We had been looking forward to July for months now because we were so excited to go to Utah! Josh's brother Tony and his family drove from Texas and we had a fun family reunion with everyone. I was worried about traveling while pregnant because I had no idea if I would get nauseous etc. and being sick is the worst when you aren't at home in your comfort zone. I went to the OBGYN for the first appointment the day before we left and the Nurse Practitioner (apparently you aren't allowed to see the actual doctor the first appointment...... sooooo annoying) assured me that it was perfectly safe to travel. She also told me I could come in when we got home and have a "sneak peak" ultrasound to see the baby! I guess she only does it on Mondays? Again, weird.
My mom slept over the night before we left so she could drive us to the airport. We took her out for frozen yogurt that night to thank her and Austin was in heaven. I make sure to load up my yogurt with plenty of strawberries because he eats them ALL!
Wednesday 7/2:
We woke up super early the next morning (4am for me, 5am for everyone else) to get ready to hit the road! Austin was not happy about being woken up so early and he let us know it! He did pretty good on the flight but was overly tired and couldn't sit still. I just kept telling myself, "at least he's not crying and throwing a fit" as Josh and I bounced him back and forth between us, trying to keep him entertained. The poor kid just can't sit still! We were extremely excited for the plane to land and then the fun began!
Janis and Steve (Josh's Mom and Step-Dad) picked us up from the airport. I felt bad because they were so excited to see us and we felt like walking zombies and probably didn't seem as excited as they would have hoped. Austin was asleep before we even made it halfway to their house. We picked up some food from
Kneaders and then put Austin down for a nap and relaxed for a bit. When he woke up Grandpa Steve showed him how to play the awesome antique player piano! Austin loves music and loves to play the piano, so meeting a piano that plays itself was quite the fun experience!
Later that evening both of Josh's brothers and their families came over for a BBQ. It was so much fun! It made me miss Utah so much. The weather was warm but it was nothing compared to Nevada. Plus, there were trees for shade and cool soft grass to run your feet through. We had a great time just watching Austin run through the grass! He has gotten good at walking but was pretty unstable on the lawn because it wasn't perfectly flat so he resembled a drunk person trying so hard to run and failing miserably. He got the hang of it though after a while. He loved playing with his cousins and they loved him! It was so cute watching all the little kids playing together. It made me wish we lived closer to everyone so Austin could have more experiences like these. Tony's little girls were obsessed with "baby Austin" as they fondly called him and they all had fun playing "monster." Apparently Austin was the monster. Whenever the little girls would call for him to come get them he would chase them (the best he could in the grass) and they would run away screaming. It was adorable. My jaw muscles hurt that night from smiling so much.
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| learning how to walk in grass! |
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| Falling down a lot! |
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| Getting chased by Grandma. |
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| Run away!!! |
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| Can you tell Grandma Janis was in heaven? |
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| Meeting cousins! |
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| Relaxing in the back yard. |
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| Hanging out with Uncle Nick. |
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| Austin couldn't figure out why this guy looks so much like his Daddy! |
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| Baby cousins meeting for the first time (Whitley and Austin)! We are so excited that they are only 6 months apart and hope they will become good friends in the future. |
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| All this fun calls for a drink! |
Thursday 7/3:
The next day Josh and I went to the Dentist (aka Josh's brother Nick), then met up with Grandma and Grandpa for lunch, and then a took a trip to the zoo! Can I just say that we LOVED the zoo! It was so fun watching Austin get excited about the animals and seeing his reactions. His favorite was the monkeys; especially the gorilla! It was a big silverback gorilla and Austin got himself right up to the glass and put his hands up and was pounding on the glass in excitement. The gorilla ignored him for a while and then finally started walking towards the little trouble maker who was disturbing his quiet afternoon. Suddenly all of Austin's courage disappeared as the big hairy beast came right up next to the glass and he ran for his life! It was hilarious! Austin watched until the gorilla went back to what he was doing and then wanted to be put back down again so he could resume his position at the glass. That was my favorite memory of the whole day :).
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| Eating lunch at Hires Big H. Austin was a big fan of the menu ;). |
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| Where's Austin?? |
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| Yay! Hogle Zoo!! |
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| Watching the elephants. |
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| Riding the carousel. Austin was in awe of how it all worked. He kept looking up at the pole as it went up and down, trying to figure out the mechanics of it. |
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| Good polar bear.... |
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| Dad was happy he got to ride too! |
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| Watching the monkeys. |
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| The gorilla! Austin's favorite! |
It started getting hot and I have been experiencing the joy of hot flashes and dizzy spells with this pregnancy, so Mom was possibly even more excited to discover the zoo's water park than Austin was! Everyone else was lame and just watched while the two of us got soaking wet playing in the water. Austin's face says it all! He was in heaven :).
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| WATER!!! |
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| Don't you love that face?! I can't get enough! |
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| And this face.... |
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| And this one too! |
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| Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for taking us to the zoo! We had a great time! |
Later that night we turned on the sprinklers and let Austin run through them. He had a great time and we laughed so hard watching him. I think I created a few new smile lines on my face from this trip because it felt like we were laughing the whole time!
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| He would get soaking wet and then come back to us to snuggle in a towel for a while. Minutes later he would be back out there playing again! |
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| This kid LOVES water! |
Friday 7/4:
The next day was the Fourth of July! We woke up early and went to Janis and Steve's ward pancake breakfast and hung out with Steve's daughter Ally and her adorable family for a while. Her little boy brought his cool new car over to the church and Austin got to go for a ride! It was seriously the cutest thing in the world watching those little kids pile into the car and watching Chance act like such a big boy driving them all around. Ally runs an online boutique and keeps all the clothing in her garage. So after breakfast we walked over to her house and I got to go shopping! SCORE!!
