Utah Trip Part 2

Nothing says Utah like Sunday dinner with all the cousins, aunts, and uncles.  I loved seeing everyone hang out, completely relaxed, making jokes, teasing each other, inhaling food, and just soaking in all that togetherness.  Kids were playing outside and in the basement and some of the girl cousins had set up a manicure station and were doing nails, hoping the rowdy boys wouldn't interrupt.  After all the eating we played a few games like Chameleon, and had even more fun being together.  I'm sure my mom was there because she wouldn't have missed it.

Greg knows how to use his smoker and brought over this yummy smoked cream cheese dip and his homemade pepper jelly.  It disappeared within minutes.

The portable nail salon...these girls take nails to a new level!

The next day was BYU lax drop-offs while Randy and Henry went fishing in Oakley.  Henry was so excited to catch his first fish.  He caught a bunch and woke up at 5:30 to do it.  He slept the entire drive back to Farmington.

The most serious fisherman on the reservoir 

Meanwhile, I drove to Provo to drop off the lax players and then headed to Midway to have lunch and do some shopping with Laura.  Ballerina Farms is so overrated.  But Midway is most definitely worth all the instagram fame it is getting.

Thanks for lunch, Laura!  It was so good!

Randy flew back to WA so it was just me and Henry waiting for the lax boys to finish camp.  We played with all the cousins and discovered some incredible playgrounds.  We went in the evening and it was still 90 degrees so I let Henry do most of the climbing after going down a couple slides with him.

I can't imagine a park in WA with slides like this.  People would go nuts over it!  The slides were HUGE!

Henry going up with the Ball cousins for some indoor fun while I chatted it up with Aunt Heidi.

Don't let his face fool you.  Henry still talks about this burger get to eat while he tagged along at dinner with April and me.

Greg's girls love their chickens!  And Henry got brave and picked one up so the girls wouldn't think he was a coward.

The only picture I have of Ethan and Henry at Lagoon together.  Lagoon costs almost as much as Disneyland and it was so hot I was more than happy to sit this one out and let the brothers have fun together.  They went on Cannibal, the biggest rollercoaster, at least five times.  Henry is fearless!

I took Henry and Owen to Cherry Hill and had to go down some of the slides with Henry before he was comfortable with me leaving him.  I had a great nap back at our spot under a tree while the boys ran from slides to pools, over and over again.

BYU lax camp was a success!  Landon played well and made a bunch of friends, including some of Marcus's teammates.

Parker represented the Ball family name by getting MVP

Grandma Kathy was so thoughtful and helped us celebrate Henry's birthday early so everyone could participate.  Henry loved blowing out his candles.  Sometimes I forget how young he is and that birthdays are a BIG deal still.

He was gifted the baseball he'd been asking for.  Henry is really good at basketball.

We made the long drive home in 11 hours and only stopped for a little bit of traffic due to a truck explosion.  We went right past the burning truck as a helicopter flew overhead trying to douse the flames that had spread across the dry mountain.  It was pretty cool!  We got home to beautiful WA where the temperature was a cool 75 degrees and we actually felt cold after living in a furnace for a week.  It was so much fun seeing all our family.  I wish my boys wanted to go visit more.  Oh well.  One week a year is good enough because I have Marco Polo and chat with my sisters almost every day.  Our kids don't realize it, but we know everything that's going on with all of them from their dating lives to the potty training mishaps.  It's a good life!