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. 

more utah before i go back to utah.

yep, i am going to utah tomorrow for my best cousin friends wedding! jon is in school and can't come with me, which makes me sad, but i know i'll have a blast!

back to our vacation...

finally got to meet this baby. he is so tiny and well behaved and all around adorable. i didn't get any pictures with his mother or my sisters but i promise we had such a fun picnic, it's always fun to catch up with emma.

another favorite tradition of ours when we go home is golfing with gare. usually at mick riley since it's the cheapest and most convenient. while my dad was in town, we went to the JW Marriott right down the street from our house and toured the TPC golf course. the big tournament was there just a week after my father left. he was getting souvenirs and picked a shirt off of the buy one get one half off rack. i asked him who gets the half off shirt and he said "whoever jumps on it first". jon is more likely to wear a polo shirt, so we picked one out for him and it just happened to be the same color as gary's…….just kidding. they totally picked the color to match each other and it paid off later when they matched while golfing. we missed our uncle bud this year, he wasn't feeling good. usually we get two carts so we can all ride, but since there were three of us, we just got one cart. i very quickly realized that riding in the cart probably wouldn't be for me that day. all the bumps were making the baby very upset. (green pukey face)

for memorial day we always drive up to the franklin cemetery, we've been doing it forever. when i was little, my grandma knew every single person at the cemetery and it was always fun to talk to the old people who knew my dad when he was young. this year we went the saturday before to clean the headstones and take the flowers up. it was a warm, sunny day! i was about 16 weeks at this time.

we stopped at Big J's afterwards and got ice creammmmm! that little boy doesn't look happy, but i'm sure he was. (amanda sent me the photo from the other car)

check this out. jon's parents lived in germany for about three years, and that's where jon was born. they have so many awesome stories about life in germany living above a little bakery, smelling the fresh bread every morning. his mom has told me about the walks she would take jonathan on in his german buggy along the cobble stone streets. when we told his grandma we were expecting, she told us she's been keeping his buggy safe for us and she was right. it is in excellent condition and i almost lost my cool when she unveiled it. i'd heard about it, but i was not expecting it to be so adorableeeee! i can't wait to push our little baby around the neighborhood in this.

remember what i said about katie sending us home with all of her baby items? we weren't joking. jon's car was packed full with all of his camping stuff (haha) plus the cradle that my sisters and i used when we were babies, a little dresser of my gran's, tubs of clothes/blankets/burp clothes/everything, jon's buggy, andddddd a crib that we bought at down east for $144 that we simply couldn't leave utah without. we don't know much about babies/cribs, but we think/hope it was a good deal. we had our eyes on a $100 crib from ikea, but liked this one more since it's not painted and the fact that it was a lot more sturdy. hopefully all our babies can use it. it was a successful trip home for the baby and makes me feel ready. isn't it cute that i don't even know what babies need besides clothes and a place to sleep? this will be fun!

sunday walks.

on memorial day the whole family hiked up to donut falls. jon and i hadn't ever been, and it was a lot of fun! i get bummed out hiking to water destinations and not being able to even put my feet in, but whatever. the trail was crowded but we still had fun with good company. my dad had a big bbq for our friends and family that night and it was delicious! it was our last hurrah as we were leaving early the next morning. i hate goodbyes, but it wasn't so bad knowing i'd be back in a few short weeks!

can't wait to see these happy children!

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.