Trip to the Mountains

Monday, July 23, 2012

Rifle is always a good visit. I think we were all pretty exhausted from the fun week before. We got to their house on a Saturday night and headed back to OK on a Wednesday. Grandma and Grandpa LeDosquet spoiled the kids like always! We wouldn't have survived without the electronic toys and the DVD's for the car ride. 

One of the high lights was going to see The Avengers with Daniel. It was so nice of Mom and Dad to babysit for us so we could see that fun movie. Before we went to the movie, I had to watch both the Iron Man movies. I'm sure Iron Man is one of my new favorite movies. I wish I would have gotten more pictures while we there. Love you Mom and Dad! I'm glad we got to come stay.

Let's go to Rifle

Visiting the Vernal Temple was the highlight of the drive. Matt wanted to go through Vernal and he still thinks it was a pleasant drive. I'm a car-sicky/ paranoid side seat passenger kind of girl. That being said, the two lane highways and slowing down to drive through several Podunk towns isn't my idea of a pleasant drive. I did try and make it as smooth as possible by keeping my opinions to myself and napping as often as possible. It really was worth it to stop at the Temple for a break. This is actually my parent's temple and it was beautiful.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

When We Got to the Mountains, Our Hearts were Singing

Even though the circumstances for our visit to Grandma and Grandpa Mitchell's house were not ideal...we had such a wonderful time visiting with cousins and Matt's parents. 

These two are such fun grandparents. Araya and Ammon were lucky to catch a ride with them.

Lily was too busy swinging to hop on this time. Don't worry, she got the chance later.

Our awesome brother-in-law, Anthony and Grandpa Mitchell.

This Grandma was loving every minute of this snuggle time with Levi.

He woke up from his nap and played in Grandpa's tractor

Matt's beautiful nieces and Luke. This is right after Grandma Jensen's funeral at the luncheon.

Grandma and Grandpa got to eat with their grandchildren...all except John, Lily and Levi.  John sat with his parents and Lily and Levi were not invited to the funeral. They went to the viewing with us the night before and it was too much for Levi's almost 2-year-old attention span to handle. Chasing children around the halls did not sound all that enjoyable to me. We decided they would be much happier, and we would be so much happier, if they went to Pocatello and played with Sarah, Jayne, Bailey and Ethan. It was a terrific decision. They had a great day and so did we. 

I had the pleasure of taking some of these candid pictures. Layne did not escape my camera shot in time :)

This has got to be my favorite picture of that day. Look at my face, Matt's face and Angie.  It looks like Matt is glaring at me and Angie is telling a pretty funny story. It was so great to sit at the table with Matt's Aunt Juanita, Jenna, James, Angie and Anthony.  Terrific people!

Matt was a Paul Bearer at his Grandmother's funeral. As we were leaving the grave sight, the Limo needed to move so all the families could go to the church. Matt went and asked the funeral home people who was going to drive the Limo and they said, "You can." So Matt drove the Limo with Kelly, John, Araya, Ammon, Michelle and me in the back. Luke sat up front with Matt to keep him company. We had a great time in the back and it will always be a good memory. These pictures are of Matt and I taking the Limo back to the funeral home before we headed to Pocatello to get our children.

These two kiddos did such a good job with the hours and hours of traveling. 

That night, after the funeral, we got our family pictures taking with the Mitchell's. It was actually really fun to get everyone dressed up. The kids did really well and we celebrated with G's Dairy. We loved G's when we lived in Rexburg. The ice cream is delicious. Tamie trades chicken eggs for ice cream credit at G's. I'm pretty sure that's what paid for our ice cream that night. I've got to say it again...Matt has a terrific family and I feel so blessed to be a part of it. It was so fun to be all together.  I can't believe how much Tamie's kiddos have grown. You basically can't call them kiddos anymore...they are teenagers! Angie's kids are really big too. They still should as little as they were in 2009 to me. 

These pictures were taken from Grandpa's Ipad. The kids couldn't get enough of that Ipad...okay...we liked it too :). 

We had to make sure we got to go on a ride together. Matt is a little too fearless in my opinion. And he doesn't listen to the words "Slow down, Matt," until I am screaming and crying. Haha. It was still a lot of fun. I miss stuff like this in Idaho. We really love Oklahoma but when we got back to the mountains, our hearts were singing. 

