The Young and the Restless

Cousins and Utah Summers

There are few things in life as great as spending summer days in Utah with cousins. It is the home of some of my favorite childhood memories when we would road trip from Georgia to Utah and spend summer days building a tree house in grandpas apple tree, riding horses and playing in rivers at the family reunion, hot days spent with cousins at the public pool and cousin sleepovers on the trampoline. I'm so glad we can help create those same memories for our own kids. We stayed a few nights at the Howard's and Aunt Angel's house. Angel and I forgot we were responsible adults and stayed up talking and giggling until 4am. We paid for it dearly the next day, but I loved that time with her. Jayden hiked to Timpanogas Cave with the Caziers and Kylie babysat baby Lily with Jayci, so Jason and I took the boys canoeing on the Provo river. We had done this years ago with the Howards when we were newly weds and it was fun to bring the boys here. Ryder was convinced he was going to drown in 2 feet of water and Jason and Maddox were determined to ride at least one rapid. And to row faster than us at all times. We then took them to lunch at an old favorite, Sensuous Sandwich. 

 

 

We ate dinner at Allen and DeEtte's new home. Complete with an epic ping pong tournament and trampoline tricks at sunset. We haven't seen them since they moved from Vegas to Utah and it was so nice being able to catch up.

 

We met up with the Caziers at BYU to reminisce about the good old days. We practiced restraint and only bought one t-shirt each. And of course chocolate covered cinnamon bears. We then headed to the Creamery where we continued the nostalgia.

We then headed down to Mount Pleasant in time for date night at the food trucks while the cousins had a hey day with cousins at Tyler and Margaret's house. I am still craving that homemade BBQ Mac & Cheese Margaret let me taste, and regretting my tofu curry decision. 

We loaded up the kids and approximately 13 pillows and 8 blankets, then headed to the Manti pageant. They had the local's insider scoop and recommended going on the dress rehearsal night and it was the best! We didn't have to get there hours before hand to save seats or battle the crowds for parking. It's been years since we've been and all I remember is being a stress case about losing kids in the crowds, so this was so nice to be able to just relax and enjoy the performance. The kids actually got way more into it than I expected and had lots of questions along the way. Usually this is one of those things that you feel like you should go to but nobody really actually likes it, but thankfully this was not the case and it ended up being a perfect evening.

The next day was the kick-off for our big family reunion. We all hit the road (2 hours later than planned, of course) and headed to Moab! We cousin swapped in cars and we ended up with Connor in our car and it just so happened to be his birthday. We stopped for lunch in Salina at a cute drive-in, thanks to Troy for the recommendation. Small towns are seriously the cutest. At this point we had only been on vacation for 5 days and had already made so many fun memories, with the promise of so many more ahead! Summer vacations are the best.