BYU

While we were in Utah we spent a day at BYU.  We started out at the Creamery on 9th for the best cracked pepper fries and ice cream.  We met up with my friend Carolyn from our Iowa days and it was so fun to catch up with her!

There are old BYU pictures hanging in the Creamery.  We are 99% sure that the lady in the middle front row of this picture at the typewriter is my Grandma Turpin!

Future Cougars!!!

This wedding dress made of bubble wrap was hanging in the BYU Museum of Art as part of a textile exhibit.

So many fun memories at that place.

Park City

When we left Vernal we headed for Park City to spend the night with my Aunt Tari.  On our way there we stopped in Heber for ice cream cones at the "train restaurant," Dariy Keen where I loved going as a child.  Then we stopped at Park City Resort for a surprisingly fun ride on the Alpine Coaster.  It was awesome!

Ethan and Grammy went first.  Then I got to go with Caden.  He giggled the entire time, I loved it!

Then we did a quick ride on the Eagle Zip Rider.

The weather was perfect...and besides the naked man that flashed me as we walked by the hotel at the resort it was a pretty perfect night!

A Few Days With Grandma P.

After our Vernal reunion Clark headed back to Greeley while the boys and I stayed in Utah for an extra week.  My mom stayed with us to help me out and play with us!  We got a few extra days with Grandma P. She is a great lady and I love spending time with her.  I'm glad my boys get to know their Great Grandmother.

Peterson Family Reunion - 9 Mile Canyon

The second day of our reunion was also the day we celebrated Clark's 30th birthday!!!  Since we've been married he's had to share his birthday with quite a few family trips and reunions...but he got some hiking in, a round of golf, a trip to Cafe Rio, and chocolate cheesecake...so I'm thinking it was a pretty ok day for him!

It was special to go to 9 Mile Canyon because my Grandpa Peterson loved that place.  My Grandma felt him with us that day.  The day was spent driving from site to site and hiking to find the petroglyphs, granaries, and shelters left behind by the Freemont and Ute cultures.  Caden kept calilng them alien drawings and loved to make up stories to interpret the drawings for us.  

Hiking down the ridge.

I spy Grammy, Ethan, Caden and Grandpa!

  The rock art in the "world's longest art gallery" and the landscape is impressive!  

Peterson Family Reunion Vernal Style

We got to Vernal late on July 3rd so we were there to attend the 4th of July parade.  During the parade Dipsy, this orange dinosaur marched by carrying a sign that his birthday party at the Dinosaur Museum was that day and admission was free.  So that afternoon we took the boys to the museum.  That night we had a barbecue at the Mills house and enjoyed the fireworks.

My cousin Sidney with the boys.

The next day a big group of us went to Dinosaur National Park, we had a picnic, explored a little bit and went to the quarry.  

The shuttle that took us to the quarry was pretty much like a roller coaster according to these boys!

Cooling off down by the Green River

That night we had a dinner at Grandma P.'s house!  There were 65 people there!  It was so fun to see so many aunts, uncles, grandkids, and now great-grandkids.  

Quinn and Scarlett, little cousin buddies!

This past year 8 of Grandma P.'s grandchildren had babies within 8 months of each other.  6 of those babies were there, and they were just so cute and fun to see!

We called this the baby depot.

With all of those little arms and legs going they were so wiggly!

In order of age...Quinn, Scarlett, Lucy, Peyton, Brooklyn, and Landon...we were missing Luke and Bria.

All the baby mommas!  Also 2 more cousins that have 1 year olds.

 Everyone made marshmallow guns and no one was safe!  This picture was taken right after Grammy Tammy looked down the barrel of Ethan's gun to see what was wrong and ended up with a marshmallow in the eye.

 When it got dark my cousin Dave used his potato gun to shoot hundreds of glow sticks into the air.  It was awesome to look up and feel like it was raining glow sticks.  All of the kids would pick up all the sticks and they kept doing it several times.  Clark and I were right down there with all of the kids because it was cool!

Grandma P. playing the ring game.  

It was an awesome day to celebrate this lady and her posterity!

Couch Diaries

I decided it's time to update my blog from the couch.  I've pretty much been inseparable from this couch for the last week and a half recovering from surgery.  I had an umbilical hernia repaired (the baby's nose as Ethan called it is gone), which went splendidly!  I also had an incisional hernia repaired that had flared up after scarring ripped from my last c-section...this one wasn't quite so routine...I guess 5 abdominal surgeries in the past 8 years are just too many.

The best part about this picture is that this was before my surgery...the bloody i.v. and the shot they had to give me in my stomach was a little too much and I got sick before we even started.  The surgery took a lot longer than expected because of the complications, and then my recovery took a lot longer than expected because I couldn't wake up.  Maybe I was just trying to catch up on the past 8 months since Quinn was born, or maybe it was the "aggressive" treatment I was getting to fight nausea, but I could only wake up for a couple minutes at a time.  Finally they told Clark that they needed my bed and he needed to get me dressed.  Now that was funny.  Apparently I fell asleep with my arms in the air half through my sleeves like a vulture...they had me take a few steps, the world was spinning, the nurse was laughing at me, finally they just put me in a wheel chair and sent me home.  The rest of that day is a blur.  

Today I'm feeling much better, but the pain has been more than expected and it's hard to be down, I'm not used to being such a homebody.  The timing has also been a little hard, I'm still nursing Quinn and he WILL not take a bottle, even 36 hours of no momma he wouldn't given!  He's a stubborn one that Quinny!  But thanks to my angel mother and Clark we are all surviving!  My mom is running the show like a pro!

The boys have been doing pretty well too considering everything.  Quinn went from being a baby to a toddler in one week!  He wants to be standing all of the time.  He's climbing up stairs and walking as he pushes the rocking horse along the floor.  Apparently mom being out of commission drives a baby to walk!  It is so hard not to pick him up, when he needs love he crawls to me on the couch, pulls himself up and just looks at me until my mom or Ethan come lift him onto the couch for a snuggle.  It breaks my heart. 

He bounces on this horse like a professional cowboy!

Just having a little snack.

Trying to crawl off the couch when he was done with me.

All 3 of my boys playing the Smurf dance game!

Caden needed a turn on the sick couch one night when he needed a little extra TLC.

 Last Saturday Clark was out of town so my mom took the boys out of the house in the afternoon so I could nap.  My phone went off with a tornado warning, but when I peeked outside it was sunny, I was drugged up so I just went back to sleep.  A little while later I woke up and it was black outside.  Right when the huge rain/hail storm/tornado touched down in Greeley my mom and the boys got home.  The nice employee at Panda Express told them about the tornado.  It was quite the excitement, and I felt a little sheepish for not sharing the warning with my beloved family.

The tornado and watching the Bachelorette give out her final rose have been my excitement of the past week!  Luckily, I knew the surgery was coming and got my fill of summer in July.

Being on the couch has made me really appreciate the things I take for granted everyday, you know those things that kind of seem like a burden in the moment...lifting my kids, hauling 3 boys and all of their gear places, cleaning, cooking...hoping to be back to being my normal mom self soon!