Labor Day Weekend

This is soooo OLd NEwS at this point...but I have to post it just for journaling sake:

Scott & I spent Labor Day weekend at the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. We stayed at an awesome house [here's info & pictures about the house] in Teton Village from Friday night to Monday morning.
The drive there about killed us--agonizingly small roads with ZERO passing lanes, steady traffic (seemed like everybody was going where we were), we got pulled over but let off with a warning thanks to Luke, Luke didn't fall asleep until nearly 11pm in the car. We finally got there and it was such a relief.

Saturday we were able to sleep in and then had a wonderful breakfast that my MIL made for everyone as we discussed what we wanted to do. We had to things planned for the day--Alpine Slide and taking the tram/gondola up the mountain to the top to see the entire valley & the Tetons.

I only have pictures from the Alpine Slide--I have fake pictures from everything else:
Luke LOVED everything about it. He loved riding the ski lift up the mountain and he LOVED coming down on the slide. He couldn't get enough of it.

Alison & Anthony

Alison
Anthony
Me!
Scott

Grandpa & Luke

Darcy & Kenny
Derek

Scott, Luke & Alison

Grandpa(Bill) with Luke, Grandma (Brenda)
This is what the tram looked like, once at the top the winds were 30-50mph!! It was SOOOO windy! There were little gravelly rocks that kept hitting my legs and getting in my contacts!
We hiked down a trail and back to get some more views and we took cover from the wind in a little shop at the top while we waited for the tram to go back down. It was really cool and I don't think I've ever in my life been that high up before.

Sunday we spent the entire day in the National Park. We were expecting to see more wildlife, but we only saw a moose--though that was pretty cool in and of itself. It was just laying by the side of a river and really didn't care that hundreds of people were ogling at it all afternoon.
I decided that the Tetons are really really cool mountains. They are so tall and I love how they just jut out toward the sky. They were really pretty while we were there too.

We had some tire trouble on Sunday--the car was parked in the driveway and we woke up and found that we had a flat. Turns out 2 of our other tires really needed to be replaced too. We had to use the spare to get us to Idaho Falls to a Walmart on Monday. They were one of the few places open on Labor day to fix tires. So we had a couple hour detour there, but we were able to have lunch at Olive Garden with Scott's parents, Ali & Anthony and Scott's cousin & his wife, while we waited for our tires to get fixed. Then we headed home without another hitch.

All in All, despite our traveling woes,
The house was perfect, the weather was perfect, and it was a great weekend.

Las Vegas --Picture Overload.

My hubby joined his Dad, Uncle Nils, brother Derek, sister Darcy, cousin Mike, and his brother-in-law Anthony on a hike down into the Grand Canyon for a couple days.
Meanwhile, Luke & I joined Scott's mom, Brenda, and his sister Alison (married to Anthony who also went on the hike) on a trip to Las Vegas to kill time while we waited for them to be done sweltering in the middle of the Canyon.

[did you understand all that? Boys=Grand Canyon, Girls=Vegas]

The drive was made easier thanks to my new Netbook, that allowed Luke to watch movies at his fussiest moments.

At dinner Sunday night after the long drive and super long check-in.

we ordered a "side" of ONE egg and a "side" of hashbrowns and the kid's plate was bigger than mine!!
Needless to say, everyone in Vegas was drawn to his cuteness.


The view from our hotel window. We stayed at the Flamingo Hotel and we could see the Bellagio (left) and Cesar's Palace (right)

Inside one of the hotels, We decided this would make a fantastic wedding decor idea--huge flower balls hanging from trees with twinkle lights around all the branches!

Ali trying to get lucky with the huge slot machine

Back in the hotel, Luke woke up at exactly 6:34 every morning. he doesn't even wake up at that time at home so it was kind of weird. He spent the mornings eating cereal and watching PBS kids in my bed.

Luke did pretty good taking naps and sleeping in the hotel crib. I guess the 104 degree weather and all the visual stimulation really took a toll on the little guy.

