Summer Trip, Part Four, California

After our lovely time in Utah, we drove down to Southern California to spend time with Corey's side of the family.  On the way, we had to make an obligatory pit stop for lunch at the St. George In-N-Out to see our friend Matt Pape, the manager there, and have some good food, of course (and access to clean bathrooms!). 

Summer Trip, Part Three, Utah--Fellows Side

When one is in Utah, one must always attend a large gathering of the Fellows side of the family (that would be my mother's side of the family).  Fortunately, my cousin's child was getting baptized on a day we would be in town, so we of course made it a point to attend the baptism and the luncheon afterwards.  Corey took the boys to do temple baptisms in the morning before the baptism at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple, which was on the way between Provo and West Jordan.  Then Corey and Andy and John (my husband, my cousin, and my brother) and Mark (my cousin's husband) took all the kids to a movie while the moms stayed behind and had some quiet girl time.  It was quite enjoyable.  I love spending time with my Fellows cousins!

Summer Trip, Part Three, Utah--BYU

 

When one is in Utah, one must always visit BYU campus.  We must always take a picture with the Y on the mountain in the background and visit the creamery for some yummy ice cream.  And we must always find a statue of Cosmo to take a picture with (or a painting, or maybe even the real Cosmo).

Summer Trip, Part Three, Utah--Hanging with the Howells

So before we moved away from Utah, we became really good friends with this family, the Howells.  They had moved into our neighborhood earlier that year and had six kids all close in age to our kids, mostly the same gender too.  We've kept in touch (barely, though, admittedly) and when we were in Utah, we had to make sure to stop in and see them.  It was a lot of fun, but we weren't able to stay for very long.  At least we did get to see them though.

Summer Trip, Part Three, Utah--Jordan's Grave

On one of the days we were in Utah, we went up to Salt Lake City to visit Jordan's grave.  We stopped at Banbury Cross donuts on the way and got some sweet treats to eat while there.  I'm sure Jordan would have appreciated us bringing him donuts.

Summer Trip Part Three, Utah--Hiking Squaw Peak

After we stayed two nights with Andrea and Alex and their family in Montana, we drove down to Utah.  Corey drove up from Texas and met us there.  We spent a couple of days there and ran a lot of errands and visited as many people as we could.  While we were there, Westley passed off a hike for the hiking merit badge by hiking with Allison, Marianne, Christine, and Caleb to Squaw Peak.  That is a hike I haven't actually ever done myself, though I did hike other places when I was a BYU student, like hiking the Y.  They enjoyed it, although they weren't really equipped with the right shoes and their feet hurt later.  But we enjoyed our time in Utah, however short-lived it was.

Summer Trip, Part Two, Montana

Our first destination was to see our cousins in Montana.  It was a three day drive there, so that's why we threw in Mount Rushmore, but the destination was our cousins.  Jordan's ex-wife Andrea remarried last summer and moved to Montana, so we got to see where she and the kids are living now and meet Alex and their step-siblings.  The kids loved it and I did too.  They live in a nice little town in Montana called Fort Benton. Alex is a farmer and they even own horses!  The kids thought that was great.  The scenery was beautiful and we enjoyed seeing the sights of the town with Andrea and the kids.  I'm glad we got to visit them there and now can have a picture in our heads of where they are when we think of them.  Alex is a great guy too and we enjoyed getting to know him.