Utah Is Not Too Far Away

Callie has a talking United States puzzle that tells the capitals as each state is correctly placed.  It is light sensitive so every night when I turn off the living room lights the puzzle goes nuts and I get to learn one or two new states and capitals!  I am pretty well-known for my lack of geography knowledge.  But I do know where Utah is now and I know Salt Lake City is the capital and I know that it is a beautiful state, crawling with Mormons, but containing a big piece of my heart.  Callie puts her puzzle together often and every time she puts Utah in place she tells me that it really isn't THAT far away.  She also says the same thing about Oklahoma where her friend Sara moved to recently.  After asking a few follow-up questions, I figured out that Callie says these states are not too far away because, in her own words, "if they aren't far away then we don't have to be sad" that Brighton and Sara are there.  So today, as I wonder when I will get to go back to Utah and because Callie has asked me many times the last few weeks when she can see her cousins again, I am reminiscing about our trip there seven months ago.  I am VERY behind on blogging but I don't even care at this point.  I hope to catch up so that I can have all my memories in order and so that I can post our Disney pics in a timely manner.  We shall see.  So, here are pictures of Utah and the four "non-Mo's" (non-Mormons) that keep part of my heart hostage there.

 "I like this ride!" is what Callie had to say about her very first time on a plane.  Matt was with us from Norfolk to Chicago but then we split up and he flew to SF to meet his friends for his Yosemite adventure.

Holding hands in the airport.

First Hike  

 This is a picture of Jon making all the kids and women nervous by crawling down into a cliff for a waterfall picture.

 Callie prefers a more difficult hike and crawled on any rock that wasn't in her way.

 More than likely up to no good.

 This is like a modern day Norman Rockwell scene!

 This day we hiked up to Lake Mary.

 When we stopped to rest at the top, we had several visitors.  The most exciting was this fox who walked right by us.

 And the chipmunks tried to steal our granola bars.

 A cuteness contest.

 Yes, the water was cold.  That didn't stop these two from getting really wet.  I had a change of clothes for Callie.  My sister is a much less conscientious mother so Brighton had to continue down the mountain soaked.  ;)

 Trying hard to seem poised and proper even though we are trying to fit two "Worley" bottoms on a small stump and even though neither of us was ever any good at being poised and proper to start with.

 A change of clothes...

 ...and a dirty hiney shortly after.  She also enjoyed sliding down the other side of every rock she climbed.

 One night was spent listening to a Reggae band up at a ski resort.  I believe this was when the first of MANY boo-boos happened.  Brighton busted the corner of her eye while being silly and after that, we had a bloody incident each day.  But before the accident, she had fun showing off her groovy moves!

 ...and so did Callie!

 Another fun outing was to the skate rink where we could rent skates for Becky and me and a scooter for Callie.  The kids switched back and forth between scooters to skates and neither girl could really do much without us helping them.  But they finally took a break and Becky and I got to skate a few laps together.  Callie's first big boo-boo was a scooter incident in the driveway.  She took off downhill with no hesitation and slid off the scooter and into the car.

 A lot of time was spent in Becky and Jon's backyard (which had the obnoxiously beautiful view see above). Callie fell down the ladder of the play house and busted her chin and then another day got a foot full of thorns from taking her shoes off where she wasn't supposed to.  The scar on her chin appears in some pictures.  Some photos have been photoshopped to hide it.

 Even the playhouse has better view than our house!

 No injuries this day, despite the bad reputation of Slip and Slides!

We picked up Matt from the airport one evening and enjoyed listening to his Yosemite stories, especially the bear story, on the ride home.  Matt spent three days hiking in Yosemite with his friends before joining us in Utah.  The main purpose of the trip was to climb Half-Dome.  Here are three pics of his trip:

 They climbed the curved side of that (above), the weirdos.

Now back to Utah:

The view from the mall entrance...just ridiculous!  

 On our day trip up to Park City, sporting my home-made dresses.  They were great models...most of the time.

Callie's chin scar and Will's head have been photoshopped out of this picture.

Another outing was to the Children's Museum, and that day had it's own set of matching home-made outfits as well.

 Daddy is determined to turn her into a rock climber.  He wants her to go up to half-dome with him next time!

Our second hike to Cecret Lake

 We did this hike on a weekday and Jon didn't take off work to come with us.  He was regretting it as soon as he heard we saw a mommy moose and two calves.

 Matt did some very "Nat-Geo" maneuvers to get these photos.

 Matt climbed even farther up to get these photos, putting him at about 10,000 ft.

 Callie climbed this little rock hill all by herself with me whimpering below and Daddy close behind to encourage her.  Incidentally, none of her boo-boos were from hiking and climbing.  All "domestic" accidents.

 Little trail gabbers.

 I love these two "a man and his lake" pictures.

 Our last big adventure was to Antelope Island in the middle of the Great Salt Lake.  It seemed like another planet to me.

 We got pretty up-close and personal with this guy.  

Jon got closer than anyone.  What is missing from this picture are the sounds of my sister screaming for him to get back in the car because she was just sure that buffalo was looking angry and was about to charge.

 Some cell-phone filtered shots

 Brighton is missing from this picture because she fell and busted her nose on the rocks, bloodying up her pretty yellow dress.  It was our last night there but NOT the last of the boo-boos!  Callie ended the trip by knocking over a set of moose salt and pepper shakers in the airport gift shop and cutting her finger on one of them.  It bled a lot and got all over both of us before I knew what had happened.

 The final night we also had a little birthday party for Will.  We gave him several movies, one of which was Megamind.  Then we all stayed up late to watch it.  I just loved how eager the kids were to sit on top of or next to each other where ever they went.  They were like siblings.  And then occasionally fought like siblings too!

A few more pics of the kids being cute together: