Christmas Vacation: Northern Utah

We had such a great time on our Christmas vacation.  For ease of remembering and reading, we'll break our trip into three reports, the Northern Utah, the Southern Utah, and the Southern California.  I can't say which part we enjoyed the most;  it was all lovely.  I think I felt better on the Northern Utah part, as I was pretty much burned out by the end, but I did hang in there and had a good time.  The kids adored seeing their grandparents, cousins and aunts and uncles in all three destinations.  I think that was their favorite part.  (As evidenced by many, many pictures of their two littlest cousins, L and J, playing and eating, instead of pictures of the wedding couples or other important things going on.)

We flew in to Las Vegas on Thursday night, had a short drive to mom and dad's and then left early Friday morning to head to Northern Utah.  We got to go with my parents to see the Carl Bloch exhibit at BYU Campus.  I recommend it to anyone, and if you go, rent the iPad.  It was full of fascinating information.  Inspiring, beautiful, amazing...we loved it. 

(And is it just me, or do my kids look gigantic in this picture?  How did they get so big?!)

Saturday, I finally woke up feeling more like my normal self (meaning the pneumonia was almost gone) which was good, since it was my sister, Emily's, wedding day.  My aunt and uncle hosted the wedding.  Their home is lovely, and the decorations were lovely, and the wedding was, well, lovely.  Everything was nice and simple and the hot fudge was amazing.  (Okay, I confess, I made it.  But I borrowed the recipe, so I can say, in all humility, it was super awesome, and I had nothing much to do with that.)  It was an ice cream sundae lover's dream, so perfect for Emily.

My cousin took lots of great pictures of the happy couple and their cute kids, and you can see those here.  I mostly have pictures of the little kids playing downstairs, since I never touched my camera.  (See first pictures posted.)

The next day, we went to church with Aunt Della and had a nice dinner with her, some of my cousins and their families, and my parents.  We also did some gift exchanging with the little cousins, which was pretty fun and adorable. 

The next morning, King and my dad, along with Snow White and Cinderella, headed down to St. George in the horrible snow towing a trailer to move all of Emily's stuff back up north.  They worked hard, and definitely earned their Christmas presents.  

My mom, Sleeping Beauty, Emily's boys and I did some shopping, and had an enjoyable evening with my Aunt Denise, Uncle Dave, and Aunt Renee.  We learned all about the weather from little E (he is five, and is going to be a weatherman when he grows up),  and then dropped Emily's boys off at their aunt's house to spend Christmas with their daddy. 

By the time SB, Grandma, and I drove down to St. George, Emily's house was all packed up and the trailer ready to drive back up.  Which is exactly what King and Dad did.  Aren't they good little elves?  They passed the trailer on to my brothers, and headed back down to enjoy a few days of Christmas fun in St. George, which is the next installment of our saga, coming shortly.  

Aren't you glad you stuck around for this? Exciting stuff, I must say.  ;)