The Young and the Restless

Just Us

So we left Moab Sunday morning, which just so happened to be Father's Day. We celebrated with brunch at Sizzler. It was a bit of a nostalgic choice since that was our idea of fine dining back in the day when we were poor college kids. Either their quality has gone down or our sense of taste has improved, I would like to think it was the latter. We sat around eating all you can eat shrimp, and a salad bar for me thank you very much, and took turns saying what we love about Dad. I didn't even get a picture to commemorate the moment, but we are grateful for that man and all that he does for our family. He is definitely the fun one in this parenthood and I'm okay with that. I love seeing him joke around with the older kids and play hide and go seek and jump on the tramp with the younger ones. He's a pretty fun guy to have around. So after lunch we took Jason and Kylie to the airport. Jason had to go back to work and Kylie was going to EFY in Flagstaff with her friend Addi. The boys and I spent the night at Andrea's house then the next morning we dropped Jayden off at BYU where he attended basketball camp with his friend Spencer. I did take a photo on my phone, but later on my phone was lost, so unfortunately I don't have any pictures. He did have a great time and learned a lot. It definitely fueled his dream of coming to BYU! So after we dropped him off we met up with my friend Chelsea. After plans fell through and her car broke down we ended up sitting on the floor of the car dealership letting the kids eat popcorn before heading to the nearest park. I just love that girl and leave our conversations always feeling up lifted and re-energized. Everyone needs a friend like that. We stopped and visited the Gonzales'. Jason and I cared for their twin disabled girls when we were engaged and first married. We adopted them as our own family and have kept in touch over the years. Sadly one of the twins, Kay, passed away recently so it was good to be there and give them all hugs. After that I took the boys to the Wayne Bartholomew Park in Mapelton. It's a fun little Utah county "beach". Usually Ryder is quick to make friends but for some reason he was not feeling it and hung out on the shores with me most of the time. Probably because I had Oreos. Maddox on the other hand made lots of friends and it was fun seeing him out playing in the water with them. The highlight of his day, actually the highlight of his year, was when Maddox caught a garder snake. He instantly became the most popular kid there. He still talks about it to this day, it's cute. 

We then drove to my parents and spent a few days with them. The highlight was spending the day in the mountains with my dad. We drove through all the small back roads, the boys were getting bounced all over the place in the back seats. It was quite the off-roading adventure in such picturesque scenery. We took a walk around Lake Hill and swung on the rope swing at New Canyon Reservoir. My dad loves taking photos as much as I do, so there were plenty of scenic stops for photo-ops. I mostly just loved spending time with my Dad in his happy place.  

We stayed with Tyler and Margaret for a few days as well and nothing makes me happier than seeing cousins playing together. Shannon and Maddox are like two peas in a pod, they were hilarious together. Shannon orchestrated these little musical skits that had us rolling on the floor laughing. She recruited all the boys to participate and each skit was a different portrayal of the same plot: Shannon is caught in a love triangle with two boys and Maddox seems to always be the winning suitor, with Maddox muttering the whole time, "this is so awkward". Seriously priceless. And once again sadly those videos are lost along with my phone. We also had some highly entertaining wrestling by Dustin and Ryder. Dustin is a state champion wrestler, Ryder on the hand is as scrappy as they get. Too funny.

I love these small Utah towns with their cute little shops and haunted museums. Yes, haunted museums. We had lunch at the park, then went and explored the creepy Fairview Museum. It actually had some pretty cool artifacts, who knew these mountains were such a hot spot for Mammoth's and other dinosaurs?

The doll room is where things started getting creepy...

And the discovery of hidden passageways...

And then our own little personal backstage tour of the basement where one museum curator was convinced Ted Bundy hid out in. I'm not too convinced about that, but this doll in the corner was enough to creep me out! And that kid in the bottom corner of the picture. He is definitely not one of ours and I don't remember another kid being there with us...just saying...this used to be an old school and rumor has it that kids can be heard running the halls at night...eeeeekkkk!

We lightened things up a bit with a visit to the splash pad and ended the evening with dinner at the food trucks again. I was craving that BBQ Mac & Cheese all week long and was so sad when that truck wasn't there. But it was still a pretty perfect evening. Life doesn't get much better than pizza on the lawn, cousins running around and the live band singing "Brown Eyed Girl".

It was sad to say goodbye to family but it was time to go pick Jayden up from camp. The next morning we fit in one more adventure before getting Jayden. We hiked to Fifth Springs up Diamond Fork Canyon. It's about 2 1/2 miles each way so I was a little nervous about how the boys would do, especially considering how hot it is. They did great on the way up, I think the promise of swimming in hot springs was enough to keep them going.  And the promise of snakes. I had read that there were rattle snakes on the trail and took that as a warning, Maddox took that as an invitation to catch another snake. We almost stepped on one, it wasn't a rattle snake but it was pretty big. Maddox did not understand why I wouldn't let him catch it. Once we got there it was so cool, there is a waterfall that flows into several different pools that are terraced down the mountain. Each pool is a different temperature and they had fun hopping around. There were only a few other people there too, mostly because we're the crazy ones choosing to swim in hot water in the middle of summer. We ate a picnic then headed back down the trail where Ryder managed to slip and fall not once, not twice, not even three times, but a grand total of 4 times. Even when he was holding my hand, so I'm not quite sure how he managed to do it. Poor kid. Each fall was met with a fountain of tears and he spent the majority of the 2 1/2 mile hike back wailing and crying. Maddox was doing his best to be silly and make him laugh. Whenever Ryder is sad he asks Maddox to make him laugh. I love that about their relationship. I was glad once we finally reached the bottom, even though Ryder made it clear that THIS was why he did not like hiking.  I loved my time with these boys, they're pretty fun to have around!