Cousin trip

Our big christmas present (we thought) was that we decided to take the kids to Utah the day after christmas to spend time with their cousins! We thought they were going to be so thrilled that we decided to keep it a secret, I mean after all we haven't gone anywhere for the holidays since Nellie was a baby. But alas when we told them the acted like, is that it? We decided to tell them a few days before Christmas because we were going to be leaving the morning after Christmas and we needed to be able to prepare a little bit better. As it was it was still incredibly exhasting to try and pull off.

We left pretty early and got a good start on the trip but that all came to a giant halt when we hit horrible traffic outside of Barstow! It tacked on an extra two hours to our trip. It was not cool. The kids were just a little excited when we finally got there. Clara did amazing on the trip but the last half hour she screamed because she was just done by that time.

One of the highlights of the trip was getting to see sweet baby Emma. She was born super early but did so great and is such a little miracle baby.

The kids always love kidding around with Papi.

We HAD to take a trip to a cafe Rio while we were there because it would be a crime if we didn't go get Kevin's all time favorite meal!

It's so fun to see the kids having a good time with their cousins.

 

We took the kids up to the red rock to climb around a little bit. But man it has been a lot of years since I have been in the cold weather and even in St. George I froze my buns off! Every time we went outside it felt so dang cold to me!! All I wanted to do the whole time was go back inside!

 

Russy is still in that phase where he says really cute things. He really loved climbing up in the rocks and he said "Mom look at this world!" And then when the kids were climbing over a little risky of a path and he said " guys do you think this is such a great idea?" He isn't much of a risk taker that's for sure.

That's a cute group of kids!

Back in St. George where it all began! It feels like just yesterday that I met this cute guy, but it feels like we have been together forever!

Two cute babies. Clara was super amazing on the trip and just crawled around and hung out most of the time. She even went to everyone all the aunts and uncles really well. She would just hold up her arms like " pick me up!"

It was fun to see all these little cousins together, getting to know eachother.Iliked how Annie and Jordan were chatting like big people.

After almost a week in St. George we headed up to Northern Utah to see our other cousins. It was only for a couple of days but it was worth it, becuasethese kids just have too much fun together!! The girls were reallyexcited to spend some time in the snow, but I think we have ruined them because they were all whining about how cold it was, and really who could blame them! It was awful! I have to admit to being very grateful thatwedon't live in the cold, I am the biggest aby about it now!

Lucy and Annie had a fun time playing together and luckily Annie was really sweet with Lucy. It helped that they both really love to play with babies! I can't wait for them to get older and really play together.

The kids were going to go sledding out in Eagle Mountain, but Annie and Russy couldn't handle the cold and were pretty much sobbing the whole time. It was awful!

 

The big girls had a really good time sledding. Although it didn't really change their opinion about snow.

The trip home we decided to leave really early in the morning to get a good head start. We ended up leaving their house just after five in the morning. It was dark and stayed dark for a really long time. I decided to drive because kevin doesn't do well early. I drove while everyone slept and they all slept until almost Elko! Poor Clara though caught a bad bug and was throwing up the whole way. It was so sad. Every time she had anything she threw it up. It made for a really crappy drive. Everyone was so anxious to get home that the kids didn't even want to stop and Elko ended up being our only stop the whole day!! We made it home by 2:30!! It sure was nice to get home so early. We were able to get everything unpacked and relax that evening. Clara was doing much better that evening, it ended up being only about a twelve hour bug.

We had such a good time with cousins, but I don't know how soon we will be traveling during the holidays again. It's just a hard time to travel with kids.