Payson Temple Open House

Dave is so good to remember dates and to-do lists. He was sure to schedule tickets to the Payson temple open house, and even reserved a couple extra so he could bring his parents along.

Prettiest temple I’ve seen. The inside was just gorgeous! Loved taking our little people to such a special place! The temple and the whole experience was just beautiful!

8 Is Great!

The wait is over! Kate waited long and hard for this day and, alas, it is here!

In summary, the dad made her the bomb diggity cake! 3-tiered, rainbow, and the coolest candle the world has seen! So you light it, wait…wait some more, and then BOOM! It opens up, 1 flame spreads to like 50 flames, it spins around, AND sings happy birthday. Repeatedly (until you cut the wire). Incredible doesn’t cover it, but it was an incredible way to celebrate our incredible girl!

Here’s some pics of her birthday weekend:

The AMAZING CAKE:

More candle blowing at Grandma Sherrie’s:

And here we are enjoying her birthday dinner at Benihana (like every year before):

And last, here we are enjoying the BYU Art Museum on her birthday weekend. We got to experience the wonderful world of paper folding!  It was actually awesome, all jokes aside.

Lagoon

We were late getting to our Lagoon Day this year. For a few days prior, Sissy had had a painful side ache, was crazy tired, and was having trouble walking. When she woke with it still bothering her, we took her to Instacare instead. The doctor found that she had a severe UTI and got her on an antibiotic. This was a relief as we were worried it was appendicitis. Kate was relieved, too, because this meant we could still do Lagoon that day with the cousins.

We made it up there by about noon. Holy Hannah! It was packed! We probably only rode a handful of rides the whole day due to the long lines. It was a rainy week and I think the people who are usually camping or out of town stayed home and went to Lagoon instead.

Of course a busy day at an amusement park is always still better than a day at home on the couch. We had fun!

It was the "other" year which meant we got our pictures taken. Max's first! The outcome is always fun, but the process? Not so much! While waiting your turn, you get to watch the sweaty, naked ladies in front of you derobe their dresses and props. Then, with no washing of the clothes, you get to dress down in the same stinky clothes. It's just gross. But look how fun it is in retrospect:

We usually top off the night at Buca. I think the lines did us in and we were anxious to just get home. We hit In 'N Out on the way home and called it a day.

Walt Disney World

-Highlights from the Trip-

 

The Plane Rides:  The flight there and back were both in the wee hours of the night. The mom didn’t sleep much, but Baby Max was a dream and slept the whole way, BOTH ways, without a single cry or problem! I love him.

Our Hotel:  the Port Orleans French Quarter. Just terrific! It was almost Mother’s Day and Mr. Blackhurst (never coming up short) had flowers waiting in the room. The kids enjoyed the pool and the marshmallow roast at our hotel. Max had his first swim here too. He was very relaxed (as you can see by the finger sucking) as he waded with Dad.

 

Wild Animal Kingdom: Upon arriving, Max spit up on me right in my crotchal region. Looked like I full-on peed my pants! It was QUITE the sight! Luckily, I’m not easily embarrassed and we moved on with our day!

The kids had a blast; we had fun on the safari as usual, and the kids LOVED Expedition Everest!

Here’s a shot of some (later) spit-up action. Mmm…

Matching T-shirts and a hippo

Lunch with Mickey and the gang at an African Buffet

 

Epcot:   We stuffed ourselves silly eating at Tutto Italia, and their Japanese restaurant (similar to Benihana). We also had major issues with Dave’s magic band and I got to enter the park with the kids alone and entertain them for about an hour until he finally got in. That was fun. The kids loved Fasttrack! Dave and I actually liked the Living With the Land ride, which we’d never done before. We got to tour some of Disney’s greenhouses and farms, which was pretty dang neat!

We actually did Epcot 2 days, the first day was fine, the second day, we MELTED. On Day 2 of Epcot, we tried walking from country to country, sampling cuisine from each place, but gave up halfway and decided we needed to be indoors as MUCH AS POSSIBLE!!!

 

Magic Kingdom:   (we did this park twice as well) This was our matching t-shirts day with the rest of our 17-person party! The temps started rising on this day, but we managed to have a good time, and we got to try out the new Seven Dwarves Mine Train ride, Beast’s Castle for bfast, and Tony’s for dinner.

 

Hollywood Studios:   Maximus continued to be a dream. I decided before the trip that I’d take him back to the hotel at 8 each night (so as to not break him of his perfect 12-hour sleep habits)…this was the best choice I made! He was a happy camper and no one could believe what a great baby he was!

Now, let’s talk about rides. Under Dave’s Law, kids are required to ride all rides that they are tall enough for…at least once. For Kate, this meant ‘joy’ after the Rockin’ Rollercoaster, and ‘horror’ after Tower of Terror. She’s done Tower of Terror at least a handful of times and it always brings her to TEARS! Poor girl.

The car stunt show here was awesome! Even more awesome, were our children performing at their Jedi Training Academy and facing off with the Man in Black himself! It was quite comical actually. Kate impressed us with her moves! Cole, was one of the younger students, and did well for his age…let’s just say that. He was nervous to fight Darth, but did great in the end and proved he had what it took!

Later that night, Dave, Cole, and a few cousins stayed late for Fantasmic. I took Max home to sleep, and Sissy went with the girls for a late night swim.

Sunday: Church. We rented a 17-passenger van to attend the single’s ward Sunday morning; the single’s ward because it had the morning time. Really great talks; I always love attending church on vacation. That’s legitimate.

While in possession of the van, we also had dinner at Whispering Canyon Café at the Wilderness Lodge (this was the night before). The hotel was stunning, and the grounds were awesome, designed to look like natural waterfalls and geysers all throughout the property. Max fell asleep on the ride over to the hotel and didn’t wake till 7:30 the next morning. It was incredible. Have I mentioned he’s a perfect child?

We flew home late that night. Max had a blowout at the airport  (because all good things must come to an end). Other than the blowout and the magic band issues we had, the trip was seamless. Perfectly planned by Dave! The kids have already been missing the trip. Cole, in particular, regularly mentions how he wishes he lived there; as long as his things and best friend, Trey, could be there too!