Ootah Continued

As mentioned in the previous post, we spent a week at Matt's parent's house in between the Hedges family reunion and the week long Olsen family reunion. We always have so much fun not only visiting some of the local attractions, but also just hanging out with his parents and other family at their house. This trip was certainly no exception. Below are some pics from that week.

July 21st

Bronson is growing up so fast. He had started getting up on his hands and knees and rocking back and forth and even crawling a tiny bit before we left on the trip. By the time we came home he was crawling across rooms. Here he is playing around at Matt's parents house...


Jayna has been having fun learning a little more about photography and playing with different settings on our camera. Shaylin is always ready and willing to be the subject of Jayna's practice photoshoots to test out new settings. She's always willing to stand still and smile through all the pictures. We'd like to be able to do the same thing with Emmalyn but she's not big on smiling for pictures and she's definitely not big on sitting still very long. So here's some from the mini 'photoshoot' Jayna did with Shaylin at Matt's parents house...


Cousin Justin, Bronson, and Emmalyn enjoying the BEAUTIFUL Utah evening weather in the backyard...


One of the things that the kids loved doing while we were there this time was water painting on the back porch. It's nice when you can keep them entertained with just a paintbrush, water, and some concrete.


There's a park across the street from Matt's parents house that we spent several evenings at. Here's Christian, Declan, and Shaylin playing on the teeter totter...


Matt and Bronson about to go down the slide. Bronson had this same big smile on his face the whole way down the slide every time he went down...


Emmalyn and Jessica on the teeter totter...


Bronson on one of the toys...


Emmalyn trying to make herself dizzy on one of the spinning plates...


Bronson usually loves his baths...


July 22nd

One of these days when we go up to Utah we really want to do a session in the Salt Lake Temple. It didn't work out this time but we did get to go walk around temple square and tour the conference center as a family.

Here's Emmalyn, Shaylin, and cousin Jessica on temple square...


Matt and Jayna in front of the original painting of the 2000 Stripling Warriors from the Book of Mormon...


A picture that Jayna took of the Salt Lake temple from the roof of the conference center...


Later that day we went over to see Jayna's Uncle Doug and Aunt Tessa's house and to see Jayna's cousin Britney who recently returned from her mission to Independence, Missouri. Doug wasn't there but Aunt Tessa, Hannah, Britney, Aunt Lenna, and Uncle Mike were and we had a good visit with them.



July 24th

We decided to go to the Hogle Zoo with our best friends, The Trumps, for one of our last days at Matt's parents house before heading to the Olsen Reunion. We went the morning of Pioneer Day, which is huge holiday in Utah. The zoo didn't seem too crowded, at least not compared to the Phoenix Zoo. It was a lot of fun spending time with The Trumps and visiting a new zoo.

Emmalyn and Shaylin standing in front of the Rhino exhibit...


They had a baby elephant, but this is the mother. She kept flapping her ears open.


They had a lot of fun animal statues to ride. Shaylin wanted to ride this rhino.


We think it's cute to see the girls 'riding' statues, just like their daddy does. :0)


It was actually a very warm day in Utah. Poor Bronson looks so sweaty in this picture. The sunscreen all over his head didn't help him look any less sweaty.

They had a very cool giraffe exhibit, where you could walk inside the shelter for the giraffes. This giraffe was very close to us and licking the pole. There must have been some kind of treat on it.



Here is Emmalyn on the inside of the giraffe shelter...


Shaylin was adventurous and wanted to ride the large gorilla outside of the monkey exhibit. Don't worry, Matt is hiding behind to hold Shaylin up and make sure she didn't fall. He was a big gorilla.


Emmalyn snuck a ride on their stroller. Here are the older kiddos, Shaylin, Emmalyn, and Dominic waiting in line to get icees.


There was a fun, quick train ride that the kids loved going on. It was neat because there were animals that you can't see walking around the zoo and can only see from the train. Here's pictures of both our families in the train car.


Bronson was happy to be out of the stroller and to be riding the the train.


Bronson with his daddy...


We had such a fun time with the Trump's at the zoo! After the zoo, we headed back to Matt's parents house to eat dinner before we went to Thanksgiving Point gardens.

Bronson was so tired from the zoo, that he conked out after he ate dinner.


Here are the big fountains at the gardens. You can see Matt's mom with Emmalyn walking down the hill and you can barely see Dave taking pictures up by the waterfalls.


Jayna had some fun taking pictures of the flowers and waterfalls in the garden...