Utah Trip 2009

We recently returned from a great vacation out to Utah.

The moving walkways...

having your own personal tray that opens and shuts with the simple flip of a switch...

and finally being able to eat the "suckers for the air-pane ride"

probably would have been vacation enough for 5 excited kids (and their parents).

But we did some other fun things, too...

We visited with Brent's family and over half of his nearly 50 Smith cousins at 2 different wedding receptions.

The kids got bench-pressed by Uncle Kevin.

We built the Great Human Pyramids.

We hung out with old high school buddies and the next generation of high school buddies.

We hiked up Y Mountain (a family tradition when visiting Utah) with Amy's old BYU roomates.

Brent got a sore foot on the trip...we think this might of had something to do with it. (It's a very steep hike...apparently too steep for our 2-year-old to handle physically and emotionally alone!)

The girls wore purple nightgowns with Nana.

We had Cousin Camp 2009 (actually 2nd Cousin Camp) with Joel and Karen's kids. They have 2 girls and 3 boys for us to match up with. The pairing up was fun to watch.

We climbed waterfalls,

and canoed Utah Lake.

The highlight of my trip was watching our 3 oldest bravely take the canoe out alone...on their first day of ever holding a paddle.

It's very satisfying watching your children accomplish new things...but it's also lonely to stand and watch them go into unchartered waters without you. I wish I could've been a fly on a life-jacket, listening to their chatter as they navigated through the reeds.

But I had this cute, smiley face to enjoy on shore! Allison loved being in a life-jacket.

We visited Temple Square.

We played for 4 days with Cousin Kylie, which turned into another Cousin Camp!

We carved initials into Uncle Brian's lawn.

And we took LOTS of pictures to carry these priceless memories long into the future.

Thank you to all the Friends and Family who helped make this trip GREAT!