Utah!

We were so happy to arrive in Utah safe and sound after traveling so far.  I love to see my family and our visits never seem often enough.  We were in Utah for 3 days (over Memorial Day weekend) and then we left the kids with my parents while Ben and I spent 5 days in New York.  Then we flew back to Utah and had 2 more days to play before driving back to Arizona.  I've squished all of our Utah pictures in one post - pre and post New York trip.

The Bean Museum at BYU - it had been a long time since I've visited this place... brings back memories :)

Emma enthusiastically raising her hand to answer a question during the reptile show...

Daddy keeping Claire happy...

At the Cocoa Bean enjoying hot chocolate and cupcakes...

We played a lot of games - like Pictionary and Scrabble... we discovered that scrabble tiles will stick to your forehead... :)

Aaron being such a good uncle...

We spent a morning at Grandma and Grandpa Smith's house in Salt Lake.  The rope swing is always popular...

Stefani keeping Claire company...

We hiked up the hill behind Grandma and Grandpa's house... it's always an adventure...

Wait, what?!  A trampoline in the mountains?  We don't know for sure why it was there... but some of us couldn't help but jump on it...

The beautiful view from the top of the hill (and the aforementioned trampoline)...

Thanks grandma for the pinwheel!

We wandered City Creek mall... I bought some shoes... and Jake got really wet...

On Memorial Day we had a grilling party on the new backyard deck - and we had to include the famous flag cake...

After our New York trip, we enjoyed some more outdoor grilling, this time with smores included...

The next morning we visited Silver Lake.  It is so gorgeous there.  We walked the boardwalk and then had a picnic lunch...

Then we grabbed the kids fishing poles to try out some fishing... the picture below is the last pic I snagged BEFORE Jake fell in the lake.  haha.  No really, he fell in the lake.  He tripped over his own two feet and fell right in as we were almost to the fishing dock.  Grandma was able to grab him by his shirt and pulled him out without anyone actually having to jump in after him.  He was completed drenched, and I didn't have any spare clothes for him, so Ben took him to the car to strip him down and dry him off and watched a movie in the van while the rest of us did some fishing.  Poor Jake.  I'm just sad I didn't get a picture of him all drenched. :)

Dad testing out Jake's spiderman pole... since Jake wasn't there to use it...

I was trying to untangle the line on Emma's pole... I tried doing some casting, and I wasn't very good... Emma is much better than me!

Claire enjoyed eating snacks...

That evening we picnicked some more... this time at Storm Mountain.  It was beautiful - it was a wonderful evening the night before we had to travel back home...

Grandma spotted a deer...

You can never have enough smores...

Aaron and Becca concentrating really hard on roasting the perfect mallow...

Next up: New York City!