mini vacation

Chris had to be in Evanston, Wy for a couple of days to do an audit, and since Evanston is so close to some of my favorite places, I decided to take the kids out of school for a week and go with him. It worked out perfect because the company he works for was forcing him to use up some of his vacation which he used after the audit.

We left our house on Sunday afternoon and after a six hour drive got to my sister Joni's house. The kids had a blast, Hayden especially loved Gavin's room. They got to play for awhile then we made pizza. They have a little guest house, which is where we slept - in the camping trailer. The boys got scared because the bad guys might break in, and I was told "bad guys are real!". Kenzie got to skip school on Monday- she had other cousins coming for a quick visit too, so we stayed and let the kids spend some more time together. Then we headed to Evanston to the hotel for the night. One of our first stops was to go show Dusty where we lived for six months when he was just 1 year old. Hayden felt left out and said he lived there too when he was a baby. So I told him it is true, he was a tiny spec in my belly when we lived there, growing bigger every day.
One of the kids favorite things about staying in the hotel with dad is swimming in the pool. Hayden was so excited that he tried to get ready all by himself. It looks like he had planned to swim upside-down.
This picture pretty much sums up how Kyrie felt about swimming! Actually she got out of swimming the first night, and she tried to get out of it again the last night, but mom forced her in. This was her first swimming experience, and a little scary!
I finally took her out of her floaty and she felt much more secure, but still overwhelmed by it all.

We stayed Monday night in the hotel and headed to my parents on Tuesday morning to stay a night with them. Sherin brought her kids over to play and they had so much fun that Sara decided not to go to a birthday party so that she could play with Dusty awhile longer. Dusty later told me that when he was at Sara's house they got to wait for her bus to come and Uncle Mark had really cool x-ray glasses and that he could see the bus coming through the trees. Cool! Before we left my parents, I wanted a couple pics of the kids and Hayden was posing by Rylee and asked if they should kiss for the picture. I said "No, .......... wait, did you guys kiss?" Rylee kept saying, "No, no, we didn't!" And Hayden said, "Yes we did, in the sandbox!"And Rylee still insisted that they hadn't. So I said that's okay, just don't do it again. But why not, they kiss their moms, dads, little sisters, grandparents and they like each other too, so what's wrong with a little kiss? So Hayden and I had a little talk on the way back to the hotel!

We were gone for a week didn't stay in one place for more than one night in a row - until we got to Vernal. We were all over the place! After spending Wednesday night in the hotel, we got up and headed home - Chris was trying to fool the boys and tell them we were headed home and then pull up in the driveway of our old house in Vernal. But it didn't work! The boys recognized the neighborhood before we headed down the road to our old house. I didn't know how I'd react to seeing my house, I was afraid I'd start to bawl. But we drove by and took several long looks and it's just a house! I miss being there though, I'd love to go back! I miss almost everything about our lives there. And I have a lot of fond memories living on that corner. I miss the neighborhood and the whole little town. We stayed a couple of nights in Vernal, just two doors down from our once-upon-a-time-home, we stayed with our friends Ian and Heather. We were allowed to stay ONLY IF we took our fun games to play. So we had to suffer through a couple more game nights, Oh we miss those fun times! We got to see several people we know, we went to the shop where Chris worked to say "HI" and I also a few people at the store, and a few old neighbors, who refered us to being back to "the promised land, and Zion". Chris may not feel that way about Vernal, but I agree with the neighbors! And we, or I guess the boys also got to see Ranger.

We had Ranger since he was about 6 weeks old, but decided we couldn't take him to Colorado. He was used to roaming the neighborhood and the mountains and knew he would go crazy being locked up in a tiny backyard. A close by neighbor stopped by one day to show his interest in Ranger, so he now has a new home, just 2 houses north of where he used to live. He loves chasing things so it's perfect that he is now a cow dog! I will be honest and say I even miss Ranger (I don't usually like animals). Ranger had a few things that I loved about him: watching him trying to catch bubbles, chasing the snow as we shoveled it off the deck and the loyal friend he was to Hayden. I was curious to find out how Ranger responded to the boys and Chris said he was so excited! After 6 months he still remembers the boys. Chris said that Bro. Dixon, Ranger's new owner tried to get him when Chris and the boys were leaving and Ranger wanted to stay by the boys. He misses us too!

OLD TIME BEST BUDDIES!