Utah

We had the chance to go to Utah as a family last week.  Brad was able to schedule two interviews during the week, so it was completely worth it for all of us to head down there.  We spent a week enjoying time with grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and friends.  The week went by so fast, and we enjoyed every minute of it. Ivan was quite the trooper during the drive and we only had about 3 major scream sessions on the 12 hour drive to and from our destinations

The weather in Utah was unusually warm.  Ellie and Chris spent an afternoon working in the yard with Grandpa.  Grandpa was working on his beehives, and they were quite interested.  He taught them a little about his bees.  They even got to taste honey straight from the honey comb.

We spent an afternoon with the Winter cousins at the Treehouse Museum.  Ellie and Ainsley were so fun to watch.  They just picked up on their friendship as if it hadn't been months since they last saw each other.  

Hyrum and Christian enjoying the dinosaur exhibit.

  Going to Utah, Christian was  most excited to shoot Grandpa with a Nerf gun.  He was also very excited to meet the Stout's new puppy Sniffy.  He was pretty excited about the idea, but just didn't really take to Sniffy's energetic personality upon actually meeting him.  Despite only really seeing Sniffy through the window, Christian now talks about some day getting a dog "with no whiskers like Sniffy."  

Lee helped Christian and Ellie build a big big big lego tower the morning we left.  They are still talking about how cool it was.  

On our drive home, we spent the night in Pendleton.  the last 45 minutes before arriving there, you have to go over a pass and Ivan just hated the whole idea.  He screamed for over a half hour while Brad drove on wet, foggy roads with bad headlights.  I tried desperately to keep Ivan quite with multiple attempts to stick his binky in his mouth, without success.   This is him as soon as we got to the hotel though.....happy as a clam.  Silly Boy.  Sadly, he has given up on the binky all together since we got home.  It's as if he knew he would want it for the trip, and that's it.  

When we got home, I couldn't believe how much this little man had changed.  He just looked so different in the familiar environment of our home after having been without it for a week.  We are struggling with naps and sleeping through the night now days, which I am not loving.    He's got a voracious appetite and is eating about every  2 1/2 hours pretty regularly.  He wakes up once or twice during the night and even woke up 3 times once this week (yuck).  This week he also rolled over from belly to back, has been grabbing at things, and has just been super smiley.