It was a really fun vacation, but long too. And a little crazy at times with a 20 month old little boy. He did pretty good though all things considered...
Our first stop at Grandma and Grandpa Yates' house was a hit! Especially when Grandma gave Emery some bananas. (Just goes to show, even if they don't like it one day, you should try it again! He's never liked bananas before then!)
Then we were off to beautiful Ruby Valley, NV for Joel's brother Sam's wedding reception. We went to Dallas in June for the wedding, and wanted to come for our side of the family's event too! Here Sam is kindly helping his bride with her shoe. It's hard to bend over in a hoop skirt!
The happy couple
The guests
Emery liked it at Grandma and Grandpa Neff's place, too. He loved getting ice from the refrigerator! He had a whole lot of fun and (bad me) I didn't take many pictures while we were there, so sorry! I was having too much fun myself and totally forgot. Also, Joel and I went on a fantastic 2nd honeymoon to Park City! We left Emery in Ruby Valley with Grandma for a few days and got some much needed time to ourselves.
Here we are at the
park city resort riding up to go on the alpine slides. We also went on the zipline and alpine coaster! Tons of fun! We totally recommend it!
These are the slides.
Just us.
I had never gone 4 wheeling so we went to
Bear River Lodge (about 1 hour from Park City) and rented a pair. It was awesome! It was far away, but totally worth it! They were super nice, even letting us go an extra hour since we got there an hour late from when our 4 hours was supposed to start. I didn't think it would matter because I thought we would never need 4 hours! But we used every minute of it! There were lots of ATV trails and even a lake to go up to. We highly recommend it! Sorry I forgot my camera, so no pictures of us :(
One of my favorite parts of our little trip was getting a couple's massage at
Aura Spa. Neither of us had had a massage before and now we are hooked! It was divine!
Joel's favorite part was our jet skiing on Jordanelle Reservoir. It was really fun! Sorry again, no actual pictures of us.
*If you were interested to go jet skiing or 4 wheeling you should probably know that on top of the rental fee, you pay for the gas you use. For 4 wheeling, between 2 machines,we used just under 2 gallons (4 hours). For jet skiing, and only 1 machine, we used 8 gallons (also 4 hours)! Just thought you might want to know!*
As you can tell we sort of spoiled ourselves because we never do anything so we thought we'd go all out. Plus, once Joel starts work in a few months, who knows when we'll get another vacation! It might be a while!
Side note....On our way back to NV from park city we got stuck on Parley's Canyon due to CONSTRUCTION. We were delayed an extra hour on our already 3 1/2 hour drive. Ug! I hate UDOT!
Back in Ruby Valley it was time for some family photos! Everyone is here except BEN who decided to go to a neighbor's for dinner to avoid it. The next day he was sad he missed it.
Emery loved the cats and dogs on the ranch. Hopefully some day we'll live somewhere that allows pets!
Our little family
Emery thought he'd give the kitty a hug so he got down to it's level and sort of layed on it! It was hilarious!
Another fun ranch attraction: Tractors!
We were sad to go, but alas we went back to Utah for some more time with my parents. They took us to the zoo!
Emery was off to a bad start when he ran down a hill too fast and skinned his knee only a few minutes after we arrived. But he still had some fun.
He liked the carousel, so we let him go twice. Once with mom and once with dad.
He had liked the train at the Atlanta zoo, so we gave this one a go too. It's only like 5 minutes (or less!) long, but still pretty fun. We did go right before we left so he was super tired too.
Here we were trying to keep Emery happy in the heat by letting him play in the sprinkler. He was more interested in moving the hose around like he had in Ruby Valley helping Grandma water the lawn! At least he learned, right?
Finally we were able to go visit our all-time favorite mexican restaurant in Provo,
Los Hermanos. Emery kept trying to drink the water from the pitcher. Silly boy!
Here we are visiting BYU campus. You can see the "Y" in the background.
For Joel's senior capstone project at BYU he was on a team that built an open-wheel style race car. He was in charge of the drive train, for those of you who may know what that is! They even raced it in competition against other colleges! It's now sitting in the new Gordon B. Hinckley alumni center. Go check it out! (They even have little video clips you can watch on the wall from when they did tv interviews. Joel is standing in the background with the team, see if you can see him! At one point he helps put the wings back on the car, so you can see him better.)
You probably aren't supposed to get in the car (thus the bars around it) but come on, he helped BUILD it! So, we quickly put Emery in for a photo! :) he he
And here is Joel's signature on the body of the car. His is the one with the swoop underneath.
Emery and my dad.
Some more family photos.
Joel and Julie
At the park to play on our last day on vacation.
Whew! That was long! After 20 days on vacation we were ready to come hope and recuperate. But alas, we got stuck in Chicago for 3 hours on the runway due to storms and wind in Atlanta. (I got the earlier flight for a reason! So we'd get home at a resonable hour like 8, not 11pm.) We are still getting back to normal. I don't know what is going on with Emery. He seemed to be adjusting ok to the time change, a little everday. But then all the sudden on Saturday he wouldn't go down for his afternoon nap (he usually naps for almost an hour at 10 and 2). Then today, he missed his morning nap since we were at church and then wouldn't go down again for the afternoon nap! I'm hoping he sleeps in tomorrow to make up for it! Wish me luck!
