Life has been a whirlwind of activities and trips lately! We have been on-the-go and have packed and unpacked many times in the past month. I inherited a restless spirit from my mom and have rubbed off on Eli. I just like to be busy all the time! Here's what we've been up to for the past month:
Sang in church for mothers day. Eli, Aly, and I sang a beautiful rendition of "Love at Home" and were accompanied by Eli's amazing pianist-of-a cousin, Nichole.
Spend a weekend in St. George for our anniversary (see previous post). 
Spent time playing with friends in our neighborhood.
Exploring - doing what one year olds do best!
Exploring - doing what one year olds do best!Visited Payson and the site for the new temple (2 blocks from where we used to live!)
Spent a weekend with Eli's brother, Ali, who came to visit from California. And played my brand new piano!!!!! A gift from my lovey for mothers day and our anniversary! I'm SO excited that I can play and sing at my own house now!
Drove to Lake Powell and spent 7 days there! It was the most incredible trip! Oh man, I miss it just thinking about it. I never worried about Tanner (he was afraid of the water) and he slept, played, and ate so well while we were there. Hooray! It was super fun hanging out with my family - I love love love them! (We did miss Andy and Paige though.) We haven't downloaded our pictures from Lake Powell yet because there are SO many. Just Doug and Eli took 2300 pictures combined in a week. Now we get to sort through and delete all the bad ones! We'll post some good ones sometime soon.
Drove from Lake Powell to Denver. Dana and I drove in our car with the little boys and listened to 8 hours of the show Caillou from the backseat. It was fun to chat with Dana on the drive! She is one awesome lady!Spent the next three days celebrating with my friend Christine. She is getting married in a few weeks! I went to her bachelorette party in Downtown Denver, helped Eli do a bridal photoshoot for her, and went to a wedding shower for her.
Spent a week in Colorado with papa and gra-gra. (Wes went back home after a day and Tanner really missed him.) During the week, Tan played with grandma all day while I nannied a couple boys. Tanner just loved being at grandma's house and playing in her yard. She is one awesome gra-gra! Eli spent the week in Atlanta on a business trip.
After 10 days in Colorado, our little family drove over the mountains and back home to Salt Lake. We spent a few days playing with Tanner's toys that he missed while he was gone for so long.This past Thursday, we celebrated Tan's 18 month birthday and played with some new toys. He even blew out a birthday candle! In the afternoon, we drove to the Salt Flats (2 hours from Salt Lake) and had a little photoshoot there. It was a pretty cool place!
On Friday morning, we drove to Goshen to visit Eli's old mission comp/college roommate and his family. (Goshen is a small town southwest of Payson.) We spent the weekend chatting, playing games, eating yummy food, watching Tan play with their 2 kids, and visiting a Lavender farm. We spent two nights there. Well 1 1/2 actually. Tan decided not to sleep one of the nights and so we packed up and drove home at 4:30am early Sunday morning. Crazy kid!
On Sunday we celebrated Fathers Day by going to City Creek canyon, a canyon that is literally 5 minutes from our house (why hadn't anybody told me about this canyon?!?!). We had a picnic next to the river with Lenny and some friends. Tan played in the dirt and with all the bright green caterpillars all over the table and hanging from the trees. We played a super fun game of croquet - dirt style! Dirt croquet was different than grass croquet - it created lots of funny outcomes!
WHEW! I feel like I need to take some deep breaths after reading that! We've done a lot in the past 3 weeks! But we can't unpack just yet - we are going to California this Thursday. We're driving to Vegas and walking around the strip that night. Then we'll finish the drive the next day to San Diego and meet up with Eli's fam - Ari and Christian (the hosts), Risa (mom), and Ali (the brother who lives northeast of LA). We'll spend 10 days there and then Tan and I fly to Denver for more time with my family and for Christine's wedding (I'm a bridesmaid!). Eli will drive home by himself, work for the week, and then fly to Colorado that weekend for the wedding.
After that we can stay put for a little while. A couple weeks after getting home from CO, we're going to a weekend long family reunion in Idaho for Eli's family. And then we pack up the following week and move on Friday the 30th!! Before you know it, we'll be in Vermont! We are all driving to Vermont - me and Tan in our car and Eli in the truck. Tan and I get to stay in Colorado for a few days while Eli drives the truck with our car attached to the back all the way to the upper northeastern part of the country. And then we fly out and meet him! A few days later, he starts medical school and we get settled into our new life in Vermont.
SO, all of you Utah family members who are reading this, I need to see you ALL before we move at the end of July! Our time in Utah is coming to an end because we probably won't come here to visit since my parents live in Colorado. So we need to get together at least one last time before we leave! OK??? OK!
I hope you all are having a fabulous summer!
