The end of our trip

One day while we were in Utah my dad took the kids up to the canyon to walk the dogs. Ella really wanted to go but my dad thought that maybe she was too small to keep up. He ended up telling her that she couldn't go. She came up to me and said "Maybe if I show Grandpa my big eyes he will let me go." How did this girl figure that out already. Seriously are we just born with that instinct. What a smart girl to put that together. She has been doing it for years but to hear that she is actually using the "big eyes" to manipulate a man. Wow good on ya Ella. Regardless to say that they didn't work on Grandpa. Of course he refused to look at her with her big eyes and hands clasped together begging. If I looked I don't know if I could of refused eitherLater that week my dad did end up taking her with him up to the canyon. She kept up with him just like she said she would. On the way down from the canyon she was holding Grandpa's hand and getting a little nervous because Natalie was too far ahead of them for her comfort. She started to say to Grandpa "Grandpa Natalie is to far ahead.... She needs to come back.... She is way far ahead of us.... Grandpa Natalie is really far away." Grandpa just told her that Natalie just had extra energy that she is trying to get out and that she was more then welcome to run up and catch up to Natalie and walk with her.

Ella responded to this by saying, "Grandpa once when I walked slow you stayed with me. So now that you are walking slow I will stay with you." What a thoughtful little girl.

It took many tries to get a good shot with Grandpa.and this one ended up being the best.

On Monday morning I woke up to this outside...

It made an easy decision for me. I would not be leaving Utah like I had planned. The kids were all bummed. As a matter of fact Ella told Joy the day before that if she had to stay in Utah one more day she was going to be home sick. Regardless to say. She was homesick. We were all a little homesick. We ended up hanging out with Joy that day and prepared our bags to leave the next day. Needless to say Tuesday was not a very good day to leave either. The weather was not cooperating with us at all. When I told Natalie and Nichole they both started to cry. Ella whined and Tyler cheered. He was not ready to go home yet. We waited one more day. And when Wednesday finally rolled around we hopped into the car and took off for home. The trip was uneventful which I am very thankful for. With the exception of when we stopped in Bountiful to pick up cookies at Cutler's Cookies (If you live in Utah you have to go there and just try a cookie. The Almond and Lemon ones are Divine). Pretzel jumped out of the car and started running around the parking lot barking at people. Now this parking lot isn't very big at all so I thought that she might actually run into the busy road and get hit. The people that she was barking at was very nice about it but it took her running around the van twice before she would get in. The people at the cookie store were very nice to box us up some wonderful treats especially since they had been open for a total of 2 minutes and they had to run back and frost some of the ones that we wanted. Overall it was a wonderful trip to Utah and it has made us all very excited to spend the summer there.