So Ya Come From the Land Down Undah...

Here are the last few pix we took when we were saying good bye to our Posties. They were on the plane to Australia a few hours later and we already miss them!"He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich"

Willy with one of his plethora of Aussie delights. Happy Cousins! Melanie, Liam Heidi, Maeby, James & Spencer (Addie had slept over at Ally's) Not even "silly face time" could make Spencer smile...

NOT smiling

(Spencer is just Ralphie from Christmas Story to me- so cute)

Audrey, Will, and me saying good bye. Good thing my eyes are closed...

James and Maeby gave a million hugs...

they are cutie cousin pals!

Heidi got in on the good bye hugs, too.

Yet another 'tarded face from me...giving Will a hug. You can see my prego belly pretty well there.

***

All in all, a lovely whirlwind trip. So glad to spend time with our Posties and finally hang out with my mom feeling decent. We are sad we never made it down to Mayberry's love nest or to Rich's family or to see our Provo friends. After teh baby comes, we'll be back. We had a nice trip home Sunday, stopping for lunch with Papa Jim and Gramma Becky in Pocatello between conference sessions, and arriving home around 8:30pm. SO GLAD to be home!

Dinner with Posties on Thursday

We slept over Wednesday night with the Posties at their new Herriman house. The kids were together all day long, but I failed to take pictures of all the frolicking. I finally whipped out the camera when we all went out to dinner because I was too full of smashburger lunch to eat Rock Creek Pizza. Melanie and Addie Spencer excited about frosting

Addie and Mello-Yello

I tried really hard to get Maeby and James to look at the camera at the same time...

It never really worked.

But they are cutie cousin pals!

Liam and Heidi

James was so excited to color dinosaur placemats!

Melanie and Addie being adorable tweens.

Will & Rich on their Man-Date, fostering their Bromance.

***

We are grateful we got to see the Posts, even for just a couple fo really busy days because we miss them so much while they are in Australia. We hope they come home for good this year!

BFFs

Item Number One on my Utah To-Do List this trip was to have lunch with Kacy (you may remember my linking to her series "Tips for Not-Very-Good-Housekeepers," or her current thing about moms, here).

It's not often you make really great e-friends, and it's even more rare to meet them in person and not be one bit disappointed, but that's what happened yesterday (and Kacy was even more fun in person and totally NOT disappointing because she's what I call FER REAL, on her blog and in real life). I felt like a super nerd because I just wanted to hang out with her all day (we just kept talking and talking into the parking lot, out to the car...we really should have been roommates back when we had TIME for endless girly chat), but our two-hour lunch date (which really annoyed people at Smashburger) had to suffice.

Thanks for a super fun time, Kacy, and for taking me to eat my first "real food" in three months (I began taking a little bit of long-lasting insulin on Tuesday and it has given me some wiggle-room in my diet, which I am obviously enjoying). It was my only meal for the day because I was full until 9pm, but it was deeeeelicious. I highly recommend the smashburger. AND reading Kacy's blog.

Logan Rendezvous

On Wednesday morning at 4:53am, we drove out of our driveway in Livingston and headed for Logan, Utah to meet up with my mom and cousins and siblings at the Logan Cemetery to celebrate Grandpa's 86th birthday. The drive went well, I felt surprisingly good (considering), and the kids behaved. Sadly, the weather didn't cooperate and the picnic celebration portion of the event was cancelled, so we all drove back to mom's house in Eagle Mountain for dinner and cousin time. Here are some photos Rich took at the cemetery... This is Henry, Cousin Brent's wee man. We were SO excited to finally meet him! James at Grandpa's grave. The ground is still too wet to set the headstone, which was disappointing, but we carried on celebrating.

My mom/Nana brought balloons for everyone to let go (that's my sis Abby with her).

Cousin Brent and my nephew, Jack.

My niece, Maeby, visiting from Australia.

Michael, Amber (Bro & future SIL), niece Ally, Addie, Abby, Isabelle singing Families Can Be Together Forever.

Me, nephew Liam, Cousin Autumn, Baby Henry, and Cousin Brent singing

(Brent is holding his iphone with his parents on skype from Ukraine!!!!)

Nephew Spencer visiting from Australia

Ready for lift-off...

There go the balloons!

My cute brother Sam writing his wishes on a balloon.

Cousin Brent, SIL Audrey, and Bro Willy talking to Aunt Marti & Uncle Ralph in Ukraine over skype.

We had such a fun reunion there, and later visiting at mom's. I hope Grandpa was aware of all the love (I'm sure he was). It's nice to be part of a huge family bound by such a great example of charity. Happy Birthday again, Grampy! We miss you!

(We missed you, too, Gram! It killed me to know that you joined in the fun from Arizona by letting your own balloon go...we love you!)

Last Weekend

The kids' Spring Break began on Friday, but we aren't leaving for our Utah Cousin trip until Wednesday, so I decided to do something fun with them on Saturday to make the break special. When Rich was finished working at the ranch house, we went to Museum of the Rockies to renew our membership and check out the frog exhibit. We didn't know it was PBS "Dinosaur Train" Day when we made out plans, so it was surprising to see our normally sleepy little museum rockin' like Disneyland with wall-to-wall people!

Our first stop was the frog exhibit. I was wishing we could handle some frogs because there were some really cute ones! Of course the cutest ones were poisonous...

James loved this giant bullfrog! He was a fatty!

These guys were my favorites! Don't they look like bath toys? SO CUTE!

Addie spotting the fat bullfrog

(her hair was all curly because we tried out rag curls the night before while watching some March Madness)

***

Our secodn stop was the planetarium show about Dinosaurs, and then we headed upstairs to the new kids' room, the Yellowstone Discovery center. It's pretty fun!

Heidi became the cabin chef for a while...

and made some pizza for Daddy, before going fishing for some trout.

James went fishing, too, and wore a ranger hat.

Addie and Heidi with their catches.

James on one of the found-art animal sculptures.

Addie's fishing license

The found-art Bison near the entry.

Addie at the entranceAddie, Chef Heidi, Daddy, and James in front of the fake Old Faithful geyser.

***

When we were done exploring Yellowstone, we went down to the hall of dinosaurs to meet Buddy the Dinosaur from PBS...

Heidi put on a dino costume...

...and we did eventually meet Buddy. James was thrilled cuz he loves "Dinosaur Train."

***

Sunday was a day of rest for real (well, and a day of basketball) because all the kids seemed a little cold-ish and sniffly. Heidi amused herself at quiet time with her stuffed animals.

She's quite the wrangler! Love my jungle girl!