Howdy! Here are some pictures of our recent trip to Utah!!! We had a blast, surprisingly, for putting all five kids in the car and driving 1200 miles there and then 1200 back again. How my parents did that drive without DVD players is beyond me! We left after school on a Friday, drove to Omaha to spend the night, and then on Saturday we drove to Wyoming, where we stayed at a hotel (and I had strange dejavu moments from all the many experiences I had as a child sitting in a car while my Dad went into hotel after hotel trying to find something with decent rooms and a pool for a cheap price, only this time I was the dad!). On Sunday morning, we made it to Utah where we went to see some Olympic venues (which were cool, but not quite as cool as the ones Wendi and I had seen in Sydney in May), and then on to a family reunion at my sister Lisa's. Super fun!!! I had my conference on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, so the kids and Lisa ran around having a great time while I sat in on interesting and some not so interesting sessions learning about technology in community colleges. I presented on Tuesday and it went really well. Tuesday night Wendi and I went out with the other 1o people from Kirkwood at a Brazilian Churrasco called Tucanos. YUM!!! On Wednesday after I was done we went to Temple Square. It was very beautiful. Afterwards we went to spend time with our friends the Buxtons (who we managed to not take a single picture with :(. We did have fun playing cards with them (ahh... traditions!). Then on Thursday we went up to the mountains where we saw real mountain goats hanging out. We said goodbye on Friday morning as we headed back to Omaha, and then on to Cedar Rapids where we went straight to Hannah's first soccer game (she had three that day, and Jaeden had one game). It has taken about a month for me to get back in the groove from the trip (and I'm still not adjusted to Daylight Savings, for some reason!), but anyway - here's some pictures!!!

This is the kids at Happy Jack Road. Those who know what it is, enough said. If you don't know about Happy Jack Road, well... you ain't no friend of mine!

We stopped in Wyoming at a rest stop with Buffalo. It had a sign that said "Caution: Bison are Dangerous." I thought - yeah, yeah they are...

We took tons of Family pictures on our first day in Utah at a park. The leaves were beautiful. Wendi didn't want me to put this in here because it might be our Christmas Card. So, if you see this in card form pretent to be surprised, and if you don't get a card from us, well then Merry Christmas!!!

The kids went to an Aquarium and all of them pet a Sting Ray. It made me think of Steve Irwin, and made me realize that my kids are pretty brave. It amazes me that Annika is scared of dogs but will pet a Sting Ray! This pic includes my sister Lisa and my nieces Mallory and Emma.

Wendi took this picture and I think it's pretty cool. It was at Cabella, as are the next two pictures. It looks like they are about to be trampled... I mean it's cool because it looks life-like, yeah, life-like...


My two princesses target shooting at Cabella's. Keep this picture so that when one of them runs for Vice-President someday you can pull it out to show how cool they were as kids. I was surprised how much they loved it. So, watch out Bambi...
My sister Lisa teaching Jaeden how to shoot a skunk without getting sprayed. Unfortunately, well... they did get sprayed. Is it just me, or does my sister look pretty tough? I think she could star in an action film pretty easily, and I'm not just saying that because she almost killed me like, a million times growing up.

This is us in front of the Salt Lake City Temple. I like this picture because we look so tiny.

Us in front of the Salt Lake Temple. I like this picture because we look so big. We absolutely loved Temple Square!!! We took a tour with a Brazilian Sister as one of our guides, so I got to talk in Portuguese. Jaeden was wearing a New Zealand shirt, so he showed off to a Kiwi Sister and he said "Sweet As!" and she cracked up. Then we saw an Australian sister and the kids said "Aussie Aussie Aussie," and she said, "Oi, Oi, Oi!" It was super fun!


The kids in front of the Cristus. The twins kept saying, "Moon, stars, moon, stars..." It was really special to sit there with my family and think about Christ and all he did for us and how we can be together forever as a family.

Us in front of a replica of an old home. We decided that we could have lived there, but we probably wouldn't have liked it too much. Not enough space to play the Wii!

My kids with their cousins Emma, Loren and Mallory. You can't really tell in this picture, but up there in the mountains there are some white dots that are actually mountain goats.


The Buddies.

The Bubbas.

On the ride back home. It was cozy, but still probably more space then we would have had in that log cabin. Again, whoever first came up with the concept of portable DVD's for cars, I salute you!!!


Thanks for reading the post. I'll put another up soon!

jed...