The move, reunion, and a vacation

The last few weeks have been insane. We had to move out of our home, move into my in-law's, I headed up my High School 10 year reunion, and then we had a 10 day trip to Utah- all back to back. I was a bit stressed during the process, and I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't the most pleasant person to be around.

About a day before the move I noticed that Sam was drawing at the kitchen table. I went over to see what he was drawing and my heart stopped when I saw what I thought was a picture of me. I timidly asked, "What are you drawing Sammy?"- completely prepared for him to say that it was me. He stopped, looked up at me and said, "A lion. Why?" ...I can't even tell you the relief I felt.


I also thought it best to eat everything in our fridge before our move, so during the last two weeks I didn't do any grocery shopping. The children were not happy about this, so Sam took it upon himself to make up a shopping list of acceptable foods for me to buy. He also wrote down an "apple pie recipe" because apparently he needed one.

Sam's Apple Pie Recipe (translated)
-get some apples
-chop the apples
-boil them
-cover it
-put it in the oven
-take it out

Sam's Shopping List (translated)
-soup
-pancakes
-pop corn
-doughnuts
-macaroni and cheese
-fruit snacks

In the end, "stage 1" of our move went as smoothly as possible. (For those wondering, stage 1 involved moving out of our house, and moving into Andrew's parent's house.) It was a little depressing seeing our home completely empty less than a year after we moved in, but I think I was prepared to feel that way. We adore the family who is renting out our place and it was a huge burden lifted knowing that our home is in such good hands. In many ways the new tenants are exactly like us- LDS, 2 little boys and a baby girl. I seriously wonder if any of the neighbors up the street will notice that we've even moved. Our belongings (along with our minivan) were packed up by a professional moving company, and are now on their way to Switzerland. We'll be heading out on August 16th, but in the meantime, we are enjoying some family time.


The next event to occur was my High School 10 year reunion- which for some reason I decided to organize. With everything going on in my life, I think this reunion could have potentially pushed me over the edge. It probably would have, were it not for my friend Jill. Seriously, I cannot thank that girl enough!!!!!! I basically called her one day last year and told her that she was going to help me plan this thing. Even though she told me every day that she wasn't going to help (and even threatened to poison everyone at the reunion), she took on so much of the load. She took care of everything from the decorations, raffle tickets, finding a place for the reunion and collecting cash...geez, did I even do anything? THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! Thanks also to Kim, who came despite her many threats not to. :)


And finally, we had our trip to Utah. The main purpose of this trip was to attend my extended family reunion which took place at my grandparent's cabin in the Uinta mountains. To quote Andrew, "it was legendary". Seriously, this place is amazing, and if you don't believe me, just look at the pictures. The cabin is rustic, which is why I love it so much. There are toilets, but because the plumbing is so old, we have to use the outhouses. Of course, there were a few people unwilling to use the outhouses...and one day my sister (I'll not say which one) came running into our room to say that the upstairs toilet was overflowing. When I got to the bathroom poopy water was gushing over the toilet onto the floor. I hissed at my sister to hurry and help me clean it up before our grandpa found out, but before we could even get a towel my grandpa burst into the room demanding to know what happened. Apparently, the toilet water came pouring through the ceiling right onto everyone who was in the kitchen. GROSS!

Some other highlights included a 6 mile hike which ultimately turned into a 12 mile hike (not on purpose), a rafting trip and rescue mission (more on that later), a fishing trip with grandpa, and enough sites and hikes to make our hearts content. We love my family and I don't think that anyone could have a cooler grandpa and sweeter grandma than I do. When the family reunion was finished we were able to stay with Dan and Kristen in their new home. It was fun to be with them and their location allowed us to visit BYU, American Fork Canyon and Salt Lake. My Grandma Walker also came to the reunion, and we loved seeing her as well.

Look at my grandpa, how awesome is he???

Sam on a fossil hunt.

The green river near flaming gorge dam.

Ash relaxing on the upper deck of the cabin.

Here are some pictures of our rafting trip down the green river. There were 3 rafts in our group, and it was the mission of those in Joe's raft to throw everyone in the river. Fortunately our raft had some little kids in it, so we were somehow exempt.

Look at the picture below- I love how I am in deep conversation while Luke is trying to jump out of the raft. That' some good parenting! At least I'm somewhat holding onto him.

Now look carefully at the picture below. What you are seeing is Andrew and my uncle Jon rescuing a woman and two little girls. These people belonged to another rafting group who idiotically thought it would be a good idea to stop their raft in the middle of the rapids and jump off of this boulder. DUMB!!! The men in their group jumped off the rock, and then their raft got submerged leaving the woman and 2 children stranded. We were not far behind them, so we pulled our rafts over and my uncle and Andrew walked back up the river, jumped in, and traveled down the rapids to the rock. There was a dodgy moment when Andrew tried to get to the rock, but thankfully I didn't see this. They ultimately got the raft out of the water and jumped into the rapids holding the hands of the girls and woman. While this rescue mission was occurring, the men of this group were too busy worrying about their lost car keys to give their stranded family members much thought. Nice.

Fishing with Great-Grandpa Stones

After catching fish, my grandfather showed the kids how to clean and cook them. It was a nice little biology lesson.

And lastly, I leave you with perhaps the funniest thing I have seen in a while. While driving through American Fork, Utah we passed this little boutique.... only in Utah.