utah and homeward bound!

when we got back to salt lake, we celebrated our 5th anniversary! my dad and katie watched Prim and Jon and I went to bruges waffles and frites for appetizers which actually turned into dessert! then we went to the copper onion and shared a burger and fries which was soo good!

prim wouldn't go to bed as easily as we hoped she would, but we were secretly happy that she was awake when we got home. we took her outside and she helped us let go of each of the five balloons one by one. each one representing another year of marriage, each better than the last. 

my dad likes to get prim up in the morning and get her dressed (and i like to sleep in a little bit!). almost every night, even in normal life, i pick out prim's outfit for the next day and leave it on her changing pad so the morning is easy. when i came down to see my babe, she was wearing her headband on backward. ah but still so cute!

baby alex came to visit with mike and kim! they are the best friends, they always cater to us while we are in town. that really is not necessary, but we appreciate it so much. 

they are four months apart. don't they looks alike with their pale skin and bald heads?? so cute!

kim text me and said that mike got teeny a present (we told them a few weeks previous that we were expecting again!). i didn't think it was weird at all. i opened the card and it said something along the lines of "we know the perfect gift for your new baby..." i pulled out a tiny onesie and on it read "A new friend!!! baby bird coming december 2015!"!!!!! i was not expecting that at all and freaked out! i am so excited for them!!!! all four of our babies are going to be so close in age, i hope they love it growing up as much as we have so far!

amanda nanny's this sweet little boy named sam. we took primmy over to meet him and i think she liked him more than he liked her:)

aunt amandy

here prim is with her great-aunt nancy.

we always try to fit a good hike in with amanda while we are in town. this time we did the living room hike. it was both easy and hard and was the perfect challenge for us. poor jon was sick and was huffing and puffing in this crazy altitude that we aren't used to.

finally our babies get to meet! here is elliott checking prim out.

elliott with his hot mom and mom's hot friend. we walked from their house to a cute everything shop and got sodas and treats. 

elliott wasn't too interested in prim, but he did such a good job sharing his toys with her! even if she was playing with a toy he wanted, he would just go get another one for himself. so sweet.

love my ladies.

dads walking to little caesars/7-11 for firewood. 

a couple days before memorial day we went up to idaho for our usual celebrations.

happy memorial day!
we got pictures with the cousins and couldn't resist getting a few of Prim by herself. the flag was Jon's idea.

this was one of the first times we did this with Prim and she loved it, haha!

all packed up. katie blessed us with all her baby toys Casper has grown out of. As usual, our car was packed to the actual brim.

as we were passing Payson i remembered the new temple! so we did a very brief detour in order to pass it. so beautiful.

we drove straight to the grand canyon! neither of us had ever been before and thought that was a real shame. we only spent an hour or so there.

from there, we drove to John and Kat's which was a couple hours away. they are spending the summer at his parents house while John trains with Edward Jones. it was so good to see them and although they both had to wake up ridiculously early, they waited for us and stayed up to chat! Prim was an angel on the drive and visited with us until we were all ready to go to bed. it was pretty late so it took awhile, but she finally fell asleep between us. such a dear. 

lava hot springs, idaho.

on thursday night, jon and i decided to get a group together to go to lava hot springs. he's been going there since he was young and knew that was one thing he wanted to fit into our trip. it was such short notice but katie and sam found people to watch their kids and kim got work off! we drove up saturday morning and stayed until sunday. it was a blast!

we stayed at the Lava Hot Springs Inn and they give you tiny towels to use. it used to be a hospital. the inn is really old fashioned, but that only adds to the experience. gary and mei and katie and sam each got their own rooms. there were about two rooms to every bathroom! so interesting. there wasn't enough room for the rest of us, so we stayed in an apartment-type thing across the street with three queen beds in one room and our own bathroom. it was such a fun slumber party! 

(HAIR!)

the dining experience up there could have been a lot better. our party of 9 overwhelmed every restaurant we went into! it makes for some good stories though. we all had a great time, the group we went with was so fun! kim wrote about it here!

katie and sam drove us up in their family car. the drive up included hot topics like the election, government aid, and mormons/anti-mormons. the drive back was a little bit more laid back with some PITCH PERFECT! if you haven't seen it, i feel bad for you. but when you see it, call me so we can quote it together. 

memorial day with the fam.

another successful trip to idaho for memorial day yesterday. it was a little different this time, because we went into grandma's house and no one was living there. it was sad but also very good! soo many fun memories there. its still in pretty good shape too.


this is the fam on dads property. behind his and grandma's houses.

not good enough for a new dp. thanks dad, for trying.


picture and vid together. pretty fun.

look familiar my dearrrs? this 'SWING SET" treated us so well growing up.

this is one of the cutest ladies you'll ever see.