Salt Lake City and San Diego Highlights!

Random fact: I've lived near three large cities throughout my lifetime. And all of them start with the letter 'S'. San Diego, Salt Lake City, and Seattle. I think I'm just not allowed to live near any city that starts with any other letter. So that leaves me with. . . St. Louis, San Antonio, San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento. I think I'll stick with Seattle for awhile.

Anyway, in August our family flew to Salt Lake City for a short weekend trip. Stephen had to fly back home for work after that, and me and the girls undertook the road trip down to San Diego with my parents and grandparents. Check out some of the highlights from our August trip:

*Getting to go to my cousin Stefanie's wedding at the Salt Lake Temple. This was the main reason for our Utah trip, and it was wonderful to be there!

*Spending time with lots of family! Most of my extended family were in town for the wedding, and it's always so much fun to see everyone. We used to live so close together while I was growing up, and now everyone is so spread out and I miss them all!

*Playing with Kirsten on the Salt Lake Temple grounds, and watching her play with my Dad. She loves her Poppy so much!

(Gotta love these pictures!)

*Kirsten adores "Agoo and Poppy Ray" (my grandparents), so it was super fun for her to get to play with them and spend time with them, too.

*Getting pictures of our family at the Salt Lake Temple. Even though it was HOT and Natalie was really grumpy that day. :)

*Eating my FAVORITE pizza in the whole entire world. . . from The Pie in Salt Lake City! Gosh, it was heavenly! My parents and our kids had never been there before, but me and Stephen used to be regulars when we lived near there. MISS that pizza!

*Getting spoiled by Poppy. Kirsten got to share ice cream with him, and loved every minute of it!

*Attending my Grandpa's 80'th birthday party at the Little America Hotel! My mom and Aunt planned a surprise party brunch for him, and it was really special to be there and celebrate his life with all of my family there.

*Going to see the statue of Christ at Temple Square. Natalie was too little to care, but Kirsten was really enthralled with it.

*Watching Kirsten play with the dogs and "swim" naked in the fountain at her Aunt Mary's house. I didn't want to post the naked pictures on the blog, but it was pretty funny. She wanted her swimsuit and refused to keep her clothes on!

*Eating at a couple of our other favorite Utah restaurants. . . Tucano's Brazilian Steakhouse, Hires burgers, and Rubio's (okay, Rubio's is all over the place, but we don't have it in Washington!) It was just so hard to choose what to do and where to eat with such limited time there! We had two days in Utah, and that was it. I wish we would have had time to see more friends, and spend some time in Provo too! I haven't been back to BYU campus in such a long time, and that would have been nice. But we did enjoy our short time in Utah.

*Blissful, sleeping children on the long drive to San Diego. (We got to put the girls in separate vehicles, so Kirsten didn't keep Natalie awake. Score!)

*Stopping off for one night's stay in Vegas. Me and my Dad braved the Strip with Kirsten! We got to see the volcano erupt outside of The Mirage, ate deli food and delicious cheesecake at the Carnegie Deli (yep, the one from New York! They have a location in Vegas too!), and then walked WAY too far in the heat to see the Bellagio Fountain that Kirsten ended up being scared of. Oh well. . . it was an adventure!
(Kirsten had fun playing with the phone in our booth at Carnegie Deli!)

*Getting to Grandma and Grandpa's house at last! Kirsten loved having someone to take naps with her.

*She also loved playing with Grandma's lipstick.

*Having so many adults around to help entertain the kids for a change was just SO nice! Kirsten is always so happy when we're at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

*Having air conditioning in the house! Because it was HOT while we were in San Diego. My parents just put in the air conditioning a couple months ago, and it was a good thing they did! My pregnant self would have melted for sure without it!

*Spending time with my old friends! I actually got to go play games and go out to eat with friends while my parents happily watched the girls. It was a really nice break for me!

*Kirsten loved playing outside in the garden and helping Grandma pick beans.

*Kirsten is such a little farm girl when she gets the chance! (Unlike me, haha!)

*Going swimming at our neighbor's pool! Kirsten wanted to go there every day.

*Even Natalie had some fun in the pool! Up in Seattle nobody has swimming pools in their yards, so it was great being able to swim whenever we wanted.

*As always, it was hard to come back home and re-adjust to real life again. We had a lot of fun on our August vacation and just wish it could have been longer!