Utah With Jason

We've been on two different vacations here in Utah. One with Jason, and one without. Since we hadn't been to visit for about 5 years, we had many people we wanted to see and things we wanted to do. We had lived here the longest before we moved to Michigan, so we are quite familiar with the area. Now, more people that we knew outside of Utah live here too.

July 4th was the first full day we were here, so we enjoyed part of the fabulous Freedom Parade in Provo.

The kids enjoyed playing with their cousins in Aunt Karina's tree house

 and at Uncle Derek's house for a bbq.

Andrew and Blake put on an awesome fireworks show for us that night.

7 Peaks was on the agenda for the next day with the Pass of All Passes (thanks Grandma!)
We also got to see our dear friends from Michigan, the Bensons, who live as close to my sister as they did to us.

Austin went down the slide about 50 times, over and over.

We went to the McKay cabin that night (thanks Derek and Missy!) and on a beautiful hike to a waterfall the next morning.

After returning from the cabin, we ate and swam with our good friends, the Troxels, from our ward in Provo.
The next morning we went to church with Derek's family. We then met another good friend from BYU, Rachel, at Temple Square.

Karina's fourth, Natalie, who's Victoria's age, got to come around with us most of the time.

We went to dinner at my Aunt Karen's and Uncle Bill's with their children and grandchildren. Thanks Karen! It was great to see all of them. They were the closet immediate family I had here until Derek came a semester or two before we left Utah.

My mom and Jim were at a Chatterley reunion, but we enjoyed the next day at Trafalga with Karina's kids, including rock climbing, laser tag, and some rides with the Pass of All Passes.

Last, but not least, we visited BYU.

Erik loves seeing Nikolas, who he calls "Babies". He's Karina's youngest.

We miss Jason, but had a great time visiting all of our old favorites and friends and family.