Our trip to Utah ... part 1 of 3

Gordon and I went on a fun little trip to Utah for the week of July 4th. We wanted to visit old friends and family that still live there. We had a great time!!! It went very fast, though.

We were planning to drive to Utah all in one day. But, Gordon got off of work a little later than we expected and we didn't leave Valencia until about 5 pm. So, we drove half way there and stopped in Mesquite. If you ever drive to Utah from CA, we HIGHLY reccommend stopping here. We got a totally decent and safe hotel room for $29.99. It was great. We were exhausted already by the time we got there, so we were very glad we stopped and didn't try and make it in one day.

Hooray! We're finally here!!!

The next morning was the 4th of July. So, here we area sportin' our red, white and blue for the rest of the drive.

The first night...we had a BBQ with the Gee's. They are the family that we stayed with while we were there. When we lived in Provo we spent many nights staying up late with them playing games. We re-created many of those nights while we were there.

Alicia bought glow in the dark necklaces for all of us to wear during the fireworks. From their backyard, we had a great view of the Stadium of Fire fireworks show, for free! It was really fun, and relaxing to sit and watch the show.

We also drove up to see Grandma and Grandpa Walker while we were there. They took us out to dinner at Sizzler. It was yummy, and we had a great time visiting with them. We miss being so close to Grandparents and all of the cousins!!

Speaking of cousins...we stopped in to visit with Katie and Aaron and their kids, and Molly stopped by with her kids as well. It was fun to catch up. Gordon had a great time dukin' it out with Luke and Sam.

Riley was in her own little world for a while drawing a picture. Doesn't she look so old? Man, they have changed so much in a year!

Molly and baby Andie (I hope I spelled that right) at Katie's house. Isn't she adorable? And Andie's pretty cute too. :)

Me and Andie.

Spider man, red eyes and all.

This is called the "Bat Cave". It's their crawl space under their stairs. A perfect place for little boys to play. Here, Cole and Sam were having a great ole' time.

Gordon trying to wear the spiderman hat. Apparently, Luke thought that was pretty funny. :)

The whole gang right before we had to take off. That's part of the reason this trip felt so fast! We had so many people to see and things we wanted to do, that the time just flew. But, we're so glad we got to go.

That night we had dinner with the other Thorne's. My Uncle Mel and Aunt Sandra live in Orem. We used to go to dinner at their house quite a bit while we were in Provo. It was great to go and catch up with them and hear all about Melissa's adventures in Europe!

A typical night of gaming while we were there. Kent is serious and ready to win, while Gordon goofs off in the background.

For those of you who have played games with Gordon, you know that he likes to build things, especially while playing Settlers. I was trying to take a picture of the tower he built out of his pieces, and as I was taking the picture it got knocked down.

And of course, what is a trip to Utah without going to Cafe Rio? We went with the Gee's and had some yumi-licious food. The salads are as big as your face, as Kent is proving below.

Cute little Emma. I didn't get very many pictures of the kids! I'm just realizing this now. Most of the action went on after they were in bed...we were up until at least 2 every night playing. Fun times ... Oh, and there are several hilarious videos to come. I just need to figure out how to load them. But, these posts have taken forever, so they're definitely not going to be up tonight. Goodnight, all.