We are back from a great vacation!  Fam, we miss you already!  Looking through our photos today made me miss you even more.  I have a lot of back-posting to do.  And a lot of unpacking, but that is not nearly as fun.  The plane ride home was relatively smooth, but we came home to the nasty smell of rotten garlic cloves (hidden in the produce baskets on the counter).  Our house kinda smelled like rotten lunch meat.  Pukey.  Other than that, its good to be home.

P.S.  Scroll down for the details of the trip.
P.S.S.  As we were driving to the airport, Austin asked where we were going.  We said we were flying home.  He thought for a minute and said, "Is this van going to grow feathers and fly?"  ha!

Grand Finale

A big highlight of our trip was witnessing the sealing of our newest nephew to his parents, Mark and Lacey.  What a wonderful day!  Of course, it brought back a lot of memories of our own sealing of Elise.  We feel so blessed to see the miracles of adoption and experience the joy and peace temple covenants bring.  Baby Jax is a blessing to all of us!

we took lots and lots of pictures :)

Afterwards we had dinner at the Lion House pantry.  Yum!  I couldn't resist taking some pics on the walk over.  I LOVED all the beautiful tulips.  Spring weddings are so pretty!

Think George is sick of posing?
Or just getting started?

And then Greg and Chris wanted to stop at Gilgal Gardens.  What the random?  Here we are admiring the brick pants sculpture.  Following that, we ate at Chris's favorite sushi place.  Ya, I know.  We just ate at the Lion House.  I think they were stalling because we needed to get back to gville to get the house ready for the celebration the next day.  Its a party a minute around here.

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Sunday morning brought baby Jax's blessing (which was really nice) and Benji's missionary homecoming talk.  Benji really did a wonderful job (I thought :).  Gracie and Lucy sang "I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" in english and spanish.  Both Lindsay and I were impressed at how quickly the girls picked up the Spanish version.  Yes, they sound like gringos, but its pretty cool how fast young kids learn things (compared to us older folks).  Here's the encore performance the next day (when they weren't fighting over the microphone trying to get it in the exact middle :)

  

After the big party was over, we took Cole family pictures.  I'll get a copy of those one day, but this is how the kids kept themselves entertained.  And Lindsay found a big 'ol owl.  Pretty cool!

These three even matched for the game playing afterwards.  Now THAT is dedication!

Until next time, fam....

karting at MMP

Geo and I had never been karting, so thanks to some generous tenders, we went on a little date to Miller Motorsports Park with the Tew's.  Chris is always good to let us come interrupt his "work."  :)

 Chris was definitely the champion racer.  He pretty much killed all of us.  But the Tew's at least stayed competitive.  I was dead last.  I think Chris lapped me like four times.  ha!  But it was a lot of fun and now that I've got the hang of it, I'll be a contender next time (if I have a full lap head start!)

Thumbs up for the zip line

Geo standing in front of the most expensive car in the museum.  

I collect platters.  Larry Miller collected $10 million dollar cars.

Time with the Tripp fam

Liz was sweet enough to arrange a stay-cation in SLC/Draper while we were in UT.  Natalie came up from TX.  It was really fun to be together (but I always miss Ben's happy laugh).  Here's a recap on some of our activities:

walking around the new City Creek Center
We had lunch at Kneeders.  I'd never been there before but I had a turkey artichoke sandwich that makes me want to go back asap. 

 Bowling!

I bowled the worst game(s) in a while.  But maybe its just because I've had the bumpers up for so long when bowling with kids that I think it is my "normal" score.  ha!  Most of the pics I got were of people's behinds, so I had to steal a few from Jake.  :)

Trip to Hogle Zoo

This was the second attempt at visiting the zoo.  It was pretty crowded... must have been the place to be!  And there was quite a bit of construction.  Austin loved to watch the construction vehicles as much as the animals!

Train ride with the boys (girls chose the Carosel)

 Liz rented a nice house in Draper for all of us to crash in for a few days.  There was plenty of space and lots of time for ping pong, games, and just relaxing.

 Playing "Survive!" (an old Tripp brothers favorite)

but it might be getting the best of Natalie.  :)

 Easter Egg Hunt (and a little lesson from Grandma on tithing)

 The kids thought it was great fun finding coins in all their Easter Eggs.  Jackpot!

Hot tubbin'!

 Our last activity of our stay-cation (if you don't count lunch at Cafe Rio :) was an outing to the Children's museum.  Even before the kids walked in the door they were entertained (and Austin was shaking)!

There are lots of bins at the Children's Museum and Cole loved throwing things on the floor.  Here he is pulling all the veggies out of the garden...

The other kids had a great time too!

Thanks for the memories, fam!  We loved hanging out with you!

Easter!

We had a nice Easter Sunday.  We attended church with the Tripp's but before we could change out of our Sunday fancies, I had to ask Lacey to take a family picture.  So she took 100.  I love that girl!

What he usually looks like at the end of all of these tricks

or this

photography crew

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After our photo shoot, we headed over to the Tripp's for some delicious dinner with Easter Egg dying afterwards.

Elise loved the rubber band method & worked hard at it...

... but eventually had to get a little help from Auntie Natalie

Lucy loved the tie-dye

Most of the time, Austin went for yellow.
And they all pretty much looked the same.

ah... here's a new color!

And poor jet-lagged Geo slept through the whole thing.  

The late-night game playing might have contributed too.