We're headed to Moon Lake!!

We're leaving today for Moon Lake and looking forward to a fun-filled weekend in the mountains. Here are some pictures from last year's trip: Amanda (pregnant with Avery), Reagan and John

The whole clan! Every year, we go to Moon Lake (in the high Uintah mountains) with my mom's two sisters, Collette and Daryl. When we were growing up, my mom spent a lot of time with her sisters, so we grew up with our cousins. Now we're all having kids of our own and it's a fun tradition to go to Moon Lake every summer.

Here are the grandkids from last year: Reagan, Alyssa, Blake, Addison, Savannah, Mia, and Makenna. This year, there will be 3 more girls added to the group: Samantha, Avery and Marin (baby sister of Addison). Poor Blake - the only boy, surrounded by 9 girls!!!

Monday and Tuesday in Salt Lake

Camille and Brett just purchased a fun new toy for the backyard: a trampoline! I'd never seen one like this before; it doesn't have springs and it has a net around the whole thing. It's so much safer than the trampolines I used to jump on as a kid! On Monday morning, we went to Camille's house and had a great time jumping on the tramp and playing in the water. It's been in the 90s here, so we had to continually spray the tramp with water to keep from burning our feet.


Makenna and Reagan taking a break in the shade

Amanda, Reagan and Alyssa

Camille had to take Makenna to swimming lessons, so we stayed behind and played a little longer. Reagan had so much fun jumping with Alyssa and Blake who were making up songs the entire time. Reagan's favorite song was "Jiggle Jungle." I spent a fair amount of time jumping and playing on the tramp as well ... funny how I don't remember it being such incredible exercise! When I was a kid, it was simply fun and I had no idea I was working so many muscles!

On Monday night, I got together with my girlfriends at Cafe Trio (the Cottonwood location). We do this every time I come to town, but since it had been a whole year, it was especially great to see everyone.

Here I am with Nikhol Hendler. Nikhol works at the other Trio location, so she made sure we were very well taken care of. The manager put 4 appetizers on the table, all complimentary. Needless to say, we all ate a ton of food!

John came with me for the first 1/2 hour so that I could show off my girls and then he could take them and I could spend the evening catching up with my friends. Starting with me, going clockwise around the table: Nicole, Nikhol, Autumn holding Avery, Missy holding Xander (Autumn's son), Nadia (Missy's daughter), and Reagan. Just after this picture was taken, Wendi joined us ... since she's one of my devoted blog readers, she wouldn't let me take her picture, for fear it would end up here. She's right, it would have! She had just come from work and claimed she looked bad, but I thought she looked just as beautiful as always. Even though you're not pictured here Wendi, it was wonderful catching up with you and I'm so glad you came, if only for a little while!

Trying to get a good family photo is virtually impossible...

Here I am with Nicole and Nikhol ... Including my friend Nicole in NJ, I have 3 very close friends with the same name :)

Here's Autumn and her son Xander, who is a miniature version of his father Chad. Xander was born on December 29th (I think that's the right date!), so he's about 8 weeks younger than Avery ... looking at him, you'd never know he's only 6 months old!

Annie, Autumn, Xander, Nicole, Amanda, and Nikhol

Nicole and Nikhol have more in common than just their name ... they both have great legs! At the end of the evening, (after a few glasses of wine), they were flaunting their fabulous legs for the camera! I told them this picture would be posted to my blog. For those of you in NJ, check out those beautiful mountains in the background ... can you see that they are still snow-capped? I sure do miss seeing these gorgeous mountains everyday.

After dinner, Autumn drove me to the softball diamond to meet up with my family ... John had joined my family for dinner, then they went to my dad's softball game. Brett (Camille's husband) has always played on my dad's Monday night team.
Camille, Avery, Autumn, Xander, Samantha and Michelle

Reagan and Makenna were having such a good time playing with a potato bug! They also had fun digging around in the dirt ... in fact, they were having so much fun that when we told Reagan it was time to leave, she threw a huge temper tantrum.

Today, (Tuesday, June 24th) was Blake's 5th birthday! We met Benee and her kids (Blake and Alyssa) at the pool for a little while.Here's Blake, Reagan and Alyssa swimming in the kiddy pool

Reagan was having fun in this tube, while Grandpa moved her around ... Avery doesn't look too happy here!

Nana gave Reagan some grapes and rather than pulling each grape off the stem and then putting it in her mouth with her fingers, she bit each grape right off the stem! I'm not sure where she learned to do this, but it was funny to watch her lift up the clump of grapes, tilt her head back, and then bite off a grape ... my mom and I were laughing.

After the pool and Reagan's nap, Reagan's hair was all over the place. My mom put it back into a clip and I thought she looked so grown up! I just love the expression on her face in the above picture.

John went to 7-11 and came back with this 40 ounce Peach/Mango Slurpee. Reagan was immediately hooked! Looks like Slurpees might be a popular treat this summer.

Here are my parents before they left the house to go miniature golfing with the Larsen family for Blake's birthday.

