Utah: Day 1

And so begins the many posts to chronicle our trip. You all will be bored to tears, but at least I will have it all recorded. So bear with me.

Jared and I packed the night before, waved good-bye to Katie, dropped Anne and Alicia off at pre-school, and went to the airport. We flew out on Mar. 14 into Las Vegas. It was cheaper than SLC and since we needed to go to St. George anyway, we thought it was a good choice. Hyrum was wonderful on the flight. I had envisioned such horrible possibilities when traveling with a baby. Constant screaming, delays or cancelations and such. Luckily none of that happened.

We arrived in Vegas tired, but on schedule. Jared's aunt and uncle were so wonderful and let us stay with them. We got in pretty late, but Ellen and Alonso were still awake.

Both Ellen and Alonso loved Hyrum and he loved the attention. We threw ourselves in bed and slept. Because of jet-lag we woke up early and headed out to St. George. We are pathetic, becasue we forgot to factor in the time change into Utah, so got there even later than planned.

But we got the see my grandparents anyway. They loved Hyrum. They held and played with him. Gpa was especially cute with him. And Gpa gave us a tour of some changes he has made on their house. Then they took us out to lunch at Bajio. I had been waiting for literally years to eat there again, and guess what. I got sick. My stomach was feeling off that morning, but was doing better by lunch. Well, lunch set it off and kept it going until the next morning. I groaned at every billboard with food on it. I loved having the time with my grandparents and listening to their stories.

Our next stop was by the temple, to Jared's gma. She was so excited about Hyrum and we had a great time talking to her. She is amazing! She spends all her days doing geneology and the temple work for ancestors. She gets more done than anyone I know. And she loves her family so much. Our girls love talking on the phone with her. While we were there we called our girls and found out that all of them were sick. I guess I brought it to America with me. I felt bad.

After visiting Gma we headed up to Provo to see my other grandparents. It was so fun to see Utah County and Provo again.

Gma and Gpa had waited dinner for us. I sat and enjoyed the conversation and didn't try food on stomach. We had planned on staying the night there and then heading up to my parents' house the next morning, but decided to go up and surprise them. But we arranged for us to get together again with Gma and Gpa on another day. I loved being in their house again and talking with them.

When we got to my parents' home we set Hyrum on the doorstep, rang the doorbell and hid...with camera in hand. I expected one of my parents to answer the door, but Rike beat them to it. She was a bit confused but quickly figured out who it was.

As you can see Rike was so happy to see her brother. I think she missed him.

I was so good to be with my family again. I sure do miss them. It was my first time seeing their house in person, but we talk on skype so often that it just felt so familiar and like home. Everyone held Hyrum and we sat around and talked. That poor boy had a new face smiling at him each time he woke up for the first couple days of our trip.