The Johnsons gone private: Utah FUN!!

This was such a great trip! Everything went much smoother then I'd anticipated so I would totally do it again! We left really really early one morning, with Dad driving, and headed to Denver. We got there just in time to grab some pizza for dinner and hit the hotel hot tub & pool for some fun before bed. The boys were fantastic the whole way!

The next morning we woke up and left for St. George with a planned stop for lunch at the Barnhurst's house in Grand Junction. Unfortunately we hit dead stopped traffic just 40 minutes outside of denver on our way down the mountain pass. We were stuck there for awhile...an hour or two and later learned that someone had rolled their Jeep that was so smashed up they needed the "jaws of life" to come get the woman out. But we eventually made it for Lunch and it was SO great to see them! They have a beautiful house and the boys were SO nice to all my kids. We all had a great time. After that we made the rest of the 6 hour drive to St. George and got in too late to see Grandpa, but saw Grandma for a bit before hitting bed.

The sleeping set up at Grammy T's in St. George. We stayed in "Grandma Pickett's" room :) It was full of her painting and books of peotry.

Boys thought it was hilarious to leave through the doggy door.

Had an absolute BLAST here in St. George. The pool was awesome and the family even more fun!

I LOVED St. George. The heat would probably end up getting to me, but it was so dry that the 100 degrees was like nothin. I Loved that everywhere you looked you could see trails to run or bike.

We spent a day up in Zions. There were lots of these rock shops along the way. Most of the rocks came from mexico or a factory in NY :)

Yummy shaved ice for $1! We laughed and laughed over Papa Bear's blue teeth.

Grandpa T and mom. Grandpa was good. I think he remembered me but didn't say much or ask about us at all....don't think he remembered any details about me. He is such a sweet old man but is like a toddler sometimes. He came walking outside in his garments to sit out by the pool :) His best friend is that little dog.

Evrett readying to the annoying squawking birds

We went to see the St. George temple. It is the whitest temple I have ever seen and was so pretty next to St. George's red landscape.

Aunt Jen and cousin Chloe & their cousin from the other side of the family came for a day. They girls were so much fun with the boys and they just loved them. Especially Evrett!

My dad and cousin Chloie, watched the boys so I could go repelling with Uncle Bryce, his boys, mom & jess. It was SO MUCH FUN. Everywhere you looked in st. George were trails to run or bike. I would totally move there if we could.

We had to drive about 10 miles on these crazy mountain roads. Mom did a great job driving!

getting all the gear ready...

looking down the 100 ft cliff we were headed down...scary!

Little 11 year old Matthew was the first to go and a lot of help to us newbies. He stayed right with us to give us tips.

Here comes Jess. I don't have pics of me since I had the camera :)

And mom!

After repelling the initial 100 ft we had to work our way out of the canyon. We'd go a ways on flat ground and then do mini repells or climbs down to the next level.

Normally the canyoning is dry, but there was a rain storm the day before so we ended up wading/swimming through water that was chest deep sometimes. Mom was pretty freaked out since we had no idea how deep it was goign to be until we stepped into it. I think she was in shock a little towards the middle where the big deep puddles just keep coming, but she did great and made it through.

Micah was really good at "stemming" which is trying to make it all the way through without walking.

That night the boys went paintballing and Matthew was so cute to take my boys out back to shoot a few times. He is a great kid.

Here is cousin Chloe and her cousin, Meredith. They loved Evrett and he loved them. They pretty much watched him the whole time we were here.

We went out for some yummy ice cream with Aunt Jen and her girls.

Of course the boys loved hanging out with Micah, Joshus, Matthew, and Dallin. They were so cool kids.

The big kids were playing king of the mountain while brannon patiently waited for just one big boy left, then we walked up behind him and pushed him in to become the ultimate KING! :)

Matthew playing peek-a-boo with Evrett

The final night (only day 3) we'd had so much exhausting fun that Evrett went and crawled into bed all by himself to go to sleep. He was that worn out!

It was so great to see Grammy & Grandpa T. I'm not sure Grandpa knew who I was, but he loved coming outside to watch the kids play in the pool.

Grammy showed me all her amazing projects around the house.

And then we had to say goodbye :(

And headed up to Lehi to see Haylee's fam and Cameron.

The next day we went exploring in Provo. We dropped Jess off at Helaman Halls for her volleyball camp and went to eat in the Cougar Eat. The boys thought it was pretty cool and I got my favorite sandwich wrap that I used to get all the time as a freshman (after that I was too poor to buy food here :)

We went through the bookstore and got the boys some BYU gear

The next day we headed to Scera water park. We all got in AND ate lunch for less than $25. I loved the prices in UT! So family friendly. The boys LOVED it here and it was just small enough that they could go off by themselves to play.

Later that day we met up with Melissa, her kids, and her new husband. It was so great to see them! I have really missed having close girlfriends to talk to. The kids picked up right away and had so much fun we decided to get together again the next day.

That night we met the fam at Brick Oven Pizza and then watched Jess play a volleyball game.

We had lots of fun hanging out at Haylee's house too. The boys LOVED Lily and she loved them! Isn't this funny....

One day we met up with mom's sisters Jen & Becca for lunch.

Cousins

We hiked Stewart Falls with Melissa's family and Haylee's family. It was a good 4 mile round trip hike that the kids had no problem doing. It was me and my stupid hip giving me problems, but it was still a ton of fun!

Because of my hip I couldn't carry Evrett as much as I'd hoped to, so Luke ended up taking him most of the time.

Cameron took us to a cool natural waterslide, called Apline Slides. We hiked up a road for about 1 mile and came to this pretty little waterfall people would slide down. It looked pretty scary to me! but luckily some other teens came and showed us how to do it.

Cam took the big boys first.

It was freezing cold mountain water that you'd plunge into at the end, but that was a lot of the fun I thought. It sent your adreniline going like crazy!

After the big boys Evrett really wanted to go. I was super nervous for him! He went down without a scream being held safely in Cam's arms and plunged completely under the freezing water. He came out, looked at me and said "DAT was SO MUCH FUN!!!!!!!" But he didn't want to do it again :)

AFter that I went to try it. Honestly it scared the crap out of me every time I did it. I tried to keep my face calm looking while going down but everytime I had this look of panic, but I just kept going!! I don't get to do things I think are fun much and this was definitely something I LOVED even though it freaked me out.

Grandma hanging with the grandkids...

We spent a couple hours at Thanksgiving point.

And one afternoon with the Woodbury's. Michelle was in the RS presidency with my mom in IL, but moved to UT a couple years ago. They had become good friends and whenever we came to visit IL from Philly we always hungout with Michelle. It was a lot of fun to see them and their beautiful house.

The blue eyed babes :)

The last Sunday there we headed up to Grandma and Grandpa Johnson's house in Woodland Hills. We hadn't seen them in years so it was a lot of fun. She cooked us a yummy meal and the boys showed Grandpa the cook rocks they found on one of our hikes and he was very kind to be excited even though they were very generic & common UT mountain rocks :) Cousin Teresa and her kids were also there visiting for the day as well as Aunt Mardene and her son, William.

Grandpa was so excited to take the kids on a tractor ride after dinner and the kids all loved it. They'd finish a ride, grandpa would sit down in the living room and 15 minutes later a kid would ask to go again and UP he'd jump to take them again! This happened a handful of times. He is GREAT!!