Our flight was the last flight of the day and we missed our connection in Denver... Luckily, after an hour of searching Maree found us a hotel where we got to sleep for 4 hours. Dennis couldn't wait until the hotel to fall asleep.
We had a great time visiting Nonnie & Papa. Dennis and Zola were really great travelers.
Nonnie bought some toys for Zola including a cell phone, and keys. All she needed was some chapstick. :). I walked by and found that Dennis helped Zola get the phone to her ear. It was an important call.
While in Utah we had to eat at Cafe Rio at least once or twice... Here is Dennis and Myer climbing on Kristen while waiting in line. It's pretty impressive that she could carry both guys at once. Dennis is a heavy weight. haha
We tried to hit up some splash pads but always ran into bad luck... getting there too late, caught in a thunderstorm, and... just too cold of water for Dennis. He is used to St. Louis with 104 deg weather, I guess. I thought this picture was funny. Here is my son running without sprinklers with the no running sign. Yup. We are rebels.
We also went to the treetop children's museum. Dennis spent half of the time playing at the train tables.
I got to see my wonderful friend, Allison. I miss her. We have actually decided that we are going to live together again if we end up being widows someday. That would be super fun. I am so glad that she drove up to see me.
We went to the movies! Dennis and Zola went to their first movie in the theaters- Ice Age 4 or something.
When we got home there was a river in the gutter and the boys used their shoes as boats for the "pirates"
It was good, cheap fun for a LONG time.
Here are the girls together... Holland and Zola
I love this picture. I really shows how strong Zola is getting. I set her down and saw that she was in this position! I couldn't believe it. It didn't last long and she definitely couldn't get up on her knees on her own. But, she stayed there long enough for me to grab my phone and take a picture.
I love my happy girl.
Nonnie was so nice and let Dennis ride this dog around the mall. He pushed on the peddle and had to steer. He was pretty good at it.
I got to see some more friends! Left to Right: Dennis, Me, Winston, Katie, Lizzie, Kristina, and Zola. We had such a great time and I love these girls. I sure love that I get to see so many of my friends.
We were just standing there talking and all of a sudden I looked at Zola and she was OUT.
Dennis was a great help in the kitchen... and Nonnie gave him some juice that left a huge stain on his face. haha. He must have liked it. He looks like the Joker face.
Kristen got these super cute matching jammies for her nieces. I love it!
Then we went to Bear Lake for the Meyer Reunion. We LOVE Bear Lake. It was a little different this year without the boat. We spent more time on the beach and in the sand.
Story time with Nonnie.
There was a sidewalk chalk art contest. We didn't win... but I think we did awesome. Everything was Dennis' idea. There is a fan that is attached to the car with a surf board on top. The jet airplane is carrying the car and the road over the water. There is the bear lake monster eating the sun and the plane.
His pants got a little dirty.
Photo shoot of my gal... notice anything different? She is sitting!!! She learned to sit while we were drawing on the sidewalk!
I love that smile... it is contagious.
spinning fun with Aunt Kristen
Myer is so sweet. He LOVES babies. He would just come up to Zola (or Holland) and stroke their face and talk to them. Zola absolutely loved it.
getting dirty
With such a busy schedule Zola gets her sleep when she can.
I got to hold sweet Holland. Its amazing how fast babies change. Holding Holland is totally different than holding Zola. I LOVED holding her and remembering just a couple months ago.
Our boys love to swim!
Nonnie and Dennis playing "which pile is it in?"
Nonnie bought 3 boats for the 3 boys. They sure loved playing with them.
I absolutely love this picture of Dennis and Thomas. He is such a good uncle and Dennis Loves him.
Zola loves Thomas too. I think its because he looks so much like her daddy. She would just stare at him.
We celebrated Maree's birthday at Bear Lake. There were a lot of candles... they started melting faster than we could light them all.
Birthdays are so much fun.
We even set the smoke alarm off.
Dennis was super cute. He loved playing golf. When we went the first time, he had to make sure that he was wearing his golf shirt and golf shorts (not pictured- his polo shirt and plaid shorts). These pictures were the third time that we went golfing and he pretended that the word Lizard on his shirt really said golf. That made it okay that it wasn't a polo.
For the first couple of days it was just Maree, Kristen, Me, Dennis and Zola at Bear Lake. Then Katrina came with Benson, Myer and Holland for a couple of days. Then Kevin, Taylor and Thomas came for the last couple of days. It was sure nice to have a couple of extra hands around... and even a dad! Single parenting is hard work... especially for 3 weeks.
Zola got to go swimming. The whole time she was thinking so hard about what was happening.
She liked the baby pool better. It was warmer and she could stand up.
Katrina and Holland.
We caught a little smile on this gal after a lot of tries.
... and on our way out of town we hit up la beau's for raspberry shakes. Yum. I love this picture.. Myer and Benson are giving high fives.
We also stopped in at Grandma and Grandpa Funk's house. They always have presents for whomever decides to show up. They didn't know that we were coming but Grandma had some super cute blankets for the boys, salad tongs for the girls and chocolates for the dads.
When asked who gave him the cool blanket, Dennis said, "the old grandma." I think he meant Great Grandma. Dennis is standing next to Grandpa Dennis- his namesake.
Dennis loved playing with his cousins. It took a couple of days to get understand how they were going to play together without fighting but they figured it out.
I finally finished that quilt that I have been working on forever. It was all sewn by hand and I will never do it again... at least not in this century.
On our last night together, we got Nonnie with all of her grandchildren: Myer, Holland, Zola, Benson, and Dennis.
This will probably be the last year that they all fit in the tub together... they were getting pretty snug.
Then I got to see my good friend Rach and her daughter Adelaide and our other friend Eddie and her daughter Josie came too. LOVE THEM.
What a great trip! It was so much fun... and we are so happy to be home. We missed Ryan.
Thank you everyone for making it so much fun. We love you all.
Some things that Dennis said on the trip:
After getting hurt and he was crying really hard.
Me: Are you tough?
D: I am but that was tougher than me. Things that are tougher than me make me cry.
D: When you love someone whose not in your family, they are your friend.
And when we got home we started talking about selling our stuff so that we could buy a new bike trailer (ours got stollen). Dennis immediately got his jar of money and said, "here- you can use my money to buy a trailer."
