We went to Utah for my parent's 40th anniversary party. Tons of fun and even more nonstop busy than our usual Utah trips.
This was Roxy's first plane ride (and Pippa's like 500th plane ride) and she handled it pretty ok. T finally got her to sleep on the plane.
We flew into P-land so we stopped in Utah County to see our friend Mrs. J from the original USC freshman family. The kids ran around outside while we visited. Pippa enjoyed riding the push car (how many push cars do you know of that have a hemi?!)
Babies! Mrs. J's twins are about two months younger than Roxy.
Then a bunch of stuff happened. Not in a bad way, just in a crazy busy way and now I can't remember what happened when. I actually brought a book to read during the down time. Except there was literally no down time. The longest I did nothing this whole trip was one night for about 20 minutes on my parent's couch.
We made Roxy this little nest on the guest bed for napping.
One of the best parts about staying at my parent's house is that when the babies wake up in the morning we just take them out to my parents to play and T and I go back to sleep. Here Pippa is babysitting Grandpa.
Roxy fresh from the bath.
I met bestie J-Ho for lunch and T took the girls to play at his parent's house. Pippa and Roxy napped at the same time while they were there. Love when that happens.
Part of the anniversary festivities was coloring and hunting for Easter eggs. Here's Pippa with the first egg she found.
The older cousins were so helpful in helping Pippa find eggs.
Little R kept carrying around the full egg cartons and wouldn't give them back so we could re-hide them.
After the egg hunting in the basement.
Playing dead horses!
I met besties H and M that night and of course forgot to take a photo!
Getting Roxy to sleep. Love Roxy's arm rolls here!
M making brownies while his parental units went to the temple.
Awww. Cousin hugs!
One of the projects that kept us busy - making the 40th banner. Each pennant had a bit of trivia about my parents.
At the park so the kids could burn some energy.
M has some great facial expressions.
Upside down Dad! (One of Pippa's favorite things to do is "upside down Pippa")
Grandma is so nice to let the kids play on her piano.
LOVE this one of my dad and Roxy.
Friday some of the cousins went to the Children's Museum together.
This isn't a slide. It's an accessibility ramp, but Pippa treated it like a slide!
While T took Pippa to the Museum I stayed home to work on some of the anniversary party things. Grandma and Grandpa P (my mom's parents) made the trip to UT from WY for the party and they stopped by.
Grandpa P meeting Roxy.
Grandma P meeting Roxy. Roxy is named for this wonderful woman. Roxy also has her lovely blue eyes. It makes me so happy.
While I worked on the banner, my mom and grandma worked on the punchboard. (What's a punchboard? It's an alternative to a pinata.
Like this)
Then we all strung the banner.
The finished punchboard. The punchboard was for the under 5 set. The older kids did a pinata.
After the punchbox and banner were finished I ran to 7 stores in 1 hour to find a dress for Pippa for photos that we were going to take with T's family. Bought four dresses at two stores and raced home so we could take Pippa and Roxy to T's sister's house. Dropped them off and then headed to The Old Spaghetti Factory for the adults only dinner portion of the 40th anniversary weekend. It was so nice to just have adults! Sadly, I don't think we got any photos!
Here's what Pippa and Roxy were up to while we were eating:
Acting like they own the neighborhood lawn furniture.
Mixing pancakes
And eating pancakes.
The next day (Saturday, the 28th) was my parent's actual 40th wedding anniversary and we started the day with family photos. A separate post coming on that. But here's a quick shot of just J's family. Adorable!
After the mass photo taking madness we all went to our separate homes for lunch, naps, and quiet. Roxy wasn't quite ready to nap yet. This video isn't really about anything, but I think Roxy is cute in it and I like my hair in it. And since I'm in charge of the blog I'm including it.
T stayed at my parent's house with the girls while they napped and I drove with my parents to D's house to set up for the 40th party.
(A side story: T brought his suit to Utah for photos. He took it to the dry cleaners in UT and forgot to pick it up Saturday morning. He was going to get it Saturday after the girls woke up but the dry cleaners were already closed! At 2 on a Saturday! And they wouldn't reopen until Monday after our flight left! And we needed the suit for Sunday! Not cool! After the 40th party we hit Kohls and bought some dress pants for T that we both actually ended up loving that worked for the photos.)
Two weeks before my mom and I set up this tentative schedule. And it pretty much went this way (we took out the adult pinata and newlywed shoe game and added in decorating sugar cookies at the very start, and put the slideshow and videos right after dinner started)
LOVE this photo of my mom and H.
A sidenote: The last set of group photos in the morning was the grandkids in number order in their number shirts. Without planning it every single grandkid kept their shirt on and was wearing at the actual 40th anniversary party. It was fantastic!
The swings were super popular.
This is R in the background blocking the door and asking her dad for the password. It's kind of her thing.
During the game "I love all my relatives who..." my dad said "I love all my relatives who like to paly dead horses!" and the grandkids immediately started an impromptu game of dead horses.
That morphed into playing dead horses on grandpa.
Some of the extended family made it to the party, too! Cousin S and her kids with Grandma P.
Seriously couldn't drag R away from the swings.
A grandma hug for Pippa while the slideshow of my parents (made my cousin J) plays in the background.
A panorama while the video was playing
Photos with Grandma and Grandpa P were a hot commodity. (And you can see the number banner in the background)
Cousin S's family arrived after we did the punchboard (traffic!) but we saved their punches so they still got in on the fun.
As my Aunt E pointed out: Oldest daughter, oldest daughter, youngest daughter, youngest daughter, oldest daughter. LOVE this photo of all these girls I love.
That's the very short (word) version. I've forgotten a lot of things, but I just wanted to get it out there before I forgot everything! Another post coming from our time in UT with T's family.
