To Grandmother's House We Went

Home sweet home! At least for me it was.  We spent several weeks in Utah the end of may until the middle of June. I thought for sure that after being away from our home in Iowa for 4 weeks I would be dying to get back to my own bed and my own space.  But I could have stayed longer! We had such a great time with family and friends, that I didn't want to leave.  Some of the highlights of the trip included my brother Joshua's high school graduation, Grandma Lewis' 80th birthday party with tons of extended family that we hadn't seen in a long time, the annual Hubbard Hotrod Hullabaloo, and a train ride down to Salt Lake City to see the Discovery Museum and the Temple.

We also enjoyed just hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Here's a list of the kids' favorite things to do there:

1. Play with Grandma and Grandpa Of Course!
2. Get up super early so they didn't miss a thing! (LILY)
3. Play outside on the swing set
4. Jump on the trampline
5. Play on the teeter-totter
6. Jump in the blowup jump house
7. Play trains in the toy room
8. Play dressup 
9. Eat cookies
10. Play with their cousins
11. Chase the dog around
12. Trains! Watching the trains, riding the trains, going to the train museum with Grandma....

They were super busy every second of every day! So much to do!

Now my list of favorite things to do:

1. Sit in the recliner (it is the most comfortable chair I've ever placed my behind in, and my behind never wanted to leave the chair.  In fact if I walked into the room and someone was sitting in MY chair I really felt lost and didn't know where to sit, even if there were 10 other empty seats in the room.)
2. Hang out with my mom
3. See my kids having so much fun
4. Go Shopping
5. Hang out with my sisters
6. Eat way too much yummy food
7. Sit in the recliner
8. Relax
9. See my friends
10. Enjoy the non-humid, non-hot weather

Justin's list would probably look like this:

1. Read
2. Going to the gym
3. Taking naps
4. playing video games with my brothers (he never plays video games until he's around my bros.)
5. Eating way too much yummy food
6. Not studying
7. Homemade bread

So anyway, you can tell we all had a great time and here's some pictures to prove it.  There were about a gazillion so I made several collages. You can click on the collage to make it bigger.

The Hubbard Hotrod Hullabaloo

This year was our third annual race.  It is basically a pinewood derby race and each family submits one car. Everyone is so creative. Justin made our car into a cruise ship in honor of our cruise. One brother made his into a wedge of cheese with a little mouse on top. And the most clever, in my opinion, was my brother-in-law, Jared, who made a fork with green beans on top.  His car was actually the winner!  Thanks to Jessica who came up with this great idea three years ago, so it could become a fun family tradition!

The awards!

Right over the fence in my parents' backyard are the train tracks. Trains go by regularly all day long. Kobe desperately wanted to ride on the trains, so we took the Frontrunner (a commuter train) down to Salt Lake one day to go to the Discovery museum.  We went with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Josh, and Aunt Kimberly. It was so much fun!

We love our visits to Grandma and Grandpa's house! Like I said, it went by way too fast and the only consolation for having to leave was that they are all coming to visit us next week! We look forward to showing them around Des Moines and spending more time with them!