We met my parents at one of my FAVORITE restaurants in Utah: Cafe Rio! Everyone who has ever been to Utah knows exactly what I'm talking about. Cafe Rio makes the best barbequed pork and it's amazing in this salad. Whenever we go to Salt Lake, John and I have to have at least one meal at Cafe Rio. We always get the homemade chips and queso for everyone to share, then we share the pork salad. It starts out with a homemade tortilla, then black beans and rice, then the pork, lettuce, and tortilla strips. The creamy tomatillo dressing is to die for!

Saturday and Sunday in Salt Lake

On Saturday afternoon, my mom and my sisters and I went to get pedicures. It ended up being a re-run of what happened last year: we called a place and made an appointment for 4 of us to have pedicures at the same time. When we got there, they didn't have 4 available chairs, nor 4 available employees to take care of us. So, we left and found another place. Although it was fun to have a pedicure with my favorite ladies, I was pretty disappointed with the end result ... the lady who performed my pedicure was rushing to finish it and did a very sloppy job. I was done so fast that I ended up waiting a good 20 minutes for the rest of them to finish. Oh well.

On Saturday night, John and I went out to dinner to the Dodo Restaurant at The Gateway with my wonderful friend Natalie and her husband Gavin. Natalie and I met in middle school and immediately became great friends. She was in 9th grade when I was in 8th grade, so I felt pretty cool to have an older friend like her. After high school and after my first year of college, we decided to move out of our parents' homes and into our first apartment together. Natalie was a wonderful roommate! We lived together for almost 2 years in 2 different apartments, until she and Gavin (her high school sweetheart) got married. At dinner, they blew me away by saying they just celebrated their 10 year wedding anniversary! They now have 1 beautiful girl, Morgan (7), and 2 handsome boys, Walker (5) and Grayson (almost 3). It was so much fun to catch up with them over dinner and then on our walk around The Gateway.
After dinner, we stopped at Ben & Jerry's for some ice cream, then stood and talked for a while. I decided to drip chocolate ice cream down the front of my shirt ... don't I look nice?

On Sunday morning, we packed up the girls and headed to the Life Center pool. Before we left, we took this cute picture of Avery wearing my hat :)

Here's Reagan getting ready to jump into the pool.

This was Avery's very first time going swimming. Just as I figured, she absolutely loved the pool! Avery has always loved the bathtub, so I wasn't surprised when she laughed and laughed as she splashed around in the water.

Here's Avery taking a break from swimming ... I love the sunscreen-filled hair!

On Sunday evening, we had all of my family come over for Avery's blessing.

I also invited my best friend Missy and her husband John. Her daughter Nadia came too, who was looking so grown-up! Missy and I lived together for a year and a half before I moved to New Jersey.

Here's my cousin Marlo's daughter Savannah, her grandparents David and Collette (my mom's sister) and my aunt Daryl (my mom's other sister) holding Avery.

My beautiful niece Makenna (my sister Camille's daughter)

Amanda, Avery and John

Isn't this the most adorable picture? Here's Makenna and Avery, practically in matching dresses.

Samantha and Avery playing with toys from Nana's toybox

Left to Right, going clockwise around the table: my aunt Daryl, her son Brady and his wife Chrissie, my cousin Jamie, my cousin Chelsea (Daryl's daughter) and her husband Jason.

Amanda, Reagan giving her cheesy grin, and John

SISTERS :) Benee, Amanda and Camille

Reagan with her aunt Benee

Avery with her great grandfather, Neal Mann (my mother's father)

Avery with her great grandparents, Wayne and Betty Fawson (my father's parents)

Avery and her Nana (Michelle)

A 4 Generation picture: Michelle, Rod, Betty, Avery and Amanda

The Mendez Family with Grandma and Grandpa Fawson ... kind of a silly picture of us, but I thought it would be fun to post ...

At the end of the evening, Nana made ice cream cones for Reagan and Makenna ... as you can see, Reagan was pretty happy about it!

We made it to Utah!

It was a long day of travel, but we made it to Salt Lake City, Utah for a much needed vacation! We left our house at 3:45 on Thursday, June 19th in a car service, headed to JFK airport. It took us almost 2 hours to get there because of traffic (it's only 34 miles)! It's a good think we allowed plenty of time, since our flight didn't leave until 7:10 PM. Reagan slept in the car on the way to the airport, but it was a relatively short nap for her. We were hoping that she'd be tired enough to fall asleep on the plane.Here's Reagan on her seat before we even left the gate ... she curled up in the blanket to lay down. After we left the gate, we sat on the runway for a while, since we were departing from Delta's International terminal and there were many flights that had to take off before us. We had 3 first class seats, so Reagan and John sat next to each other, and I sat across the aisle with Avery. This turned out to be a disaster ... when Reagan started getting tired, she wanted to sit with me. If we'd been in coach, sitting together, it probably would have worked out a lot better. We did learn a valuable lesson about flying with a 2-year-old: fly during the day and don't expect her to sleep on a plane! Reagan never ended up sleeping. As we were making the initial descent into Salt Lake (still about a 1/2 hour from landing), we told her she had to put her seat belt on and she completely freaked out. She was SOOOOO incredibly exhausted at that point that she screamed as loud as she could! John and I just sunk down into our seats ... it was horrible! Of course, everyone was asleep and I think she woke up the entire plane! For those of you who have traveled with small children, I'm sure you'll understand the stress it can cause ... and for those of you who have cursed screaming children and their parents, try to be understanding next time you fly!

