a nap then went to a fun lunch with my cousin Caleb and his wife Morgan. Caleb and I are pretty much the same age and have always been somewhat close I think and I absolutely adore his wife and we love to get together and chat. We went to a fun European style pizza place. I did not get one damn picture! GRR! Nothing not of the food of us...Nada! Then when we got home we took another nap. I know crazy. No idea why we were so tired. Then I worked on some more homework school is taking over my life but thats OK! I'm kicking butt! (I think). That evening we all met up at Cafe Rio for dinner. After dinner we went back to my parents house and just visited.

Joss and I (she is fake sleeping lil' stinker)

Me,Morgan, and Karlie

Josslyn loves Dukers and he loves her!

We left Saturday morning. The original plan was to leave around 6am but we never leave on time so after packing up and getting the oil changed on the car we finally left SLC at around 930am. 

Utah Day 5 & 6

Wednesday most of us woke up earlyish and went to the gym. 

After, we had a yummy breakfast and then some of them went shooting. Ben and I stayed home. It was raining and hailing outside so they were going to an indoor range to shoot the handguns and I really prefer to shoot the shotgun and the rifles outside (and not have to pay to shoot my own gun). So Ben napped and I worked on updating our blog :D Jason, Karlie, and Josslyn went to lunch with Karlie's family. My dad had to run some errands and my mom was at work. Ben and I went over to see Morgan and Spencer's place. They are living in my grandma and grandpa Smith's old house. They put in new flooring and new appliances and painted it and it looks awesome. The boys played some video games and Morgan and I played Ticket to Ride: Norwegian. It is such a fun game. They have U.S. one and a Europe one as well. That evening we went to an Olympic Weightlifting gym just to check it out and get a tour and such. The guy who owns the gym has trained Olympic power lift gold medalists. It was a really cool gym. Kind of like a "garage" type of gym. Jason loved it! After we checked out the gym we went to Crown Burgers a family favorite. I remember meeting my dad for lunch and going there, good memories!  I took a picture of frysauce so my friends in ND didn't think it was just something I made up and it was actually served at restaurants. 

That evening we watched the new Superman. Ben and I bailed early and went to bed.

Thursday morning we went out to breakfast at the Black Bear Diner. It's really fun place to eat. Then we drove up to Fruit Heights/Kaysville to visit with my grandma Parry. My Aunt Marcia was there as well. My grandma hasn't been doing so well lately so I'm glad we were able to go see her. I wanted to get a picture with her and she kept sticking out her tongue and then telling me that's what we were doing but then I took the picture and she wasn't sticking out her tongue! HA! Oh grandma! My dad told her that everyone in the world would be able to see that picture in a matter of minutes so she took my phone and teased that she was going to throw it away! 

Josslyn found a really cute hat that looked like a tiger and it had mittens and everything. It was my Aunt Beckie's so when she got home from work she saw Josslyn wearing it and told her she "needed" to have it and take it home. Joss was ecstatic. She fell asleep on the car ride home and wore it while napped. Too cute! 

That evening we just hung out at home and had some more great talks. Jason made everyone homemade pizza and then my mom made cinnamon rolls! It is recipe passed down on my dad's side.

We always eat the cinnamon rolls right out of the oven with fresh cream cheese frosting and milk! YUMMY! 

Utah Day 3 & 4

The majority of Monday I was working on my physiology lab. No, Seriously like 6 hours no joke. I took a small break in between and we (Morgan, Karlie, Josslyn, and I) played Just Dance on the Xbox. Then Ben and I took Josslyn and went to go get some parts for Ben's remote control airplane. Josslyn has really been wanting to fly it with Ben. She actually fell asleep and we had only been in the truck for a few minutes. We had to go to 2 different hobby shops to get the right parts. Ben accidentally almost left us at one of the hobby shops kind of funny. When we came home we had some food and just hung out for a little bit. Ben worked on his airplane and Joss and I took some funny pictures on the laptop while trying to help Ben. We decided to all go out to dinner which was an absolute blast. Drinks got spilled, Karlie choked, I snorted, Josslyn danced on the stage.

It was basically non-stop laughing the entire time (like 2 hours!) Then we went home and watched youtube videos of Olympic weight lifting.

On Tuesday after breakfast we headed over to Beans and Brew's one of my favorite places to get drinks in Utah.

Then Ben, my Dad, Josslyn andI headed to the park to see if we could get Ben's airplane to work. Josslyn had to go pee while we were there and I tried to help her do the whole "camping" bathroom but we failed :( Poor thing I hope she's not scarred for life haha...ooops! Ben unfortunately still did not get his plane totally working yet. It's really getting frustrating. He bought it online and the controller isn't working correctly (I think). We went over to a hobby shop to see if they knew what to do and they were not helpful whatsoever. That afternoon we all went to Scheels. They have lots of fun activities and games to do there. We were there for a few hours. We went on the ferris wheel, played bowling, did some shooting. It was a blast!

That evening we had one of Jason's favorite meals, Lasagna and Breadsticks homemade of course. During and after dinner we all talked around the table for a few hours and had some intense deep conversations. I am so grateful for my family and that we are able to talk about the things that we do and our thoughts. It is absolutely amazing. I always go away feeling refreshed! Anyway, I'm still not sure why but we had birthday cake and sang Happy Birthday to Jason even though his birthday is on the 19th. Josslyn of course had to help her dad! 

Something I forgot to mention before: So Ben and I have Duke, Jason and Karlie have Rocky, and now Spencer and Morgan have Spike. So through all of this we have had 3 dogs in the house most of the time. Luckily they get along for the most part.

Rocky, Spike and Duke all taking a nap. 

Trip to Utah Day 1 & 2

We left for Utah about 630pm on Friday the 14th. We had talked about just driving to Billings,MT staying the night and then driving the rest of the way. We weren't even 20 minutes into the drive when we started talking about just doing it in one shot. Around 1030 11ish I dozed off and slept until about 5am and then took over and drove the rest of the way to SLC. 

Duke wasn't really "feeling" the road trip anymore.

When we arrived at my parents house they were the only ones there since everyone wasn't expecting us until later that night. It was nice to just have some time with them and chat and catch up on things. We let Morgan (my lil sis) know we were there and her and Spencer came right over! My mom made us delicious oatmeal for breakfast. A little while later Jason, Karlie, and Josslyn came home. Jason and Karlie had stayed at a hotel for Valentines night and Josslyn spent the night at her other grandma's house. It was so fun to have everyone there and the weather was gorgeous! It was about 60 degrees!!! 

Me, Josslyn, and Morgan

I really think my body was in shock. We played games and I played dolls with Josslyn and we just sat around and talked. That night we went to Ben's parents house because we haven't seen them forever and his whole family was going to be in town as well. His dad made some amazing pork that we made burritos and nachos with and again just sat around watched the little ones play and talked all about some fun topics religion,politics etc.

On Sunday I woke up first and got started on my homework, I knew it was going to take me forever with all the distractions going on. Once everyone started waking up and Morgan and Spencer came over my parents and brother made us a delicious breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and eggs. I continued to work on homework for most of the day and I'm not too sure what all was going on around me. I know that they all watched the movie Captain Phillips  (would highly recommend) while Josslyn was napping. Also, meatloaf was made. When I finally finished my homework for the day we started a game of Ticket to Ride:Europe. So fun! I had a blast playing it! It got a little heated but thats what makes it exciting! After that everything started settling down for the evening and we tried to make a plan of what we wanted to do Monday.

My oldest brother Jason and I. We can't take a serious picture that would just be ridiculous! He is deploying to Korea next week and will be gone for 1year.