Utah - 4th of July Trip

Okay, this is going to be one big long post. I don't want to break it up, and yes it now has somehow become a burden to me to get this done!!! (haha)

July 3rd:

We arrived in SLC around 4:30 pm, picked up our rental car (Ford Edge - I really liked it!) and headed over to Amy's house in Cedar Hills. When we got there Shaun - Amy's youngest boy - was crusin' around in his red convertible mustang. SO CUTE! Natalie and he rode around and around. This became Natalie's favorite thing to do the whole time we spent in Utah. Aren't they adorable together?!



Prying the kids away from the 'Stang, we convinced them to take a walk over to see the horses. Natalie loved them. She was even brave enough to try to feed them!



Around 10:30 pm we decided we should go to bed to prepare for the next day full of festivities. Natalie was hungry and gulped down this yogurt parfait - what a mess!

July 4th:

We didn't wake up until 9:30. Well Natalie and Mike didn't, I was up around 8:30. We tried to hurry to make it to the parade but didn't get there until the VERY END! And when I say very end, I mean it. Natalie and I ran to where my family was sitting and just as we got there the very last float passed by. I had our picture taken to make it look like we had been there - but I can't fool myself, let alone you.

Natalie is checking out the cannon they shoot off at the end of the parade. She didn't even flinch when it went off. I know she would have loved the parade. What a bad, bad mommy I am!


After the parade we went to my parents house for our afternoon picnic. The kids played on the swing set and zip line while my mom finished preparing the food.




After lunch our very distant cousins visiting us from Lithuania passed out Lithuanian t-shirts. Funny story, ready? There was one pretty cool t-shirt that said "Lithuania" on the front and on the back something like "Where is that?" We all liked that one and Alisa liked it enough to go over and play tug-of-war with Vaughn for it. Well, Vaughn - in a playing fashion - let go and Alisa went down - HARD! She ended up breaking some bones in her wrist and the tip of her Ulna was pushed into her wrist and broken off. Needless to say, she spent the afternoon in the hospital. Just so you know, she is okay. She was stuck in Utah for a week longer than planned and ended up having surgery on it last Thursday, but everything seems to be doing well after the doctor had to put a pin and plate in. So, the morale of this story is don't play tug-of-war over a t-shirt & if you are playing tug-of-war, don't put all of your weight into it! You'll see Alisa with her soft cast on in pictures during this post.

Here we are on the temple lawn waiting for the fireworks from the Stadium of Fire to go off. The two adults and teenager on the right hand side of the picture are our Lithuanian cousins. It was so cool to have them here! Their English is pretty good, too!






Quick note here: I don't give Natalie juice. I do that because I'd rather have her eat fruit and I don't want her only wanting to drink juice and not liking water.... so as you can see, this Capri Sun was probably the highlight of her night - next to the fireworks of course!


Natalie LOVED the fireworks. She wasn't scared even once. She was even oohing and awing at them. It was so cute. I wish I had filmed it!


Saturday, July 5th:

Today was Sasha's (Amy's girl) 7th birthday. Lucky girl always has a party the night before her b-day and always has the family from out of state there to celebrate with her!


Sasha's new bike and first fall!


We went to the PG Veterans pool for Sasha's b-day party. Natalie absolutely LOVED going down the two serpentine slides. It was an awesome workout for me, too. I had to carry her up a ton of stairs approximately 40 times to ride the slides - no joke. I don't know what happened to the pictures Mike took of us so I guess you'll just have to imagine her cheesy grin as we flew out of the slide into the pool.

Later that evening Amy threw a family party for Sasha. It was a really good night. Perfect temperature. Kids all got along. It was wonderful!

(Nice arm Alisa! D'oh!)

All the cousins. Natalie couldn't have more loved having all these cousins to play with!


Rare picture - Spencer is smiling. This one's worth about a million dollars to Alisa. I might give her a deal and only charge $50. (Alisa you better take this offer before it goes up!)

