Since Pete's been gone...

I had been a little worried about Pete leaving me alone with Ryan for two weeks before I join him in the Philippines, but somehow it has gone by quickly and now it is the night before I leave to travel the 30 hours over there. Pete has to go over early each year to set up all the humanitarian work that the rest of the group will get to participate in. I have been really busy between family being in town, work, a concert, a family reunion and getting ready to go on my big trip. I have definitely had a few breakdowns since he has left, but overall it has been okay. Here are some pictures of what we have done since he left.

The Colbie Caillat/John Mayer Concert-John Mayer sounds amazing live


Horseback riding with my sisters and nephews at the Ranch we stayed at for our family reunion.


Ryan was in HEAVEN with so many rocks to play in and throw at other people


This was what happened when we attempted to play tennis in the dark-I went to hit a wild ball not knowing the tennis court was surrounded by a swamp and ended up covered in mud. We laughed for about 10 minutes which was good since it had been a really hard day with Ryan.


Riding the zipline. The ranch had so many fun activities to do and when Ryan napped I took advantage of that time to have some fun.


Where we spent the majority of our time. Notice Ryan is covered in floaties-that is because he thinks he can swim and doesn't want anyone to help him in the pool.


Another one of the places we spent a lot of time at during the family reunion. I think I heard: "Wow, he is SO busy" from almost all of my aunts and uncles. Someone asked me if he even knew how to walk since they only saw him run.


Hiking in Zions-it was beautiful!


Well, I am pretty much packed and just waiting to go. Wish me good Luck-I am starting to feel my usual pre-trip anxiety (turbulence is not my favorite thing) and I am really sad to leave Ryan for two weeks. It should be a wonderful experience-we are building houses this year which I am really excited about-I keep telling myself it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity each time I get to go over. Thanks in advance to my wonderful mother-in-law and my Mom for watching Ry while I am gone-I hope they don't sell him on ebay. I will be back in a couple of weeks!

I love it when Rebecca comes to town

Besides getting to spend some quality time with my amazing sister Rebecca (who always seems to live too far away), another one of the great benefits of her coming to visit is that she always takes a family picture for us. Ryan was kind of a pill and so our photos were very true to life. Here is one of the pictures that i stole off of her blog-she says she is refusing to edit anymore until she can get home to her perfectly color calibrated desk top back home in North Carolina-she is so technical, but I love her anyways

Sisters Road Trip 2008

My sister Rebecca and her three kids decided instead of flying out for their 4 week vacation to Utah they were going to drive out so she could have a car. My other sister, Melissa, had been living with Rebecca in North Carolina for the last two months and they planned what I thought sounded like a really fun road trip. I figured that I may not have a chance to drive cross country in my life and after consulting with my husband I bought a one-way ticket to NC to join in the fun (he was very nice to let me leave Ryan behind). I flew to Denver had an unexpected 6 1/2 hour layover, got in to NC around 11:30 p.m. then got up and started on the road at 7:30a.m. I wish I had had more time to see where she lives in Chapel Hill because it was beautiful.

It was great because they planned one big thing to do each day to break up the drive and then we tried to stop at the most random/classic road trip places we could find-and boy did we find some winners. First stop was the Great Smokey National Forest where we had a run in with a mother black bear and her two cubs-luckily we were in the car when we saw them, but we all felt like we were in a National Geographic magazine. We spent our first night in Tennessee and woke up the next morning to head out to Graceland.

One of our first great finds was the "Old Country Store" we found along the road to Graceland-they sold everything you could dream of if you wanted to be a red neck-like these beautiful coon hats!


Graceland ended up being pretty cool-esp because I knew almost nothing about Elvis-their were some die-hard fans visiting his home that day.


For some reason I have always wanted to go to a Piggly Wiggly (mostly because I can't believe a store is REALLY named that) so my sister made special stop to fulfill my lifelong dream.


Our third day we were in St. Louis and rode to the top of the arch and walked around the museum-it was really neat. Everything we did seemed to exceed all of our expectations so it made things fun. That day we also went and ate at a World Famous bbq joint in Kansas City (my sister had done some serious research about what was the best)-it was AMAZING! We were all craving it the next day and were sad they don't have Arthur Bryant's in Utah.


Melissa wanted to run thru a cornfield, but most of them were fenced off so we took advantage of this open one...


As we drive thru Kansas, we saw signs advertising a six-legged cow at a place called Prarie Dog Town-we were sold. We knew we had to go after that-and it did not disappoint. In fact, it was one of the highlights of the trip. It is too bad in this picture you can't tell that the cow's friend had five legs.


The three kids were great, but after driving thru NC, Tennessee, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado and Utah we were very glad when we drove into my mom's driveway. We all had a great time and it was fun to be able to spend some much time with two of my sisters.