We packed a dinner and headed to Centennial Beach for Family Home Evening. We ate sandwiches, roasted marshmallows, played in the sand, ventured out into the water (mostly Ryan), flew kites and enjoyed the warm summer night. So fun to be introducing these places to my kids.
As the sun was setting Matthew walked around with his own hand-made sunglasses.
Centennial Beach has a great playground and we played for awhile before heading home.
After church on Sunday we drove Chris to the airport and then continued North to Rob and Lindsey’s house to celebrate Payton’s First Birthday. So fun that it was while we were in Utah! She sure is a cutie! We ate Barbecued Coke Chicken and drank lemonade out of cute mason jars in their new backyard with plenty of room for all the cousins to run around. Payton opened her presents and hugged several of them – including her clothes. She takes after her Momma.
Then she had cake…
Monkey cupcakes made by Lindsey…
Rob and Lindsey’s new house. So fun to come see it! Love you guys.
One of the best nights in Utah was celebrating Chris’ 40th birthday with his parents and siblings. Ryan and Katie babysat most of the kids at home so we could go out just the adults. It was so much fun. We went to the Red Iguana for dinner and then wandered around the City Creek stores downtown until we finally just sat down by the fountain and talked and talked. Then we wandered down to Cheesecake Factory and ate a few bites of cheesecake right before midnight. It was so fun to hang out and talk with everyone with no kids. A great way to celebrate Chris’ big day. Chris’ sisters gave him a present with a card listing 40 things they’ve learned from him. It meant a lot to Chris. The kids and I gave Chris a coupon book full of fun gifts – including anything he wanted from the BYU bookstore and a new golf club. Happy Birthday, hon. Love you so much.
When we signed Ryan up for EFY at Brigham Young University we knew that ‘pick up day’ on Saturday would be our BYU day. Chris flew in late Friday night and we were in Provo by 8:00am with the family in tow. We picked up Ryan and headed to IHOP with the Astons and Heidi and Jared. On the drive over Ryan tried to condense the highlights of the week into ten minutes without success. The whole week was just awesome. His counselors were the best ones at the whole EFY. The dances were awesome. His crush of the week was so cute. The speakers were awesome. Yep… best week ever. We enjoyed breakfast and chatting with our good friends before saying our final goodbye. ‘Big Matt’ and Jared sure have been buddies with my ‘Little Matt’ and Luke. My Matt thinks nothing of the age difference and runs up to his ‘big’ friends whenever he sees them. They are going to miss them!! Jared is brother of ‘Big Emily’ who was my kids favorite babysitter while in Germany. Going to miss both of those families.
After our goodbyes we headed back to campus starting with the Stadium.
Next stop… Brittany Apartments south of Campus. The top apartment right behind me was mine. Chris’ apartment was around the corner. Great memories here. I got a little choked up thinking about all of it. So grateful to have met this guy 18 and a half years ago. Love you honey.
Next we met Marilee and kids and spent a couple hours in the BYU bookstore shopping for new t-shirts and stuff together. We both came away with a bag full – but shirts for eleven kiddos adds up. So fun to hang out with them. After walking around campus and taking pictures we headed to Noodle Co. for a light lunch.
The group of us… minus Adam.
When the four of us were dating we’d take all these pictures of the group of us and get them developed only to find that Chris and Adam were looking at each other instead of the camera. They thought they were so funny! Good memories!!
Marilee and kids
Cute girls… Annie is bending down so they can be more the same height.
Spencer and Ryan - Can’t believe how tall these guys are getting.
