Temple Square

It was a perfect afternoon to take pictures on Temple Square. The weather was fantastic! In fact I am missing my perfect Utah weather since we are back to hot and muggy and by the time I get home from taking Lana to school I feel like I need a 2nd shower and it's only 7:45am, but I digress.




It is so hard to get Tanner to smile nice at all let alone into a camera. He usually ends up with some funky face or looking all squinty. I remember Lana going through that phase, she still squints a lot but is better than Tanner.

I love this picture because it shows how attracted my kids are to water. We couldn't keep them away from the fountains.






Grandpa Jerry is trying to distract Tanner so he won't fall into the fountain and yet there's Lana on the side looking like she's tempting fate to push her in.

They were so full of energy but it was a beautiful day and a perfect one to hang out at temple square. Thanks for coming with us Grandpa!

The Church History Museum

The Church History Museum was another thing on my "to do" list since I'd never been. They had a lot of cool things there including a great play area for the kids to do activities and get their wiggles out from looking at boring grown up stuff.



John Taylor's watch

Joseph and Hyrum's death masks.


Lana and Tanner playing in the kids area.


The weirdest parking payment system we've every come across.

PS. Dad, I'm sorry I'm such a horrible picture taker. Now that I'm posting this I'm realizing we don't have any good pictures with you and the kids. What a slacker I am!

Bingham Copper Mine

When we were planning our trip I knew I wanted to take Tanner to see the Copper Mine. I knew he would love the big trucks (and I was right!).


Here he is enjoying all the Tonka trucks they have in their little visitor's center.

Bryce Canyon

Wow, I loved Bryce Canyon. Didn't love the weather so much (it was 58 degrees when we drove in). Quite the shock going from 109 in St. George to 58 in Bryce Canyon. When we got to the hotel, the kids wanted to go swimming again (indoor pool), so I took them while Paul went to go do a load of laundry. Five minutes of swimming and the kids lips were blue and their teeth were chattering. We did not stay long.



The next morning turned out to be beautiful and perfect weather for driving around and seeing the views.






We also stopped by the small town of Tropic where Paul's Grandma grew up. This is the old Tropic Post office that her mother ran and the home where they lived.

Zion National Park

Before we headed up to Zion's we stopped in St. George for the night. We met a family from Paul's mission at a pizza place and they told some fun stories. Later we took the kids to go swim in the hotel pool which they always love.



Why is there a stop light in the middle of nowhere?



Loved the scenery here. The weather was still kind of warm so we took the shortest hike they had. It was still too long and too steep for me in that hot of weather! I'm such a wimp.





This is the kids at the end of the hike. I was hoping for a little more than a pool of muddy water and a trickle falling into it, but it's what you get when you visit in late summer/dry season.




Tanner fell and scraped his ankle (hence the sad face in the picture). He still talks about his big owie on his foot 2 1/2 weeks later.

Hotel Hardy

A huge thank you to Suzie and Steve for letting us crash at Hotel Hardy. We had a great time playing with cousins (you should've seen how excited they both got while I was going through our pictures!) and just hanging out in general. We definitely need to do this more often!




On our last morning in Vegas we drove over to the Pawn Shop that has it's own show on the History Channel. It was Paul's only request that he wanted to take a picture with Chumley. How could I refuse?

Paul and Chumley. We are lucky we caught him. We wandered around in the shop for a few minutes looking around to see if we could find him. Someone said they saw him out in the parking lot so we went out to look around. And we saw nothing. Just a few seconds later, out walks Chumley. He got stopped by another family wanting to take a picture with him and we just slipped right in and took a picture. Two seconds later he got into a van and drove off.

Lake Mead

After Hoover Dam, we drove over to Lake Mead to swim and hang out for a while. It was hot, hot, hot and very windy. The shade tent blew over and hit a wave runner and some guys Escalade (oops!). But we all had a great time.



The cherry red Hummer. Its' novelty wore off after about 2 days. It was a pain to park, not very aerodynamic, and one of the tires had a slow leak so we had to fill it up every few days. We can now take the Hummer off of our list of luxury cars we'd want to rent.

Playin' in the dirt.


I love this picture of Kendyl. There's a rock she's standing on that makes her look like she could walk on water. Then Steve told her to strike the Karate kid pose. Awesome!

Tanner and Ryder's favorite part was throwing rocks in the water. The hardest part was getting them to throw rocks away from other people instead of at them.

Hoover Dam

Hoover Dam was one of our stops on the Judson Family Vacation this summer. I had been when I was 7 or 8 so I didn't remember much other than the smart mouthed guy who made all the "Dam" jokes during the tour.

Sweet Baby Cope

We had a great time on our extended vacation. Then on Saturday the 21st I had some complications and we delivered Baby Cope at 17 weeks. We were blessed beyond measure to have him in Utah where we were had our parents there to support us. We truly appreciate the prayers expressed on our behalf. We have felt loved beyond measure, especially now that we have returned home and are away from our family once again. We will forever miss our sweet baby Cope and know we'll be together again someday.