A little Utah for the soul

A trip to Utah is never a bad idea and we realized that with the Labor Day holiday, we had enough vacation to take a vacation. I was dreading the drive the whole time this trip was planned though. I don't like it myself, and I was pretty worried about how Harvey would do, as he isn't much of a fan of two hour drives to Minot. We ended up giving a girl I met through church a ride to Rigby, and she actually was helpful to have in the back seat. And Harvey did miraculously good on the way down. He was seriously amazing and didn't cry at all really until we got about 3 hours from home. We all felt his pain. But we made it.

We dropped our dogs off at my sisters (thanks Laura!!) and then stayed at Carson and Nat's house in Farmington. Harvey was SUPER excited to wake up and find out there was another dog in the house. When Tanner whistled to have Belle come upstairs, Harv all but JUMPED off the bed in excitement.
He also got pretty excited about all the baby toys.

Tanner has been needing to and meaning to tighten up a zip line he built for a friend. That was something he wanted to get done first thing so after a bit of errand running Friday morning, Harv and the dogs and us headed up to Coalville to get that taken care of. Harv had fun exploring and playing with the toys and basketball hoop. And Tanner rocked the tightening pretty quick. After that we headed back and got cleaned up and then went down to another essential stop - dinner at Rio Grande with his parents and then some shopping at City Creek.

I love this picture!

Clare had a brilliant suggestion of gelato after the mall. They had been recently introduced to a sweet spot in South Salt Lake, Sweetaly, so we went there and it did not disappoint. After that we swung by Carson's work to say hi. Harv was nervous about the fire truck for a few seconds then made himself right at home.

Saturday morning Tanner went with his brother Mason out to Miller Motor Sport's Park to help him do some stuff on his race car.. I met a couple of my good high school friends at Farmington Station. That afternoon we got together with all of Tanner's family (minus Preston and Nat's fam - they were doing bike races in Park City) for a bbq at his parent's apartment building.

Harvey was surprisingly uninterested in swimming. It was actually pretty funny because that little high chair thing was just sitting around and he walked himself over to it and sat down and got himself pretty much hooked in/situated all by himself. It was facing away from the pool and everyone and he sat there for a few minutes. Guess he was hungry :) So I got him some food and then turned him around and he ate and was happy but never ended up getting back in the water. Just running around like a crazy kid and chasing and being chased by cousin Payne. So fun to see him actually PLAY with other kids!

Sunday Carson and Nat blessed little Millie at their house. There was great food and fun to hang out again with family. I didn't take hardly any pictures, unfortunately, but I think this one is great!

My parents were out of town that weekend for my cousin's wedding out of state and then were actually leaving again later that week, so we left a little early from the blessing and went and had dinner with my whole fam (minus Heather's crew).

Blurry but funny

 

Those two are just a month apart (Harv is one month younger). Again - so cute seeing cousins play together!

Tanner had a family reunion on Labor Day (Burningham Golf Classic). I ended up staying home while they golfed so we'd get a couple extra hours with my parents. Laura and Dallin and Ben and Julie and Kathryn and my parents and Harvey and I drove up to Silver Lake and wandered around there. Gorgeous. And such perfect weather. The whole time we were there the weather was phenomenal actually. There were a MILLION people up there enjoying the holiday along with us. That's ok - the kids loved being outside and it was just nice to be up in the mountains. One thing I wish we would have done more but we all quickly got sick of driving so much!

 

After that Laura and Dallin dropped me off at Tanner's aunt and uncle's house. Pool party and bbq - amazing food and great fun. Again though, Harv wasn't interested in the pool which just surprised me. He got more interested after we were all out of swimsuits.

We headed back to my parents after that. My dad left for a work trip the next morning and my mom got called off work so we headed to the zoo.

Doing what the gorilla does :)

 

Harvey was pretty excited sitting on the animal. Once it started going he decided it wasn't so cool. Tanner climbed on while it was moving and then he liked it again :)

 

After zoo we got some yummy pizza lunch downtown and then Tanner and I stayed and shopped around for awhile. That evening we just hung out. Wednesday Tanner headed to Logan to play golf with his brother. I hung out with my sisters. Ate some Thai food, chatted, took Kathryn and my mom to the airport (headed to Europe for 17 days!), and then went to Liberty Park.

Learning from the pro

 

I was so bummed all the water was already turned off there. I'm pretty sure he would have LOVED it. He still managed to find some and get completely messy. Heather dropped me off back up north after that and Tanner and I headed to Mtn Green to have dinner with Nat and her kiddos. Way fun!

Thursday Tanner helped his dad with some house stuff. I ended up having a relaxing day at home since some other plans unfortunately fell through. All was well. Harv and I had a great time together, going for a walk and riding the four wheeler and napping etc!

He just started taking off in the morning in his pjs. And he didn't even care. I'm curious how far he'd get from me sometimes but he always is still going strong when I decide it's farther than I like. His little footprints are the cutest.

So serious all the time, but he really was having fun!

 

 

When Tanner got back we headed downtown and wandered around City Creek again and Temple Square before meeting Tanner's parents at my current favorite restaurant in Utah, Bruges. So heavenly.

 

Are you kidding me? Can't beat this.

 

We dropped the dogs off at Laura's again the next morning so we could stay up north again and avoid more driving. Tanner golfed with Carson and I watched Harvey and Millie. Laura and Heather came over and hung out with me for awhile. After Tanner got done we went to Farmington Station and shopped around and then met Clare and Berrie at Setabello's for dinner. We headed back to Nat's to watch some football after. The next morning Tanner and Berrie golfed. I walked with Harv to the store to get some treats for our drive. We said goodbye to my dad (he flew in that morning) and got our dogs at Laura and Dallin's and then headed out of town about 1 that afternoon. We were planning on just going to Billings that day, and hoped Harvey would do better if we left later and he could nap the first bit. He only slept about 45 minutes, we had horrible technical difficulties and he was NOT happy about being in the carseat for the majority of the drive Saturday and Sunday. It was rough, but we made it.  Here's some other random pics of Harvey playing at Carson and Nat's and messing around in the hotel in Billings.

 

It was nice to make it to our home here and be done with driving and sleep in our own beds - although as a side note, Harvey has had a HORRIBLE week with sleeping since being home. Don't know what's up with that. But anyway, it's always hard to leave our home home. Always more things we wish we could have done or people we wish we could have seen, but it was a really great vacation!