Monticello Trip

Well this sure has been a busy/relaxing/long/fun weekend... in other words it was perfect! Filled with many hours driving in the car, lots of good laughs and conversations with family, and so much delicious food!! Friday night my family packed up and began the long drive down to Monticello for my cousin Kelvin's mission farewell. He is going to the New York, New York South Spanish speaking mission and we all wish him the best of luck! He'll be a great little missionary. Anyway so we arrived late that night at my Grandparents house. They however are not living in it at the moment... they are living in an assisted living place in Midvale, so my cousin and her husband are living there temporarily. They have to cutest little 6 month old who was just so happy and smiley! We had fun with her, and my cousin was a very good host. She took great care of us and fed us yummy food :) Thanks Kristalee! It was actually really weird for me to be staying in my grandparents house with no grandma and grandpa there... Grandma is usually bustling around worrying about us eating enough, being warm enough, sleeping well enough, etc. And the thing I missed the most was all of grandma's yummy treats... in particular the ice cream she ALWAYS had to offer us. And not only was it delicious but it also came from the "cute Schwans man" :)

My brother is really into climbing and has recently started a new sport called slack lining. He got it out Saturday morning and we all hopped on to try it. He makes it look way easy... but don't be fooled! It's actually really hard! The thing shakes like crazy when you're not used to it and it's so hard to just get up on it. We all had to cling to Chris to just stand on it ha ha.

Ha ha I love my mom's face in this picture! She was so funny.

No I'm not a pro... I also had to cling to Chris for the first couple times, but this time I tried it again and held on to the tree. I let go and only lasted for maybe one second before I started to fall.... Chris just captured a picture at the perfect moment :)

Following slack lining was lunch and then we drove out to jail rock to go repelling with Kelvin and a group of his friends who came down for his farewell. Sorry I didn't get any pictures... I didn't take my camera... Oops! I had never been repelling before though so I was quite a bit nervous standing there on top of the rock that was very high up. It was so scary walking over the edge, and then I looked down... that was a bad bad idea ha ha. I made it down slowly but surely and loved it! I went down once more and it was much easier and more enjoyable the second time. My two cousins and cousins' husband were pretty much crazy and did all sorts of stunts including cartwheels and spiderman crawls. Pretty impressive I must say! After repelling we went over to jail rock and checked it out for a bit then went back to Monticello. We all hung out at my aunt and uncles house just visiting and being entertained by the little ones. Chris and I tagged along with Kelvin and his friends later that night to go have a bonfire at Lloyd's lake. I had a fun time and his friends were all really nice and friendly. We had quite a hard time getting a fire started however because the wood was wet, so we stood there freezing for a while... but it all worked out ok :)

Kelvin did a super great job on his farewell talk and he will be a great missionary! The food afterwards was delicious of course and I had a lot of fun just talking with all my family members. My great uncle Buddy entertained a large group of us for a while with many great stories from his childhood that kept us laughing. Sunday was kind of a long day but quite enjoyable and relaxing. I love visiting Monticello! It's such a cute little town! I am pretty much a wannabe cowgirl... I love the country and wish I had been raised in that lifestyle with horses and what not. I'm drawn to small towns and love all open space! I have always looked forward to taking trips down to Monticello and hope to someday live out in the country.

Me and big bro Chris

We left Monday morning and stopped in Mapleton to have dinner at my sisters house with our whole family. I LOVE seeing my nieces! Oh and everyone else too... :) But they are just SO stinkin' cute! It was a lot of fun and once again, lots of yummy food! Goodness I feel like I've gained ten pounds just from this weekend!

Me and little Lexie Sue. What a cutie pie!

Lex is obsessed with babies and I swear that is all she ever thinks about. As soon as we walked in the door she was saying "Baby?" and she was always so concerned about the baby. She had to see where Taya was constantly. It's fun to hear her talking so much now, although difficult to interpret at times, but she's starting to say all of our names and it's so cute!

And here's little Taya who is just adorable and has Big Big dimples!