Surrounding the excitement of Christmas and playing in the snow every day, this Utah trip was chock full of lounging around, visiting family and friends, playing games and taking lots of naps… a true vacation; although, we were definitely wondering why we hadn’t done Utah with the kids first, and then taken off to Hawaii by ourselves to escape the madness. We did things backwards!

Since my sister was in Key West for the holidays, she graciously let us borrow her car so that we wouldn’t have to pay for a rental while we were there, and since it wasn’t a minivan, we had to split up whenever we went somewhere since we didn’t all fit. So, one morning, Meredith stayed with me exploring the house and taking a walk to the playground, while the twins went on a Daddy Daughter date up to Ogden to visit Grandma Celeste and Aunt Valisa.

I’m sure Meredith was wondering why it was so frigid!

Meredith loves to play games and giggled playing peekaboo and reaching her hand out for me to grab in the tunnel.

Meanwhile, the twins took Ogden by storm.

After their stroll through the Christmas Village, the girls were treated to an art lesson from Grandma.

I had no idea who actually went to Scheels, that giant monstrosity of a sporting goods store on the side of the I-15, but now I know. Jake took the girls there on a pit stop and to ride the ferris wheel inside, which afforded views of the plentiful taxidermy.

Those animals are dead, girls.

Later in the week, Uncle Mike and Ali came to visit from Wyoming and Meredith was happy to play with more members of her fan club.

Working on her latest concerto.

The day after Christmas the water of Lindon City was officially declared unconatimnated and the infamous Boil Order of Christmas 2016 was finally lifted (rejoice!) Since we didn’t want to deal with cooking and clean up while the boil order was in effect, we postponed Christmas dinner and decided to have it mid-week when Uncle Mike and Ali could join us. I’ve never been so grateful for tap water in my life! It really made a huge difference not having to boil bottles, dishes and bath water anymore!

Meredith especially enjoyed the garlic mashed potatoes during her first Christmas dinner.

The girls were bribed to behave during dinner with the promise of being able to pop open their party crackers, each of which contained a cute paper crown and mini xylophone. It’s the simple things. 

Meredith got a xylophone lesson from Grandpa after dinner.

Meanwhile, the twins learned how to doodle with their new spirograph, and were excited about their cute personalized Santa bags from Mike and Ali.

We played a round or two of Hungry Hungry Hippos every night, and I’ve never seen the twins so focused.

Such a classic.

Down by Utah Lake, they had a drive through Christmas lights extravaganza set to music we checked out one evening.

Mesmerized!

One of our favorite stops is the free Bean Museum at BYU, and the girls ended up going twice; once with me, and once with Grammy. They had a really cute story time which the girls loved, and we spent the rest of the time wandering around, looking at the animals.

Uh… where are the cute, fuzzy creatures you promised?

Amelia and Samantha reenacted what they learned about predators and prey from story time.

Hunter and the hunted.

The girls and I met up with my friend, Sarah, and her four littles to play at the Museum of Natural Curiosity. The girls have been there several times in the past, but this was the first time they were really old enough to be into more of the science and exploration activities. It was crazy at times corralling all our kids to go in the same direction, but Alec, Ava and Beckham were great tour guides!

Whenever they could manage to wrestle the Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots away from Mike and Jake (which wasn’t often), the girls had a few epic battles of their own. Things got especially intense when their robots fought to the death atop the table.

When we weren’t outside, the girls occupied themselves decorating windows, playing with Polly Pockets, and lining up all the stuffed animals in the playroom to play “school.” Other people’s toys are always so much more fun!

The girls did really well this trip, considering all the Christmas-induced sugar, excitement, and travel. By mid-week, however, all three were noticeably more cranky, and by the time our week was up, we were all ready to get back to a routine, even though the twins argued otherwise. “WE DON’T WANT TO GO HOME!” they wailed on the car ride to the airport.

We spent a ton of time looking out the windows at the airport to keep the girls occupied. Jake boarded with Meredith first to take advantage of having first dibs on the overhead baggage, while I waited until the last second to board with the girls to minimize the time they would have to sit there waiting.

For both plane rides to and from Utah, I sat with the girls, while Jake took charge of Meredith (I’m still traumatized from the last time I flew alone with her!) She loved playing peekaboo with us through the seats and was so wild, Jake had to pass her to me a few times while he rested his baby-wrangling muscles.

The trip home is usually the hardest leg, and this one was no exception. The twins did pretty well on the plane ride, and only melted down on the twenty minute ride home from the airport, but Meredith was a cranky little one from start to finish! She sat with Jake behind us on the plane ride and was constantly bopping up to say hello and then screeching when he wouldn’t let her on the floor. I’m pretty sure she hit or threw random objects at the passengers next to her several times. Poor thing just wanted OUT.

It was a good thing we had a very low key New Year’s weekend at home to recuperate from the trip. Meredith alone made us exhausted for days!

Lots of love,