Blow out the candles!

As soon as it got dark, we broke out the fireworks and basically lit the street on fire!




Natalie had no fear of the fire. I had to pull her away several times.


So I guess she decided that it would be extra cool to watch the fireworks while sitting in her new favorite toy. Yes, she is pushing the car to the road. She's pretty determined!

Her first sparkler!

Sunday, July 6:

A day of mixed emotions. Mike had to go home - so sad. I got to go up the canyon to Aspen Grove - dang cool. Check out some of the photos I took WHILE DRIVING (I'm so dangerous!). I felt like a tourist that has never seen the mountains before.

Proof of an avalanche. Sweet!

Welcome to Aspen Grove (now called Mt. Timpanogus Campground). When I was a kid we would come up here for a picnic/campfire at least once a month in the summer and would actually camp here at least once a year. Some summers we would camp a few days here at a time. We loved it! Good times, great memories!


Sorry Alisa, but I did warn you that this picture would go on the blog!


Natalie LOVED to play with the fire - just like the big kids! :)



In Cadence's hand is a caterpillar. There were hundreds EVERYWHERE. It was cool and creepy at the same time. Natalie was fascinated with them!




This is Natalie hugging the caterpillar. Seriously, I think I'm going to take this picture and eat it I love it so much!

"The Lithuanians"
Greta, Edmundus, and (oh man, I can't remember her name!)

Proof that I was there.

My dad making steaks and potatoes. Yummy!

Natalie's first S'more. She liked it, I loved it.

All of the younger kids and I hung out in our car for awhile. It was fun for them and a lot easier for me to watch Natalie. Aren't they the cutest cousins ever!


Monday, July 7th:

I can't remember what we did because I don't have any pictures! I guess it was a boring day. Weird. Maybe it will come to me - after I publish this post - but you won't care anyway! Oh ya, the kids and I had a little soccer match. It was fun. I had a game plan with drawings and the kids thought that was so cool (or at least I thought they did because I did!). Our team won that night so a re-match was on for the next night. Early the next morning, I found Kyle out practicing his dribbling through obstacles he placed on the grass. He was pretty determined, I guess, to not let our team beat his that night! SO CUTE! :)

Tuesday, July 8th:

We took the kids to Kangaroo Zoo. Pretty cool place! It's a huge warehouse full of these air trampoline things. I don't know what they are called, but the kids (and I) had a BLAST bouncing around on them! In fact, the older kids were there for about 5 hours before they had enough. Natalie spent the first 2 hours shopping with Amy, Alisa and me and then we met up with everyone else.

It was so cool to see how awesome the cousins were with Natalie. They totally played with her. She had so much fun with them - I really think this was when she really bonded with all of them. And of course, I only had a few minutes left on my camera's battery so I only have a few pictures to show. I did take a ton of pictures and videos on my phone but I don't know how to put them on the blog. Oh well!










After all that exercise we went to Sweet Tomato's so the kids could refuel. Natalie sat at the boys table for dessert. She was pretty excited to be there with all of her guy friends.


Wednesday, July 9th:

We went home today. Before leaving I went to visit my Grandma. Here's a picture of us with a VERY unhappy Natalie. She did not want to be anywhere near the lady I kept calling "grandma" when she very well knows that my Grandma is not the (Narducci) Grandma she knows.



She felt the same about my parents - the other "impostor" grandparents.





In order to cheer her up after I forced some pictures out of her, I gave her my camera to play with. I thought this was a pretty cool self portrait.


We got on the plane around 4 pm. Adam flew home with us. He was suppose to go home with Alisa (driving) but since she was stuck there with a broken arm, he begged his parents to fly him home with me. I think Natalie really liked having him on the plane with us. So did I!


Yes, she is hugging him and not trying to choke him - I think! :)


Well that's all folks. I have some videos to post. I'll do that separately. This post is long enough! Thanks for your patience. I hope I didn't lose any faithful readers - I'm back! :)