Family

 Ok so I know I have said this a million times, but I will say it again...I hate blogging! I always have the hardest time getting photos to upload and now that they are uploaded I dont know how to organize them in order on my page. So now they are all just random. So someone who is smart out there...can you tell me how to fix that?

We had a lot of fun with my family this summer. I will caption every picture because they are not in order of when they happened.

My adorable nieces and nephews playing at the park by my parents house in St. George.  We all went down there and surprised my mom for her birthday. It was so awesome and she was shocked when she came in the door and saw us all standing in her house. 

While we were visiting my parents, grandpa took all of the grand-kids to the Halloween store and bought them all their Halloween costumes

I babysat my nephews and to keep them "entertained" I let them wash my car :)

My sister and I threw our cousin a bridal shower. Her wedding colors were Tiffany blue and peach. So we did a blue themed shower.

This is our cousin on her wedding day. It was the only picture I was able to get of her.

My sister invited us all over to help lay her sod. With all of us helping we got it done so fast! 

We went to the rodeo with my brother and his family.

This is all of us waiting for my mom to get home from work so we could surprise her. Everyone was so excited. It was hilarious. We thought we would scare mom so bad that she would have a heart attack. But she only cried. What a relief!

It was our goal to make Kira cry at her bridal shower. We gave her a brooch that belonged to our grandma so that she could wear it on her wedding day. She was very close to our grandma so it meant a lot to her.

Me and the girlies at the rodeo

Kiras beautiful wedding dinner

Bridal shower

Rodeo

My uncle Jeff passed away this summer. Talia and I were able to go to his funeral. It was great to be able to see all of our family. These are my dads 4 siblings. 

Talia and I took the boys swimming at the Ammon pool. 

Bridal shower decor

Hayden and I got to babysit my nieces while their parents went to a concert at the fair. We had fun playing Trouble and Operation. They are so cute with their little curlers in their hair. 

Bridal shower. She got a TON of great stuff

Girls night out with my cousin Kira and my sister Talia

We started off the summer with FHE at Talias house. We made smores.

Rodeo

The kids loved helping

The boys loved getting sprayed down by Uncle Hayden

Bike wash

They had such a fun time at the wedding. They loved their drinks in the fancy wine glasses.

They LOVE their grandpa! This is while we were waiting to surprise grandma.

Laura Bush

I found this quote the other day from Laura Bush and really liked it. Laura and President Bush struggled to conceive their girls.  They even started the adoption process when she found out she was pregnant. She perfectly captures the loss of infertility in one paragraph...

"The English language lacks the words to mourn an absence.  For the loss of a parent, grandparent, spouse, child, or friend, we have all manner of words and phrases, some helpful, some not.  Still, we are conditioned to say something, even if it is only "I am sorry for you loss."  But for an absence, for someone who was never there at all, we are wordless to capture that particular emptiness.  For those who deeply want children and are denied them, those missing babies hover like silent, ephemeral shadows over their lives.  Who can describe the feel of a tiny hand that is never held?"

Tennessee

For the week of the 4th of July we went to the Hayden family reunion in Gatlinburg, TN. It was a lot of fun. I love seeing other parts of the country. So much of the country is sooo different from Idaho. I can't believe how many trees there are once you start going east. I will refrain from writing a lot and spend my time posting all of the pictures I took.

We flew from SLC to Vegas and then to Nashville. We got in late at night so we caught a shuttle to the hotel that Hayden's grandparents were staying at and we spent the night there.

We drove the 4 hours from Nashville to Gatlinburg with Grandma and Grandpa Hayden. This is the view from our condos. It was so beautiful there.

There was an extra condo so Hayden and I got our very own. 

Grandpa Hayden grew up in Oak Ridge, TN. This town was called "The Secret City" during WWII. They built the atomic bomb here. The whole family took a trip to see the museum and learn more about where Grandpa Hayden lived for a few years while his dad helped in building the bomb.

This is one of the houses that the people lived in while they were in The Secret City.  They basically built the city overnight and so they had these simple homes there.

Gatlinburg was packed! I had no idea there would be so many tourists. We braved the crowds and went downtown to look around. This is the famous aquarium. I wanted to go but it was pretty spendy so we didn't. 

While we were downtown, we found a great place to play mini golf. Hayden has become obsessed with mini golf lately. During our week vacation we played like 7 rounds of golf. This is the view from the course. It was going up the mountain.

Before our flight left from Utah, Hayden talked me into a quick round of golf.

We had a lot of fun playing with Lisa, Ashley, and Matthew

There were a lot of fun things to see in Gatlinburg. We spent a lot of time looking through the window watching this guy make taffy. 

More mini golf. This time it was in the dark! I beat Hayden on this course. That is a rare occasion.

On the 4th of July at 12:01 AM Gatlinburg has the countries first 4th of July parade. I didn't think I would be able to stay awake for it but it was fun and entertaining so it was no problem staying awake.

Before we all headed out for the parade. Grandpa Hayden put together a great program where some of the family members spoke about famous people from Tennessee. I did a little presentation about Minnie Pearl. 

And guess who came to our family party?? Dolly Parton! This is a photo of her singing. :)

On the evening of the 4th, before the fireworks we went to the river and had a boat race. We all made our own boats and this one is mine. Its an eagle. Can you tell?

Starting the race

My boat got 3rd place! 

We went whitewater rafting. I don't have any pictures just yet, but I will post them when I get them. It was a blast! We went through some wild rapids and we were soaking wet at the end. My favorite part of the rafting trip was when the river was calm for a bit we all got to jump our of our boat and swim in the river. (Getting back in the boat was rough) After rafting we went to a BBQ place in the middle of nowhere on the side of the road. The food was good, but I am not sure how clean it was.

The shack where we got southern BBQ

The picnic area. It was nasty in there! But it was all part of the experience.

Anyway, that's that. Tennessee was fun. I love travelling and that is all I ever want to do. If only I could get paid to travel!! :)