Recently our Disneyland passes expired. Link and I especially enjoyed them. We went about once a month. Yes, we probably should’ve taken advantage of them more. The funny thing about Disneyland is that it grows on you! The more you go, the more you love it! I couldn’t believe how sad I was when I took Link for what was, hopefully, the last time. I say hopefully, because weren’t planning on being in California long enough to renew our passes. But that is another story entirely, *sigh*.

Here are a few pics of our last trip. I didn’t get much variety, and if I hadn’t told you, you probably wouldn’t have any idea where these were taken. As it turns out, it’s hard to take pictures of a toddler you’re too busy chasing.

Here are my failed attempts at getting a good picture of Link and I together. Oh, and just so you know, Link really has a good time when we go, though you’d never guess from the pictures!

Posing in a car from Mr Toad’s Wild Ride. He’d want to crawl up inside this car every trip. It was great. He loved it, and the best part was, we didn’t have to wait in line!

Boat rides are Link’s favorite. And if you didn’t realize, Disneyland has a lot of them. When we talk about Disneyland, he always mentions the bo (boats) and the wadden (water).

Here he is on Small World—his favorite.

Coming off Small World, being all independent with his buddy Benji.

I bought Link a pair of Mickey ears with some left-over birthday gift card money. I should have removed the price tag before photographing him wearing them.

Oh how I love my little buddy! We really have such a great time together!

We took a wonderful, very needed, and well deserved vacation last week. We spent ten days in Utah visiting family and friends. It was definitely one of my favorite trips to Utah—we didn’t want to come home!

We left on a Saturday morning. Overall Link did very well while we traveled but he did have a few moments. We installed his big-boy car seat for the trip. I haven’t yet decided if I should turn him around again. I don’t know if he’ll let me!

Our first stop was my hometown of St. George. It was HOT there! But it was actually kinda refreshing if you can believe that! Miles and I commented that it actually felt like summer. We spent a lot of time in the water to keep cool. One of my new favorite places in St. George is this little water park. It’s perfect for toddlers! For those of you familiar with the area, it’s on Tabernacle and Main. After all that time in the sun we walked across the street to the little Judd’s store. We enjoyed sipping on bottled soda and satisfying our sweet tooths with our favorite childhood candy. That place brought back memories!

We also spent some time at the “river” by my parent’s house where we skipped rocks and the boys did some spontaneous “cliff” jumping. We celebrated my brother-in-law’s birthday with the family and lots of food. I think I gained 3-4 pounds on our trip. We did LOTS of eating!

One night we got a little crazy and took what a friend of mine calls “surprise photos.” It’s where you violently shake your head back and forth while the camera snaps away and you get. . . art

The best experience of the trip was seeing my sister go through the temple for the first time! It was such a sacred and special experience. There is no other place in the world where you feel more love from the Lord and for your family! It’s something I will cherish forever. (see said sister in above photo. hehehe)

Midweek we made our way up to northern Utah where we would meet Miles’ dad, sister, and grandparents. We took our sweet time and made a side trip in Provo where we visited BYU and our past employers. We had some good times on that campus, and we have wonderful memories from that area!

From Provo we continued north up to Snowbird ski resort. Miles’ grandpa owns a timeshare at the resort and we were invited to stay in a lodge with them for a few days. It was heaven—beautiful, fun, and relaxing. We spent time in the spa every morning, did some hiking, rode on the zipline, and took a tram to the top of the mountain where we enjoyed the view at 11,000 feet.

One of those nights we meet some good friends of mine for dinner. We hadn’t seen each other for a couple years and it was really fun to catch up. Though I now regret taking Link with me. I was so distracted trying to keep him from screaming that I’m afraid I wasn’t a very good conversationalist. I’m sorry girls! It was a realization to me that there are just certain things we can’t do with Lincoln anymore. Next time I’ll leave Miles home to babysit and we’ll have a girls night out!

We headed back to St. George on Saturday morning. While there we had another family get-together with more food. We really and truly had no desire to come home. But we dragged ourselves out of bed Monday morning at 4:45am to get on the road. It’s nice to be home, but it was just so awesome to not think about life and responsibility for a time.

The past week has been incredibly eventful and fun!

