SO....we took a trip! A great trip. To the quaint little town of Las Vegas.
Our great friends from Georgia, the Lindquists were blessing their newest addition, Beckam and invited us to come on down! So we started planning a mini family vacation. Then a week before the trip, we got the news that Jess' Grandpa Winn, who was such an amazing man, had passed away.
His funeral would be the following week, in Vegas. What a blessing it was that Jess had already cleared himself and prepared to take off the time from school, and we had already budgeted money to get down there! A wonderful tender mercy. There's no way he would have missed it. It just made everything so much simpler to leave behind.
Jess had the greatest idea to drive down through Ephraim and revisit our old courtship (and his childhood) stomp'n grounds. We drove through Mt. Pleasant, and we all saw the house he lived in there and his elementary school.
Then off to Ephraim--ahhh, Ephraim, it's such a great great place. And this time of year I didn't even smell the turkeys which was awesome! Anyway, we made a stop at Roy's (ha! Doesn't it look like "Boy's" in this picture--how ironic)
This used to be Fat Jacks Pizza and mmmmm. I love it. Good memories of their pizza, and country dancing upstairs, plus, they have a cute little candy and ice cream shop. The boys all got $2 to fill up their candy bags. Then we drove around to show them dads old house, the school, an attempt to show them my old house "The Fishbowl"..but turns out it had been leveled to make room for another church which is awesome and a bummer. Memories of ultimate Frisbee, intramural racquetball with Jess, warm homemade bread at the institute, and dating an adorably amazing guy.....and then dating Jess--HA HA! Just kidding--see what I did there. I love that Jess and I'm soooo so blessed that he chose me and that he's the guy I fell madly in love with.
Still driving near Ephraim, we passed this adorable Mater on the side of the road. I made us turn around so Rhett could get a picture on it. He loves love Mater.
Here's Melodie holding Max at the luncheon after the funeral. She is soooo good with my kids. They love her.
Rhett and his cousin became best friends soooo fast! They ran around the whole time together. Love.
We saw some amazing video footage of Jess' dad and brothers dressed u and singing...it was so insanely special.
After awhile watching this slide show, I went to find all the kiddos. They were in the primary room organizing a news cast. It was adorably cute. Seriously, don't you love how quickly kids meet someone and are best friends.
Playing basketball together.
Crazy night at the IHOP. Favorite quote of the night was won by Melodie. Kade kept eating sugar packets. He was talking kinda loud and I said to use his inside voice.
Melodie: "After 4 packets of sugar--that is his inside voice." HA HA HA. So true. We also played a rad quarter game at the table. Ihop is a wonderful place!
After all of Jess' family had driven back home we got to spend some time with our great friends the Lindquists!
YAY! I love this girl.
playing at the park...i didn't really get any amazing shots since it got dark so soon..but it was great fun running around and playing tag--then playing hide and seek in the dark with the kids! Good times.
Sunday morning we were able to head over to Jessica's parents house and be there for Beckam's baby blessing. Then afterwards we went to church with their ward.
One of the best parts about this whole stay was that we got to stay in a house with the Lindquists. That equals maximum hanging-out-age. So...that was super nice :) Here's a picture taken during Movie night with Mac and Cheese. So. Focused.
Breakfast. I love how sleepy and dazed they still look.
Doesn't Jessica and Beckam look so so so cute here? Yes, yes they do. We went to one of those bouncy places with all the kids. Best choice ever. They absolutely loved it! Plus I love that they let parents get on and play with them. But I also loved so much that we were practically the only people there. SCORE!
Lucas was actually really mad in this picture. I can't remember why....so there you go.
They treated us to a WONDERFUL night out at the Cheesecake factory. And what's amazing with that? Jessica's mom watched all the kids. How angelic is she? So so so sweet. It was great to have some time to just talk without having to keep the peace with kids.
Most amazing Strawberry Shortcake (he's not a cheesecake fan). Right? It's huge? And even though we shared our meal there was no way he could finish that!
yup...he tried this. It was special, and a dare, and all sorts of whipped creamy.
We did bring Max along cause we knew he'd be just fine and didn't want to put too much on Jessica's willing mom. (seriously, so so nice of her) and he was a stallion. They even gave him a special complimentary plate for babies. They had a bunch of cute little breads and banana slices. That's sweet right? Plus, there was another little baby off the end of the table and he and Max had this smiley laughy communication the entire night. It was awesome.
Jess, Bridger, Beckam, and Luke. Sweet! Beckam had a hard time out there. The first few months of his life were spent crying a lot. He's much happier now, which is a HUGE blessing to poor Jessica. But see here? In Jess' arms he WASN'T sad. So there's that.
Luke with Bridger. There was a pool table at the house (it was a seriously amazing house complete with a bazillion rooms and beds, a pool, a pool table and TV in the rooms. The kids were in heaven.
I love these two. They're super cute together.
We had a great time with our friends and found out that they're MOVING to UTAH!! woo woo! So that was great news. We'll get to see them tons more now :) Thanks Lindquists for the invite. We had a great great time!
