Can We Stay Here Forever?

It's no secret that I absolutely LOVE living in Missouri. The beautiful trees and flowers, the GREEN everywhere! The rivers, lakes and wildlife, good friends and ever increasing numbers of family members (Justin's two younger brothers and their families just moved to Jefferson City. Yippee!). Missouri is just a beautiful place to live, and I really do love it there. However, I must also say that the kids and I are having an absolute BLAST visiting Utah right now. We've been here for a little over a week, and are having the time of our lives! The air is crisp and cool in the mornings and evenings...the rest of the day we just play in the sprinklers or go to the pool to keep cool, the surrounding mountains tower over our heads, begging to be hiked and explored, the view of Utah valley screams out "Bobbi! You've come home!" It's really funny how I never really miss Utah until I come to visit. The truth is, I do love spending time with my family and friends here in "Happy Valley".

We left Missouri at 4am Friday, June 26th. We caravanned with the Koeppen family, and were thrilled to have Jill & Tanner Kirk tag along with us in our car. We spent Friday night in Grand Junction, Colorado, and then finished the drive on Saturday morning. Halfway to Utah, I got a call from my sister, Bernice, daring us to tack on an extra four hours to our drive and go visit her in Idaho Falls. We took her dare, and drove on up to Idaho for the night. It was awesome to see her and her five adorably grown-up kids. (I CANNOT believe Porter is starting college in the fall!!! CRAZINESS!!) Mikaela and Christian were performing in the community play of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Eden stayed home with Byron, and the rest of us absolutely LOVED the show!! It was fun!






We stuck around Bernice's house all day Sunday and finally tore ourselves away around 7pm that night, getting us to Brenda's house in Pleasant Grove around 11pm. Luckily, my mom was still in town, so we got to spend a day with her before she drove back to California on Tuesday. My sister, Belinda, had just closed on a new house in Parowan, and rented out her old house in Pleasant Grove. Her moving van and husband drove away, and then her car broke down, leaving her and her four kids stranded in P.G. Oh goody!!! That just meant I had two awesome sisters and eight fun nieces and nephews to play with for a whole week until Brett could come get Belinda on his day off! We had a PACKED house for a few days, but it was so much fun! The cousins played NON-STOP while the moms got endless work done around the house.



On Wednesday, we went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. While there, I was thrilled to meet up with a very dear friend who I hadn't seen in like TWENTY YEARS!!! Hilary and I were childhood bff's back in Barstow, California until she moved away to Utah, and I moved to a different part of Utah, and we lost contact until the miracles of Facebook and blogging brought us back together! Hilary, it was such a treat to see you and your beautiful family in Utah!!!







On Thursday, Brenda, Belinda and I took our kids to the pool, where Bradyn (Belinda's 12-year-old) did a back-flip off the diving board, hitting his head and throwing the lifeguards into a panic. The poor kid was fine, but the overly-cautious staff dove into the pool, dragged poor Bradyn out, strapped him to a gurney, and evacuated the whole pool while they "evaluated" his condition. Brenda and I stood in the parking lot with 10 kids, wondering what in the world was happening to our poor nephew. After a few minutes, they let everyone back into the pool, and we went right back to swimming. Bradyn left for scout camp this morning. Hopefully he won't try anymore back flips.

Friday night, Brett came back for his stranded wife & kids. We left Bradyn in charge of the 7 other children (Brenda's four were camping with their dad) while the four adults went to the Sports Comedy club in Provo. The improv. show was great, and afterwards we had fun browsing through the streets lined with 4th-of-July vendors and carnival rides. I tell you what, Provo definitely knows how to throw a party!!! I instantly felt like I was back in my college years. What fun!

The 4th of July was a beautiful day. Belinda and I took our kids for a short hike up to a waterfall on "G" mountain. When we got back, the Haderlies loaded up their vehicle and drove to their new house in Parowan. That night, we built a campfire in Brenda's back yard and watched fireworks over the P.G. Jr. High.





Other fun things we've done so far on our trip: visited the BYU Earth Science & Bean Life Science Museums, looted local geocaches, picked TONS of cherries from the neighbor's over-producing cherry tree, terrorized Belinda's dog, painted the grass, weeds, and eachother in Brenda's back yard, eaten 1,000 popsicles, flooded the sandbox every day, consumed approximately 13 gallons of milk.







We have four more days left in Utah! I can't wait to see what we'll do next!!!