Here's John carrying Reagan into my parent's house. My parents met us at the airport to greet us ... they didn't need to come to the airport since we were renting a car, but they couldn't wait to see us :) Reagan was still awake while we rented the car and got settled. By the time we hit the road to my parent's house, it was 12:30 AM in Salt Lake ... this means it was 2:30 AM for us! Have you ever heard of a 2 year old who could stay awake until 2:30 am??? As soon as the car started moving, she was out ... by this point, Avery was overtired too but instead of falling asleep, she screamed the whole way home. It was a long 20 minute drive with Avery screaming - just shows how tired Reagan was though, since the screaming didn't wake her up.

Isn't this a cute picture of Reagan asleep on John's shoulder?

On Friday, we tried to sleep in and relax. My sisters Benee and Camille brought their kids over and we all had lunch at my parent's house. The kids got into Nana's bin of dress-up clothes ... this is a collection of all our old costumes and dance clothes. It was pretty funny to see these old costumes from our dance performances.

Here's my niece Alyssa in a purple leotard that I helped design for my high school dance company ... isn't it fancy? Reagan is in a blue skirt that she kept tripping over.

Here's my niece Makenna in another costume from my high school dance company. Alyssa chose a fancy black velvet leotard with a red tutu.

Avery and her cousin Samantha had fun watching the girls play dress-ups. Samantha (08-29-07) is just over 9 weeks older than Avery (11-02-07). This was the first time we had met Samantha, which is pretty sad since she's almost 10 months old! They are just about the exact same size, between 19 and 20 pounds. Samantha is Makenna's little sister, both daughters of my younger sister Camille.
Here's Samantha and Avery in the Pack-n-Play. Aren't they adorable together??

After naps on Friday, we went over to my sister Benee's house for some water fun and a BBQ.

Blake was having a birthday party the next day, so they had borrowed this blow-up waterslide/pool for the party and figured we'd try it out. As you can see by the pictures, the kids had a great time!

Here's Camille's husband Brett with Avery , then Avery and me.

As the sun went down and the pool part was in the shade, Reagan started getting pretty cold. The pool was filled up just before we arrived with water from the hose, so it was freezing cold! I couldn't even bare to have my feet in it. In the above pictures, Reagan's lips were blue!

Here's Makenna (with Blake in the background), then my older sister Benee and Avery

Here's my dad Rod and my mom Michelle and Avery

Just before dinner time ... Brett, Rod, Michelle, Samantha, Doug at the grill, Alyssa, Camille and Benee

The kids table: Reagan, Blake, Alyssa and Makenna

So ... I took the above picture of Alyssa, Makenna and Reagan swinging. Then I was watching the screen saver on my parent's computer and I noticed the following picture:

I took this picture one year ago when we were here visiting for our annual Moon Lake trip! I just thought it was pretty funny that the 3 girls were in the exact same spots and I took almost an identical picture without even knowing.

On Saturday, my mom made an incredible pirate ship cake for Blake's birthday party. My mom has always been a very talented cake decorator. She's now made it a tradition to make a cake for each grandchild's birthday. When she was in NJ for Reagan's 2nd birthday, she made her an Elmo cake. One year she made Alyssa a dinosaur and she's done plenty of princess/barbie cakes.

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On Saturday morning, I accompanied my parents to a funeral for my dad's uncle Jack Taylor. Jack was married to my grandmother Betty's sister Frances. I took Avery with me and took this adorable picture of her with her great-grandparents, Betty and Wayne Fawson:

Avery and her great-grandparents

Jack was in WWII in the Navy, so there were 3 people there to do the color-guard. It was pretty cool to see their part of the service.

Here's where they presented the flag to Frances, Jack's wife. Frances has been through more than anyone should have to go through in the last four months. My Grandma Great was her mother who died in February. Then in April, Fran lost her sister Ethel. In May, her 43 year old daughter Karen died suddenly of a very aggressive form of lung cancer. Now it's June and she just lost her husband Jack. I honestly don't know how a person can suffer so much loss, especially in such a short amount of time. She's lost the 4 people closest to her, her mother, her sister, her daughter and her husband, all in 4 months. To top it all off, Fran has cancer and has been undergoing chemo-therapy. She's lost a ton of weight and we have no idea how long she'll be able to fight off the cancer. My heart goes out to her, as well as my grandmother Betty, who also lost her mother, her sister, her niece and her brother-in-law.

My father spoke at the service and so did this 19-year-old boy named Brady. Brady was Jack's grandson. His mom was Karen who died last month of lung cancer. This poor boy just lost his great-grandmother, his mother, and now his grandfather to whom he was extremely close. He's been incredibly strong throughout these major trials and I admire the way he's handled it all.