You remember when you would return to school after a nice long summer vacation and your first English assignment was to write about your summer...here is the Reber Family version of that assignment. It would be hard to say what the highlight was...we did so many awesome things. Just note right here--Our trip took a few wild turns (made necessary by Dallen's mission call and departure date). We started in St. George, drove to Park City, drove back to St. George, drove back to Provo, drove back to St. George, drove to Las Vegas, departed for Dallas. It was a wild ride made a little more possible by cds, the mini dvd players and leapsters. I'll be the first to say "hooray for technology." And thanks to my siblings, my kids now know all the words to the "lollipop song" by MIKA.
St. George was our first stop. Ella was immediately enthralled with her cousin Camryn and we enjoyed some of the great St. George moments: splashpad, carousel, and snow cones. The adult girls enjoyed an entertaining evening of the play Grease at Tuacahn theater. We caught a ride with the Lewis family on their way in to cousin's camp: the Park City Edition.
Stephen called us everyday in Park City. After our Lagoon day, this was our phone conversation with him.
Ella: I was so brave. I rode on every single big roller coaster at Lagoon. I even rode on "Wicked" twice. It shook my head around a lot and dropped down really fast. But, I didn't cry. I was brave.
Kayla: I rode on the airplanes.
Park City was a great stop on our road trip. We gathered the Smoot family together to enjoy the outlets, Alpine Slides, dinners out together, Lagoon, the midnight showing of Harry Potter, etc. I think I was mostly proud of all three of my girls by agreeing to go down the Alpine Slides. I thought for sure that Kayla would be scared to tears, but she ended up loving it. We reminisced together about the time my grandma tried to go down the slides with Diana as her passenger and my grandma got so scared that they ended up just stopping and watching the squirrels. That was "Grandma's Last Ride." My aunt Michelle also "punked" me by leaving Dessie with a group of strangers just after I got off the slide with Kayla. (She was in charge of the babies while the riders went down the slides.) The strangers informed me that Dessie had just been left unattended and they were trying to locate the parents. Michelle was laughing around the corner while my mouth dropped and nearly went into shock. Knowing Michelle though, I really should not have been so surprised. She loves pranks.
Of course, I feel better about the whole incident because Michelle had to share a room with me and my kids and Dessie did not sleep past 5:00 am nearly a single day we were there. She would scream until I gave in and let her watch "Belle" on the mini dvd player (see picture above). Ahhh...it's funny (heartrending) to see all of the good parenting dissolve while on vacation.
We were lucky that Stephen was able to join us for a day in Park City so that he could help us drive back to St. George for his brother's farewell. We spent the morning visiting his friend Zack--a boy he mentored during the years we went to school there. We also got to visit Mindy and Conor and their new baby--Number 4--Wow, congrats guys!!
St. George was wonderful again. This time the focus was all on Uncle Dallen. Congrats on your mission call to Santiago Chile! We were all really proud of him for making the decision to go. Dallen is a very talented baseball player with a great scholarship at Kentucky University. In his farewell talk, he mentioned how difficult it was to weigh out the possible life choices ahead of him. Ultimately though, the spirit led him to put in those papers. We are grateful for his courage and example. We enjoyed spending those last few days with him in the house. Uncle Dallen is a great favorite with all of the cousins. The family threw a great open house for him (notice Dessie in the pink dress with strawberry dripping down her..."messy Dessie" takes on new meaning) and we enjoyed rejoicing in everyone's hopes for his future. Anyway, I drove back to Provo the day that Dallen reported to the MTC. We set up shop next in Grandma Lewis' home. My sisters, Diana and Jennie, had been living there all summer. We'll call this portion of our vacation: the dorm week.
The best part about the whole week in Provo was the exposure my kids had to their many aunts and uncles: Diana, Jennie, CJ, Kelvin and Bryan were all regulars. Diana even won over Ella and Kayla by renting the Justin Beiber movie and hosting a McDonalds playdate. We tried to do something fun every day we were in the area. I truly miss BYU and the beautiful campus and gorgeous weather. One day we went bowling at the Wilk. We hit the creamery and ordered mint brownies. Grandpa Smoot hosted a morning of horse riding (a big hit with the girls). We celebrated the pioneer day parade in Mapleton. We saw three movies at the dollar theater (a true student favorite) and went to Cafe Rio twice!! We went to SLC airport and welcomed home my cousin Landon from his mission in Brazil. Congrats on a successful 2 years. And we celebrated my cousin Olivia's first birthday and Grandpa Smoot's 77th birthday in true "Smoot family" style.
Side note: I ran around the temple nearly every day...I didn't even have to leave before the sun came out!! It was beautiful enough for runs at 9:00 in the morning. Too bad that Texas is breaking records for days over 100 and days without rain. All of my plants are dead. I have to run at 5:00 now so that I don't melt!! Can't wait for fall drops in temp.
On our way back home (via the Las Vegas airport), we stopped in St. George for a couple of days and enjoyed seeing Cherin and Sam's family. I'm always glad when we can get all of the Reber cousins together...we did attempt a picture. If a successful picture includes everybody, then we were successful. If a successful picture requires everybody to be looking or even to be happy...then we were not. Oh well, c'est la vie. What do you expect with 13 kids under 11? Grandpa and Grandma made everyone's day wonderful by taking everybody to Tuacahn to see the Little Mermaid. My girls loved it and I was truly impressed with all of the stage water effects.
Stephen was (naturally) very happy to welcome us home. I'm still going through vacation withdrawal. We love and miss you all so much already! Come visit us in Texas...but maybe wait until the temp finally drops :)
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