Trip to UT...part 1

I'll break our trip into two posts since it was part vacation/part mission trip. :)

We left for Utah on Memorial Day. We drove all day and spent the night in Albuquerque. The hotel stay was the most stressful part of the trip for me. I worried about it for days beforehand about how I would get Andrew and Emma Kate to sleep in one room. Andrew is a horrible sleeper (up a couple times a night) and EK takes a while to go to sleep (and that's in the quiet of her own room). By the grace of God, Keith got EK to sleep in about 20 minutes and AK fell asleep while nursing. I got a few hours of sleep that night.

We got to St. George around dinner time on Tuesday and went straight over to our friends' home. Aubrey had been eager to see the Waldrop boys for months! They all went right to playing. :) Their backyard was fenced in from the pool and perfect for EK to do some walking. AK was happy to be out of the car!

After an hour or two, we drove over to our condo. It was perfect for our stay. It had 3 bedrooms so we had lots of room to spread out! The balcony was huge with a nice view. It was a great "home away from home".

Here's a picture of AK exploring the condo

Aubs wanted me to take a picture of the two of them. :)

The view from our balcony

The view at night

One afternoon we drove north a little and drove through the northern part of Zion National Park called Kolob Canyons. Pretty neat to see all of God's creation and to think that He spoke it into existence. WOW!

AK is mesmorized by the scenery behind him.

We did lots of swimming. St. George is in the desert so it was in the 90's. It is very dry though, so it really didn't feel as hot as the 90's do here. EK LOVES the pool and was very upset each time we were done. (like crying for a good 30 minutes...almost not worth it!)

Happy while in the water!

AK enjoyed swimming too.

Baby boy learned to pull up on vacation. (He also learned how to climb steps...gotta watch that boy!)

AC on the balcony before church on Sunday

Sweet EK before church on Sunday.

**I am so thankful for the sweet teachers that keep Emma Kate each Sunday at FBC Keller. Last Sunday made me especially thankful. I think that was the hardest part of our trip. She was SO sad. It didn't matter if we walked around the church, went outside to the playground or what...she cried a lot that day. I didn't even attempt taking her into the service. If it weren't for Ms. Trish, Mr. Ray, Ms. Eileen, Mr. Bill and Ms. Karen, I would never get to attend church.

Even though vacation was hard on EK, it was so nice to get away as a family and have our daddy all to ourselves. I know Keith needed the time off. He works hard! We had lazy mornings and quiet evenings and spent time with the Waldops in between! That's my kind of vacation! Now, if it didn't take 20 hours to get there....