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| Wearing our Red, White, and Blue! |
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| Someone was hungry for pancakes! Hurry Grandma, let's go! |
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| Hanging out with Grandpa Steve while we loaded up in the car. |
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| At the pancake breakfast. Nobody does food like the Mormons! |
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| Can you say adorable?! |
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| The cool kids driving around in their car. |
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| We love you Grandma and Grandpa R! Thank you for all the fun! |
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| As we packed up our stuff and headed out for the next part of our vacation, Austin got to ride the 4-wheeler! |
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| Or pretend to at least... |
The second half of our Fourth of July was spent at Papa Art's house in Bountiful with Tony's family. We packed the day with playing soccer in the yard, exploring the flowers and hummingbirds in Papa's garden, getting chased around the house by cousins, lunch at
Rodizzio, and a Salt Lake Bees baseball game that ended with fireworks! It was such a fun, busy day and we didn't get to bed until around 1:30am the next morning. Austin did better than we thought he would with the lack of sleep and all. He was so distracted by playing with his cousins that he didn't even notice it was way past his bedtime! We left the ball park early because we weren't sure how Austin would handle the fireworks. The firework show started as we got to the parking lot and amazingly Austin did just fine! So we stood in the parking lot and watched them for a while. He was more in a daze than he was in awe, so maybe he only did so well because he was exhausted? I'm not sure.
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| Family soccer game in the front yard (Austin and Jaxson). |
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| Dad scoring a goal while Austin played defense. |
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| He obviously wasn't a very good defender since he cared more about moving around the orange cones. |
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| Is it cheating if you move the goal lines? haha |
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| Mom watching everyone play while I sat in the shade and sipped on my Coke Zero. Pure bliss I tell you! |
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| Austin following Papa Art around. |
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| Papa showing Austin the pretty flowers. |
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| Trying out his little chair on the porch. |
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| Lexi chasing Austin around the house. |
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| Playing soccer again with Uncle Tony. |
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| Austin showing Uncle Tony how to do a pouty lip when your team is losing. |
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| Playing with cousins at the baseball game (Austin, Lexi, and Ryland)! |
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| Lexi was such a little momma to Austin; she loves him so much! She sat next to him at the game and fed him Cheerios. |
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| She is seriously the sweetest thing in the world and Austin loved all the attention she gave him! She was by his side every day keeping an eye on him, feeding him, and playing his silly games. Talk about melt my heart! |
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| The family hanging out on the lawn. Of course Lexi is holding Austin ;). |
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| Meeting the mascot at the baseball game. Austin didn't know what to think... |
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| Family picture at the game! Austin was a big fan of shaved ice :). |
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| Watching the firework show from the parking lot. |
Saturday 7/5:
Saturday was more of a relaxation day which was nice after how busy we were the day before! Josh went to the gym with his dad that morning. Then we went outside with the kids and played in the sprinklers with water guns. After that, we went inside and watched the World Cup that has been going on. Later that evening we went to the park and had pizza and played another round of soccer. Well, everyone but Me, Ryland, and Austin. It was so hot and I was feeling pretty dizzy so I took Austin home and Ryland wanted to come with us. She was my little shadow the whole time we were there and wanted to do everything I did. I love her to pieces so I didn't mind one bit :). Neither of us wanted pizza so we had a bowl of cereal for dinner and then she helped me give Austin a bath. We then played tic-tac-toe in the living room while we waited for the others to come home.
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| Water fight (Ryland and Allie) |
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| Austin in the sprinklers. |
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| Cutie bug Lexi. |
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| Lovin' on the wet baby. |
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| Austin getting a pony ride from Papa at the park. It was so cute because Austin started copying Papa and making the clicking noise a horse makes when it runs :). |
Sunday 7/6:
Our plane left at 1:30pm on this day so we got to enjoy Artie's famous meat lovers breakfast. There was some drama that morning that made things a little stressful but we got through it. We had forgotten Austin's birth certificate at home and luckily we were allowed to get on the plane to Utah. However, they told us to find shot records or something because they wouldn't be so lenient a second time. I had called Austin's doctor and asked them to email me his records and then printed it out at Janis and Steve's house. Then, like a genious, I forgot it at their house! Art doesn't have a printer so I didn't have a way to print it out again and every business that you can pay to print stuff was closed on Sundays (only in Utah)! Luckily we got it worked out and Steve met Josh halfway to give us the copy I had forgotten. Anyways, breakfast was yummy as always and we enjoyed our last hours with family before we had to go home. Tony's family went to sacrament that morning and Ryland cried the entire time because she didn't want me to go home. She then again began crying as we said goodbye. It broke my heart! A few days later I got this adorable picture from Tony of a picture Ryland had drawn on the sidewalk with chalk that said "I miss Ashly." We miss them too so it's a good thing they are coming to visit us in Henderson this weekend!
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| The picture of Ryland that Tony sent me :). |
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| We got a whole row to ourselves on the airplane for the flight back home so Austin did much better this time! He made a huge mess out of the magazines and barf bags but at least he was able to have some space to play around. |
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| That mischievous look that tells you it's about to get interesting... |
As you can see from all the pictures, we had an amazing time! We were exhausted when we got home and missed everyone instantly. Austin must have been happy to be home because he got really happy when we walked in the door and went straight for all his toys. Grandma Helm had picked us up from the airport and as we gave her a quick run down of our trip, I couldn't help but be grateful for the amazing extended family God has given us on both sides and for how lucky we are to have so many people to love and who love us. It was a great vacation!
