The Carters: The Utah Half of the Trip

Note: Apparently I was super lame at taking pictures while on this trip. For the record, I was exhausted and pregnant and that, my friends, is my flimsy excuse.

I can tell you that there is not much better in the travel experience, than pulling into the driveway of the place you're going to be staying for a while. It was a great feeling to pull into the driveway at Rob's parents house and know that we didn't all have to get in the car for more than a 10 minute drive for 3 whole blessed weeks!

We had a delightful time relaxing and playing with family most of the time. Rob even got to do some work while he was there. Sadly, during the first week, while he was in the parking lot at Temple Square, the van got hit. Now, part of the plan for the trip was to work with Grandpa Gwilliam to put a new bumper on the van and paint it because of an unfortunate birthday run-in with a concrete pillar and the resulting odious crack in it. So, besides it being a bit of a pain, it was a blessing that we were able to have the bumper and side panel professionally replaced by the girl who hit us which saved Rob and Grandpa a lot of work.

We were so happy that we were in Utah for the annual Memorial Day Graduation BBQ. Here's the poster I made to commemorate the occasion. (Instead of one banner for all the grads, this year everyone had their own poster.)

Grace and Lucy had a blast by swinging on the teeter-totter swing pretty much the whole time we were there. Sadly, I don't have a picture of it.

Ruby also enjoyed swinging for much of the time.

Rob enjoyed the volleyball until blocking a particularly nasty spike from a friend that injured his thumb, which, like most volleyball injuries he thought he could shake off if he took a break for a few minutes. But, when we got home and it was still hurting really badly, we headed off to InstaCare where after a few x-rays we found out he'd torn a ligament in his thumb and would have to see an orthopedic specialist and get a cast put on. We did the next day and Rob got a cast, which sadly, I don't have any pictures of (except as an aside in the ones below). He had to keep the cast on the whole time we were in Utah and got it removed the morning we left for California.

While we were in Utah, we bugged Dave and Annette enough to let us help with their house, that we painted a few walls and tore down some wallpaper for them.

One Saturday with nothing to do (besides paint) we headed to Wheeler Farms. We were also babysitting our niece Chloe, who is Ruby's age, so we took the kids to enjoy some animal time.

The best part was feeding the ducks and geese. They were so excited for food, that it made the kids kind of nervous to even hold the food for fear of being attacked. They were pretty good with the kids, but Rob had a goose nibble on his foot.

Ruby was super excited for summertime and spent a lot of time carrying around her swimming apparel and dreaming of the day when her lame parents would actually take her swimming.

The highlight of the trip was a family trip to Park City with all of Rob's siblings and parents and nieces and nephews. We stayed in a 2 bedroom condo that a friend owns. It was squishy but super fun! We spent most of the time just hanging out and trying to get the kids naps so they'd not be super cranky.

We did get to go to the Park City museum which is actually really cool and hand-on all about the history of Park City.