Our Week in Utah -- My 200th Post

I haven't blogged in a while. The last few weeks have been a bit crazy as we prepared for the Primary Program (it was on Nov. 23rd, and it went well), and I worked on getting all my Christmas gifts for our Utah family ready so I could take it out with us at Thanksgiving. And honestly, nothing super noteworthy happened the last few weeks. So, I am re-entering the blogging world with a post dedicated to the highlights of our week spent in Utah. This is my 200th post, so it needs to be good. Here I go:

MONDAY, NOV. 24th-

We attempted our annual cousins photo shoot. This is where we take six kids, all under the age of 6, dress them up in very cute fancy matching Christmas outfits, and try to get a picture of all of them. It is pretty much a disaster every year. But that doesn't seem to deter us from trying again the next year. The group shot we selected this year was actually pretty cute, besides the fact that Reagan would not stop sucking her thumb. Oh well. I'm sure we'll try again next year.

We saw President Uchtdorf at Costco. I took Ellery and Bennett up to him so they could meet him and shake his hand. He was very nice -- I'm sure he can't go anywhere without people stopping him and asking to meet him, shake his hand, etc. But he was very sweet to the kids.

I LOVE Bountiful -- it is a great place to see General Authorities performing everyday tasks like grocery shopping. I have run into Elder Holland at Dick's Market before. And in high school I saw Elder Eyring at all of our choir concerts since his daughter Liz was in Xela with me. I even got to dance with him at our Medieval Feast. Yeah, Bountiful is great.

Sam took Ellery and Bennett up to see the Bountiful "B" (for those of you not from Bountiful, there is a giant white "B" on the mountain). Bennett really wanted to go and see it and touch it. But he fell when they arrived and hurt his leg (not really that hurt, but he thought it was bad), and so he didn't feel well enough to climb the ropes to touch the "B". So Ellery and Sam did it. Elle loved it. She has always loved to climb.



Sam and I attended the Jazz Game with Derek and Laura. We had great seats (provided by Dad and Ballard Spahr)and it was an exciting game, even if the Jazz lost by 1 point in the last second of the game. Sam bought me a large serving of Russell's Burnt Almond Fudge ice cream. You can't go wrong with that.

TUESDAY

We ate lunch here: (highlight for the kids)

We saw this movie: (highlight for Sam)

The kids and Sam went back to the "B" and this time Bennett and Elle made it to the top.




We got Mandarin takeout (highlight for me)

We played a really fun card game called The Five Crowns (highlight for Mom and me)


WEDNESDAY

We had a taste of the Divine when Sam and I accompanied my parents and Justin and Lisa to do sealings at the Bountiful Temple.

We had a taste of the world when we had lunch at Pace's Dairy Anne.

We ended the day by traveling up to Heber and riding the Polar Express. The kids loved it. The adults, not so much. But it was fun for the kids, which is all that matters.









THURSDAY

We started out our Thanksgiving Day with a visit up to Pleasant View (North Ogden) to visit my Dad's parents.
On our way home, we traveled a bit on the newly completed Legacy Highway. I thought it was really nice, but can't believe the speed limit is only 55.

We had some fun preliminary Thanksgiving activities while we finished up the meal. The kids colored Turkey placemats Grandma got them, played Pin the Hat on the Turkey, and read some Thanksgiving books with Uncle Justin. We ate around 1:00, separating the kids and adults. These kids are so funny when they get together.





We used the late afternoon to go and see "Bolt."
I think we were all pleasantly surprised. It was a cute movie. We usually see a movie on Thanksgiving Day -- one of the Allen family traditions. It is fun to continue that with the kids.

That evening, after the kids were in bed, Sam and I made a couple of surprise visits to some friends that I was hoping would be at their homes in Bountiful -- Laura James Hyde and Sara Becker. They were late, short, unexpected visits, but it was great to see both of these girls briefly. It gets harder and harder to meet up with people when I go home for visits now -- I always feel short on time, and don't love dragging my posse of children with me to visit people. So it is nice to make any visits happen.

FRIDAY -- Today was our "Visit as much family as possible that we haven't seen yet" day. We headed down to Provo and visited my Mom's parents first.



Then we drove to Lehi and spent a few hours with Brad and Winnie and their kids. My kids LOVE Caleb, and Rachel and Emma are so good to play with Reagan and keep her occupied. It was a fun stop.

Then we headed North to Salt Lake and visited Derek and Laura and their kids for a couple of hours. Ellie and Ellery really enjoyed playing together -- it is so nice that as Elle gets older, she is enjoying playing with others more. She has always been so independent and just happy to do her own thing. That is fine, but it makes my heart happy to see her playing side-by-side her girl cousins. And Bennett just watched Hunter play video games, which he thoroughly enjoyed.

We had one last Allen family dinner that evening with my parents and Justin and Lisa's family. Then we got the kids in bed, and Justin and Lisa and Sam and I enjoyed an evening out courtesy of my parents. They split up and each watched one set of kids, and treated us to see the new Bond movie.
So fun to get out, and so nice to have free babysitting.

SATURDAY

We got up early, packed up, and headed to the airport. Did I mention that we got to fly this trip? We threatened to not come home for either Thanksgiving or Christmas, so my parents bought us tickets to come out. So nice. I haven't done the flight between Denver and Salt Lake for a few years, and had forgotten how short it is. We seriously had time for our drink and peanuts, and then we were landing. Ellery was struck by how quickly it was as well. When we were landing in Salt Lake, she turned to me in disbelief and said, "When we drive, it takes us ALL DAY!" Flying was pretty slick, especially because we were able to take Reagan's carseat on the flight both legs, and just strap our little lap child in. It was heavenly. I love Southwest, and don't know why anyone bags on them. They let us pre-board because of my pregnancy, which apparently is considered a temporary disability. They were super nice about us bringing on Reagan's carseat for her. It was great. It will be hard to go back to driving. But really, as our family grows, driving is so much more economical, plus we just really need our own car when we are in town. This trip it worked out great because Sam's parents were in New Zealand for Thanksgiving, and graciously let us use one of their cars the entire time. But in 8 weeks, as we make the jump from 3 kids to 4, we will need our van everywhere we go. I think our days of flying are over. We are so grateful to my parents for providing such a quick and fun way for us to get to Utah for the holidays, and for providing a week's worth of fun and memorable activities. We love our family so much.

Boy, that was a long post. I wanted my 200th post to be memorable, but I can't imagine that anyone is still reading at this point, besides Sam. And maybe my cute Mom. They are, afterall, my biggest blog fans. And really, they are who I am blogging for anyway. So I guess that is all that matters.