It started when my sister and her family arrived last Sunday night. She, her husband, and three girls came to celebrate her two oldest daughters’ birthdays. On Monday we spent the day at the beach. Laguna Beach. My favorite beach. Parking usually stinks at Laguna, but this time of year it’s not too bad.

And of course they spent the mandatory two days at Disneyland. Miles and I devoted an entire day to Disney (using our beloved annual passes). The second day, I sent my sister with her husband and two oldest girls and I offered to watch their youngest (almost 3-year-old). Watching two little ones wore me out more than spending the entire day at Disneyland! I don’t know how mothers with more than one do it! By the end, I was counting the minutes until they walked through the door!

On Pirates of the Caribbean. Link freaked out on this ride and clung to mommy the whole time!

Link enjoys the carousel.

Waiting in line for the Pinocchio ride. Link didn’t dig this one either!

We found that using the backpack was much easier than a stroller. Link enjoyed just hanging out.

10-year-old Kiarah was brave and went on Space Mountain with me and her mom.

The birthday girls!

The girls’ favorite part was meeting the Disney Princesses: Ariel, Jasmine, and Belle.

Bell was their favorite.

My try-out pose for becoming a Disney Princess.

And this is Nate’s pose.

And here are the girls showing off their new princess merchandise. Notice Avery posing in her new Belle flipflops.

Here she is again.

And again

It was so much fun to see my sister and her family. I love my nieces to death. Nate is a stud and is so easy to be around. Their visit flew by. I miss them. Good thing I’m planning a trip to St. George in June!

So my sister’s family and my parents basically passed each other on the freeway. My sister left of Thursday for home, and my parents drove in to California Thursday night. My mom and dad were kind enough to watch Lincoln while Miles and I went on an overnighter (our first night away from Link) for our fourth anniversary. It was perfect! Link was an angel which made it so much easier to be away.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We stayed in the Hyatt on the Back Bay in Newport. We ate at an amazing seafood restaurant (The Cannery) which is right on the bay. You can literally drive your boat up and park (if we had a boat that is). I had the crusted halibut with these purple sweet potatoes and champagne sauce, and Miles had the swordfish that had a nummy mustard sauce. Both dishes were incredible. We had two desserts that night. Decadent Chocolate Molten Cake from the restaurant and a Reese’s Chocolate Peanutbutter Carmel Apple from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. We had the left overs for breakfast in the hotel room!

Then, because we didn’t have our normal 7:00 pm curfew (Link’s bedtime) we went to a late showing of Star Trek. Miles loved it. And it was just alright for me. Just not my kind of movie I guess. But good for what it was.

We didn’t get to sleep until 2:00 in the morning! Then, we got to sleep in, but couldn’t sleep later than 9:00am. I guess that’s what happens when you get up at 6:00ish every morning (including weekends) for the past year. We were meaning to go for a run around the Back Bay loop trail right from our hotel room, but Miles forgot his shoes. Luckily we were close enough to home where we could swing by and pick them up. We finally got on the trail at about 1:30 in the afternoon. The run was hot, muggy, long (10.5 miles) and there wasn’t much water along the trail so we were miserably thirsty. I seemed like the worst run of my life! We did it though and afterwords we went straight to the closest gas station and bought 2 gallons of liquid (water and gatorade). Then we went and relaxed in the hotel hot tub and took a refreshing poolside nap. Ahhhh. Perfect!

During spring break last week we went camping at Joshua Tree National Park. We spent two nights at a campsite about a 2 1/2 hours from here. Overall the trip was a success! We really did have a wonderful time enjoying tinfoil dinners, trying to stay warm at night, hiking, smores, talking around the campfire, and taking care of dirty, runny-nosed, and at times, fussy children. The company was great. We went along with two other couples and their families. A total of 5 kids under the age of 3 means a lot of stuff! I couldn’t believe how much WORK it was to plan to take a baby camping. I thought about it for a week prior. Our car was filled to the brim with sleeping bags, blankets, ice chests, food, clothes, diapers, a tent, a pack n play. I could go on and on. Needless to say, I don’t think we’ll be doing any backpacking trips for awhile. Car camping will be more our speed for the next decade plus.