I {heart} Utah

Oh boy, oh boy. I reeeally need to be better at this whole blogging thing. Too much has happened lately! I can't keep up with it all. This post has been sitting in my drafts for forever it seems. I've debated on completely throwing it out and starting fresh with life as of now, but I hate thinking that I might be leaving holes in my attempt to document life and family and marriage. And I'm not kidding when I say that sooo much has happened in these past couple months. I almost feel obligated to write about every little thing {for my own personal reasons}. Ugh... well, I better get blogging.


Now, to finish what I started months ago.


I simply adore Utah. It tends to be the meeting place for pretty much anything celebratory {weddings, anniversaries, temple endowments, holidays, parties, camping, baby blessings, etc} on both sides of the family. Jason and I will seriously use any excuse to make a trip down, and recently we've had a lot of reasons to.

While we were still living in Texas, I got a call from my aunt Angela asking if Jason and I could fly down for my Syddall grandparent's 50th anniversary surprise party. Obviously we didn't want to miss it, but plane tickets from Texas are pricey, pricey. She really wanted the whole family to be there for it, so she offered to help pay for our tickets, along with some other family members. SO sweet of them! We got there just in time to help set up which we were more than happy about. It was the least we could do! When my grandparents walked in the room, you could just tell that they were SO HAPPY and surprised to see all of their family together. It's not very often that happens. It was the best time and I'm so glad we could be there for it! My mama captured the party perfectly in her blog post which you can find here. :) But here are some of my favorite pictures from that day!

I have so much love for this family of mine!

Our next visit to Utah was for the Salt Lake City Comic Con. Jason's all-time favorite author, R.A. Salvatore, was going to be there and Jason did not want to pass up an opportunity to meet him. {For those of you who don't know, Jason has written and published a book called Twin Legends and R.A. Salvatore's novels are what inspired him to do so.} We drove down from Idaho one Friday evening and stayed the night at my Syddall grandparents. They treated us to dinner & ice cream at Leatherby's and then we all stayed up chatting in the living room until 2 am. I love the fact that Jason adores my grandparents as much as I do. The next morning I dropped Jason off at the convention center and {assuming he would be occupied for a couple of hours} started driving toward Eagle Mountain to help Britta and Austin with their move. But only about 30 minutes after I dropped him off, he called saying he was ready for me to come get him. He literally got in, met Salvatore, and got out-- that was all he wanted. I turned the car around, picked up my babe, and we started our way back to Rexburg. Jason was extremely happy which made our spur-of-the-moment trip completely worth it.

We made yet another trip down to Bountiful one weekend because my mom was watching Scarlett while Britta and Austin were in Hawaii {so jealous}. I was in absolute heaven with that girl! Within the first thirty minutes, she was clinging to me like I was her temporary mama. I didn't mind it one bit! That sweet babe has no idea how much she's loved.

Little did we know at the time that we'd be making a few unexpected visits shortly after. My Aunt Jana and Uncle Brian passed away only weeks apart from each other.  It's been a whirlwind of emotions for our family and it still makes me incredibly sad whenever I think about it, so I think I'll save that post for another day.