The Aquarium at the Mirage. We couldn't get Luke to look at the camera because he was too busy staring at the fish.

Alison really wanted to go on the roller coaster at New York, New York. Unfortunately Brenda doesn't do roller coasters and I wanted to and would have but being pregnant I had to say no. She would have gone on it by herself but it wasn't open yet that morning.


Tuesday Night Brenda and Alison went to the Donnie & Marie show, Luke and I went down to the flamingo habitat and watched the flamingos and huge Koi fish for a while. Then we came back to the room and he watched Elmo before his bath while I packed my stuff to leave for the next day.

We don't have any pictures of it, but Monday night, Ali and I got to go see Phantom (i've wanted to see this for-ever!). We had tickets for seats in the far back corner, but when we got there they upgraded up to the 3rd row from the stage! It was completly fantastic and we loved it. That was probably my favorite part of the whole trip!

My least favorite part of the trip was that from all the walking on Monday in bad flip-flops, I pulled a weird muscle on my foot and had a really hard time walking around. We spend 2 hours at an outlet mall off the strip trying to find shoes (among some other shopping) that would make it easier to walk. I almost gave up and then we found some in the last store we tried. It made all the difference and I could enjoy the rest of my trip without limping around too much.

The morning we left, outside the Flamingo Hotel
Katie, Alison, Luke

We drove that day to Arizona, to the North Rim Lodge at the Grand Canyon. We met up with all the hikers and had dinner there at the lodge.
I love the Grand Canyon! It was beautiful!
And I can't believe my hubby hiked down and back up and all around it!!

Luke lost a shoe at the grand canyon. It disappeared from the car at some point after we met up with the boys and we never did find it. We had to carry him everywhere for the rest of that day and the next. It was not fun. Oh and I thought our cabin/room at the lodge was nicer than our hotel room at the Flamingo! 10 pts to G.C. for having nice places to stay at the North Rim!

The End. I may or may not get pictures from their hiking up here. I'll let you know where you can see them. I will probably just put up a link to the Smugmug album once we get them all uploaded. He had a really great time on his hike and is really glad he did it.

Winter Fun

Scott's brother, Kevin, and his wife, Amy brought Alexander (only 2 weeks younger than Luke) came to Utah last week from Georgia.

We took the opportunity to go skiing and snowboarding with Kevin and Darcy (Scott's sister who lives in UT) while Scott's dad, who also came out, watched Luke and Alexander. We went skiing up at The Canyons in Park City and then drove straight from there to Altonah to stay with Scott's grandparents for a night and go snowmobiling the next day! Quite the 2 days.

I've never gone skiing, so I did snowboarding--which totally wore me out. I did really well on the green runs, but after a blue one I was completely done for the day. I'm thinking I should try skiing just because it doesn't expend as much energy as snowboarding. OR I just need to do a million lunges before the next time I go snowboarding so I don't get worn out so fast.

Getting ready to leave--Luke & Alexander trying out the snowboard

Snowmobiling was great too. Scott took me up there to go snowmobiling for our second date way back in 2006 and we haven't gone since. This time I had my own to drive and i had a good time with it. I only wiped out twice. The first time I almost hit a fence and bruised up my leg pretty good (oops), but the second time I basically just fell off into a bunch of snowy powder.

Scott, Katie & Luke (and Max)

Amy, Kevin & Alexander

Scott and I tried some 'stunts' --he tried to snowboard behind me as i pulled him with the snowmobile.

Overall it was an awesome 2 days and great to spend with Kevin & Amy (they stayed up at the Grandparent's for the rest of the week and then came back to our place the following weekend before going home) but man, I was SO SORE.

We also got some great pictures of the boys in the snow. And some with the mommies who never really make it into pictures

making a funny face as grandpa tries to take his picture

crawling to Alexander--
Luke: "Hey come play with me!"
Alexander: "Dude, I'm trying to get my picture with my mom"

I love how fat Luke looks in all his snow gear--
usually he has a tiny body and a big head, but here it's the other way around!


Grandpa & his favorite boys