Utah Trip - Part 1

In July we I went to Utah to spend time with Mike's family. The kids and I went up a few days early so that we could spend some time with my sister Jen and her family.

I wasn't too worried about traveling with the 3 kids since the girls are old enough to take care of themselves and Isaac is too young to cause much trouble. I'm glad they were good!

The girls are always so excited about all the different modes of transport on airport days: car-bus-train-plane.

When we checked in we realized that we would be on a plane with 2 seats on either side of the aisle. The infant always has to travel on the right side of the plane (because of the extra oxygen masks on this side) and so the 2 girls were left to themselves on the other side of the aisle from me. Thank goodness for portable DVD players and flights that last about as long as the battery life!

The only downside of this was that I had to sit next to a stranger. The way to fly with an infant is to nurse on the ascent and descent - it keeps them sucking so that their ears don't hurt. So I sat in my seat watching everyone come down the aisle, wondering which poor soul is going to have to sit next to me and my nursing baby. I hoped for a kind grandmotherly type lady (or at least someone who has been a Mom). Unfortunately (for him!) a 20-something guy sat down next to me. My first thought was "this poor kid." He squirmed in his seat as I pulled out my nursing cover and proceeded to nurse my baby next to him. I really felt sort of awkward, but at least it wasn't a screaming baby in the seat next to him!

I really enjoyed my time to sit with Isaac and smile at him and just cuddle during the 3 hour flight to SLC. We don't get as much bonding time as I'd like. This was perfect.

We had a lot of fun with Jen and her family. These two guys will become great buddies in the next few years. For now, Gavin was a little less impressed with Isaac - the girls were a lot more fun to try to keep up with!

Gavin would follow the girls everywhere and was always so excited to see what they were going to do next. They had fun playing Hide and Seek with him.

We went to the park down the street from Jen's house

Erin is so sweet with Isaac - I hope he likes kisses because he sure gets a lot of them!

Erin and Gavin.

Check out those beautiful blue eyes!

I had fun driving through Provo and looking at the two places where Mike and I lived after we were married.

This was our first house. It was a duplex - my good friend Jenna got married 4 days before me and so she and her new husband lived in the other half. I LOVED this house. It was so quaint and charming. It was very small, but perfect for a newlywed couple. The one bathroom was located in our bedroom, meaning that any visitors had to go through our bedroom to use the restroom. Also guests that stayed with us also had to pass through our bedroom to get to the stairs that led to the tiny bedroom in the basement. I'm sure our guests loved that! It was perfect for us. We drove a white truck the first year that we were married and so to see a white truck parked outside made me happy :)

This was our second house. A little less charming, but we have so many great memories here. We moved here after we moved back from Alaska. Elaina was born when we lived in this house. It is also a duplex, and we lived in the upstairs unit: