Nutty Brownies?

At the beginning of the summer we learned that Sugar Daddy's brother would be getting married in August in Utah. After our fun trip to Mexico, the thought of flying to Utah brought dollar signs to mind, especially since the price of tickets seemed to be on a steady rise. So, after much thought and a bit of my McNutt side coming out, we decided that I would drive with my little brownies to Utah and back for the wedding. If that wasn't nutty enough, we decided to do the entire trip in just over 1 week!

Happily we were able to talk another person (who may also be crazy)  to join us for the drive - with her 3 girls. That equals 4 girls, 1 boy and 2 moms. I'm not sure who was more outnumbered - the boy or the moms...

Here we are on our first day of the trip. We drove quickly out of Texas and fairly quickly through Oklahoma. When we got to Kansas, we had to bribe the kids with candy to stay out of the car long enough to get a picture. They just loved riding together so much they didn't want to do anything else.

Once in Kansas it took ETERNITY to Colorado, while the most exciting thing we saw along the road was this:

In fact, here's a picture of most of us as we're driving through Kansas... (You can see how much they enjoy riding together!)

 

      

       

After coasting in on the last fumes in our gas tank, we overnighted in Colorado at my Grandparent's house. Marshmallow called it the twirly mountain grandma's house because the road going up is very "twirly". I remember it as the place where we always drove over the edge of the cliff in the dark.

Day 2 we made it to Utah and eventually saw some pretty cool things. It's amazing how creative Mother Nature can be in a barren waste land. Here she got bored and decided that it would be fun to have a rock sculpture of a toilet seat.

While there we got to visit my Grandma for a little bit.

The brownies got to jump on a trampoline. I think that was one of the highlights of the trip!

We also checked their hight. Some families like to mark the height progress of their children on the wall or a doorway. We just go to Utah, find a tractor and have them stand in the wheel. It doesn't happen as often, but it's still a pretty effective way to check their progress. Marshmallow is now taller than Turtle was the first time we measured him here...

We went to visit my cousins grave. That required a short, beautiful hike to the cemetery from my Aunt's home.

Turtle got tired and needed a ride. A grown man saw it and figured if a boy that big could get a ride, surely he could as well... Marshmallow fell in love with the sunflowers.

     

      

The purpose of the trip, of course, was for a wedding, which we attended. Some of us were a little more excited than others.

 




The bride and groom looked great and Marshmallow was more than excited to see her new aunt all decked out like a fairytale princess.

    

      

And of course, she was excited to have her own fancy dress (she called it her wedding dress) and match her cute cousins.

      

     




Turtle was happy to get away from it, relax his attire and explore a nearby park.

When the wedding festivities were over (actually, after the weekend was over) we got to play with my sister and her kids. One of their other cousins came to visit as well (he was Turtle's age, so Turtle was happy to have another boy, and one his age to play adventure with.)  They got to torture play with their cousins' grandma's little dog, Toby.

We went up to Bridal Veil Falls in Provo where my brownies decided to climb the falls barefoot. I didn't have any appropriate foot gear packed for the expedition, so their uncle had to galavant after them to keep them safe.

While they climbed, my sister, her three kids, grandma and I all stayed in the shallows at the bottom where we didn't have to worry about cutting our feet on rocks that could send us sliding down a long ways. someone needed to keep the babies safe and watch Ducky waddle around in the cold water!

The climb was successful in that everyone made it back without incident, although one little girl decided that princesses should get some special treatment.

 And after such an adventure, you'd think they'd be worn out, but the brownies were still quite full of energy (must be from the LONG car rides they had been on in the previous 7 days...), but we managed to pin them down for a picture with their cousins.

By the end of the trip, as we were going BACK into Colorado from Utah, we once again took the obligatory, candy-bribed picture. By this time, the older kids were more excited about the pictures as they kept them out of the car longer. The younger were less enthusiastic about it, probably since they really just wanted to be done with the whole thing. There are 4 words every parent learns to dread on a long car trip. I refuse to put them on paper for fear it will bring nightmares tonight of hearing them over and over again. The trip is still too fresh in my memory!