like a million reasons we loved our trip to utah in august

 We took a trip to Utah in August to visit with my family.  Here are some of the many, many reasons we loved our amazing trip:

 Playing at the park

Swimming in the neighbors' pool

 Playing with grandma's homemade puppets

Making snow cones with grandma

 Bart and Ashli's weekend getaway in the mountains

 These views!

 Lots of shaved ice!

 One last night at the racetrack before it closes forever :(

 Lots of birds at the Bean Museum

 The obligatory picture with Po while visiting grandpa's office

 Visiting BYU campus

 Taking pictures in front of the Y on the mountain so we can compare them to the pictures they'll take in the same spot when they someday go to BYU!

 Seeing our old BYU married student apartment moments before it was demolished!

 Hanging with Cosmo

Pink donuts and sprinkles

Visiting "our" temple

 Holding puppies!

 More puppies

 Relaxing with grandpa

 Canyon dinners with family

 Lagoon with grandma!

 Picnics in the canyon

 Nieces!

 Holding cousins

 Hiking

 Walking in a waterfall

 Pickleball with friends

Reptiles!

 A day at the lake with friends

 Rollercoasters

 Pretending to be the queen while waiting for dinner

 Besties!

 Meeting this amazing bird!

And, believe it or not with all of these pictures, we had more fun than what is pictured here.  It was a great trip and though it kills me to have to live so far from my family, and friends, and so far from the mountains, it's nice to be able to have a great time when we get to visit.  

summer fun!

We had such a great summer!  I'm determined to document some of our fun adventures, even if I'm 6 months late in posting them!

We went to this really cool zoo, that is family owned and operated.  Although I wasn't sure that some of the enclosures met the standards for zoo enclosures, and was therefore terrified the whole day that the animals were going to escape and attack us, it was awesome to see the animals much more close than at most other zoos.  We got to watch the tigers being fed hunks of stinky meat.

We saw this really cool cross between a zebra and a horse.  This one looked more like a zebra with some brown from the horse, and there was another one that was shaped more like a horse, but had some faint zebra stripes.

All the kids got to hand feed a hippo!  It was crazy and fun!

Look how neat this albino deer is.  It seemed like something from a fairy tale or something.

We all got to pet a sloth.

The picture above is exactly how I think summer vacation should look like. Too bad these four are rarely all getting along at the same time. At least they did this day!

We found this McDonald's with this interactive, light-up table.  The kids enjoyed the table than they enjoyed their treats!

We bought a season pool pass this summer and used it a lot.  

We spent so much time outside, hiking, and exploring, and being together.  

We had a fun family golf outing.  I think everyone was better at it than me, and I'm completely okay with that!