I'm Back

I know that I am not the best at blogging regularly but I do kind of have an excuse. I was on vacation in Utah for 2 1/2 weeks. I have been back a week but you know how it is when you get back in town so I am finally sitting down to post about the trip.
The First weekend I was up there was the Matenson Family Reunion (My mom's side of the family) in Park City, UT. This reunion is over the whole weekend and I think it is fun that way because I have time to see and talk to everybody. My mom has 7 Sisters so I have a lot of family to catch up with. I drove up Thursday by myself with the two kids. Wade had to stay home and work. I don't know how sad he was about that, he thinks this reunion is too much socialization. Anyway I caravaned with my SIL Sarah (her husband stayed home also) so that helped when we stopped. The trip wasn't too bad I just had 2 of everything so if the kids dropped something I just handed them another one. Besides after an 18 hour drive to Oregon this was a short drive to them. The reunion was pretty relaxing. We had time to do whatever during the day and at night we would all come together. The first night we had Karaoke and Dancing and the next night was our annual Auction to raise money for the next year. My aunts were disappointed Wade wasn't there. He's not very conservative with money at this auction when he wants something for his girls and he likes to bid the prices up for fun. I managed to come away with some princess stuff for Caitlyn. Sunday we went to Church and had our final get together. They decided we are only going to do the reunion every other year which makes me sad. It was a good time and I can't wait for the next one. Here are some pictures from the reunion.

Me making lunch for the kids. There were seven kids and 4 adults in our Condo.

My brother and I doing the MacarenaBrock and Caitlyn enjoying some Ice Cream.The Auction ( My Mom, cousin Jessica and Niece Mackenzie)

Since we had another reunion in 2 weeks and I really didn't want to drive by myself witht he kids again I decided to just stay in Utah. So the next part of my trip was hanging out at my in-laws and visiting friends. I was able to go to lunch with my friends that live up in Utah and that was fun to see them. It is crazy how you grow up with them seeing them everyday and then we all grow up and get married and I only see them a couple times a year. When you get back together though it was like you have never been apart. I am horrible at remembering my camera so I didn't get any pictures with them but I love going and seeing them it is always a good time. Also, while I was on this trip I read Breaking Dawn. I am not obsessed with these books but they have been pretty good. I thought Breaking Dawn could have been like 400 pages long. Overall it was pretty good. It ended how it should have.

While I was up there my in-laws came to Vegas for a wedding so I went and stayed out at Wade's Sisters house. She has kids the same age as mine. That was fun to hang out there and let the kids play with their cousins they don't see very often. Wade came up towards the end of the last weekend I was there. We went to the Zoo. I can't say I love the Zoo but the kids do so I went for them. The sacrifices we make for our children. I am just not an animal lover. We rode the carousel and the Train and I think that was the highlight for the kids. The next day Wade went golfing so We took the kids and heading downtown to the I am a Child of God Exhibit in the Church History Museum. That was fun until Caitlyn had a meltdown so we had to leave early. The next day was the Christiansen Family Reunion. That reunion is on a Saturday for 4 hours. That was fun to see all of Wade's extended family. They rented a blow-up slide and the kids loved that. Overall the trip was fun but also stressful because we were still in the process of potty training and Caitlyn did not want to poop on the potty. It just added an extra stress on top of being up there so long without Wade. I am happy to report that since we got home she has been going just fine. I don't know what has changed but I am glad it has. Here are pictures from the rest of the Utah Trip.