UTAH!

I went to Utah over Memorial Day weekend for my youngest sister's bridal shower.  As I planned in my head though, I barely thought about the bridal shower.  I was just so excited to be going to Utah.  It still feels like home.   As we descending, we flew low over Utah valley and Y Mountain, and my thought was "It's good to be home."   Coming back to Charlotte, I thought, "Welcome home." By which I meant the place that I reside, but that's a big step up from what I used to think landing in Charlotte.  Maybe one day I'll actually feel like I have two homes.

But I realized some things while I was there: large portions of Utah are really ugly.  Just like there are large portions of Charlotte that are really ugly.  City planners only care about where the rich people live so make sure those areas of town are super nice and beautiful, but every body else--ugle strip malls.  I also realized that Utah in general is not as walkable as I thought it was.  Grant it there are a lot more sidewalks and stores are less spread out than they are in Charlotte, but I tried to take my niece on a walk one morning while Henry was sleeping, and all I could do was walk around my grandma's block like 10 times because the sidewalk ended.  That was dissappointing.  I guess what I'm saying, is nowhere is perfect.

But Utah feels like home because that's where my family is.  And I have a big family and got to see a bunch of them while there, which was great.  I think the funnist part of the trip was at the bridal shower: Jess, my sister in law, was in charge of games.  She ended up with a 3-way tie at the end of one game so asked the winners to share their favorite Hannah story and the best story would win the prize.  Turns out two of the winners were my dad's cousin and her daughter, neither one of whom really know Hannah.  Jess was so taken aback that people would be at Hannah's shower and not know Hannah.  I shrugged my shoulders and said, "We have a really big family."  I also ran into my dad's cousin at the airport--I called him the wrong name and he couldn't remember mine.  I have a really big family.  And I LOVE IT! Really though: family is my favorite thing.

And now pictures:

Henry was super good on the plane.  Thank you Pinterest for some great screen-free ideas on toddler/plane entertainment.  This may not have been the best one.  It kept him entertained but as we played I realized how bad of an idea it was: I filled a weekly medicine organizer with baby puffs and had him get them out.  Yes, let's teacher the toddler to eat candy out of the medicine holder as we fly to stay with my hyper-medicated grandparents.  Hmmm.

Fly over Utah Valley.

 Another favorite of my trip was taking public transit.  It's not something I do very often since I have 3 kids and don't relish the idea of waiting at a bus stop with them.  That and I live in the middle of nowhere and have no public transit anywhere near me.  I took the lightrail (TRAX) from the airport to downtown Salt Lake.  Met my aunt for lunch.  Then took TRAX back to the FrontRunner station and took that to American Fork.  From there it was only about a mile to my grandparents' by foot, but I had them come pick me up anyway--I did have a toddler, stroller, suitcase and carseat with me.

My other sister drove down from Wyomming with her twins so the rest of the weekend looked like this:

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 We even went to Costco.  I think I need to give Costco another try.

 Another highlight of the trip: Payson Temple Open House.  One of the reasons we went over Memorial Day weekend was because it was the last weekend of the Open House.  I really wanted to take my sister in law, who is not a member of the Church, so she could see a Sealing Room before Hannah got married in August.  We didn't have tickets so I was a little worried we wouldn't make it.  But miracles happen.

First, Jess had a crazy time getting on her flight and almost got bumped to the next flight, which would have gotten her into Utah at 5 pm.  But the man at the counter did exactly what he wasn't supposed to do and opened the door to the plane to let her on.  To me that says: the Holy Ghost touched that man's heart so Jess could go to the Open House.  Then when we got to the Open House, the line was LONG.  Like Disneyland, pre-fast pass.  But again, the guy taking tickets took pity on us and our 4 babies (the twins, Henry, and Jess's daugher), and let us cut in line.  And then the line moved pretty fast, mostly because once you get inside the temple the volunteers just repeat "Please keep moving."  So we saw the temple, albeitat a bit of a sprint. Hopefully Jess got the idea.  That was Friday.

Of course there was a cousin bath.  Just Henry and Korey though--the twins go to bed at 6!

 Saturday was the shower.  I was in charge of decorations.  They didn't turn out exactly how I wanted but they were ok.

 Sunday we went to church with my grandparents.  We were late to Sacrament so decided to just hang out in the foyer since we had 3 kids who were ready for morning naps.  Henry took a liking to Grandpa Sune though.

Sunday night, more family came over for dinner and then Monday we flew home.  It was a great, low-stress trip (funny how much less tired I was just having to chase Henry around than when I've got all 3).  Now to gear up for the big one in August.