Angie's family left the night before we did. We were able to have a day with Matt's parents and kind of regroup, do laundry, nap, and have a BBQ with them. It was fun to roast marshmallows and have some one-on-one time with Matt's parents. That day the kids and I were also able to have a play date with our good friends Rachel, Miles and Gwen Garner. It was so great to see them. My kids were pretty tired from that crazy week at that point.

Matt and I got to sneak away to revisit our old stomping grounds. BYU-I means a lot to us so we thought we'd pay it a visit.  The Austin building is where Matt lived for 4 years. Side note: I'm pretty sure I was wearing shorts and flip flops.

This was neat! Matt's final Capstone project from 2010 was displayed outside one of the main computer labs. Everyone walks by and sees a picture of him everyday. We were both proud of that.

Other fun things that we did while there:
-Matt got to go visit the canal and see the screen project that he and his dad built last year.
-I got to go on a shopping trip with Angie and Linda to Melaluca and the Distribution Center. We drove up to a part of campus to see a new gigantic apartment complex by the stadium.
-Grandma bought Lily a princess game for the Ipad. She was addicted.
-Jumping with the kids and doing tricks on the trampoline. Also, braiding Araya's hair.

We stayed our last night in Idaho at Matt's parent's house. Linda woke up early and made us a yummy pancake breakfast. We had a great time and I'm so glad we were able to go.

Pocatello/ Rigby/ Shelley's family

These two haven't been together in a year! They used to be best buddies as babies. 

New respect for photographers. It was crazy to get these kiddos to all look at me and smile. We even had a choir of  "Popcorn" going. 

When we got to Sarah's house in Pocatello, Ryan, Cathy, and Brooklyn were there waiting for us. Sarah and Jayne made us a yummy dinner. Matt got to take a little nap. The kids played like crazy. We were so glad to be out of the car and cousins were glad to see each other. I can't explain how great it was to see my siblings. I hadn't seen Sarah in nearly 2 years and I always love getting together with everyone. We stayed at Sarah's house for 3 or 4 nights. While we were there, Matt worked in their storage room. Jayne, Sarah and I got to hang out with the kiddos. We went to Sister City park on day, Jayne and I ran one day, we ate lots of good food. Sarah's a great cook :). We watched "Once Upon a Time", & the new Muppet Movie. We played on the Ipad A LOT. They introduce us to a ton of new apps and games that we now have on our IPod and IPhone. It was really great to be there and I feel so blessed to have such great sisters. 

These two were together night and day for 3 days. They had such a fun time together. There was only one night, as they were taking a bath where there was an argument about 'fairy princesses' and whether or not they could sing. Lily insisted that fairy princesses can really sing. 

You can tell they have the same Grandma. They both just happen to have this shirt from Grandma and wore it the same day. Twiners.

Sarah's house. Love those boys.

This is Ryan and Cathy's house in Rigby, Idaho. We were able to stay with Ryan and Cathy for 3 nights while we were preparing for Matt's Grandmother's funeral. They were so great to let us come and go anytime. I'm sure they felt like we were using them as a hotel. We spent the days with Matt's family and then came home to their house at night. I told Cathy to NOT plan on us for dinners because our plans were so uncertain. It ended up that we would land at their house around dinner time and she would not let us go with out dinner. Their house is so darn cute! They have it decorated so nice and their back yard is so fun.

This was actually right as we were saying goodbye. I love these two and Brooklyn so much! I miss not living next door to them. Just a side note...they have both lost a few pounds. Cathy just hit her 100 pound weight loss. I'm so proud of them. They are such a good example time me. 

Before we headed to Colorado we stopped in Pocatello one last time to say goodbye to my sisters. Wow, I love my family. Baby Ethan is so great too. His personality reminds me a little of what Levi was like as a baby. They are both pretty easygoing. 

Oh Jayne. She didn't want me to post this on FB but it's all fair game on my blog. She was getting ready to go run. On this trip she gave me some clothes from her closet and I am so thankful. I was in desperate need of some new clothes.

 Pocatello and Rigby have some pretty outstanding people that I already miss. 

Grandma Jensen. Until we meet again.

This Grandma at Levi's baby blessing August 2010. She loved the new babies.

Grandma come Christmas morning 2010. 

This was just before we moved from Idaho to Stillwater. Grandma and Pete came up to see us one last time before our trip to Oklahoma.  She loves her great grandchildren.

Christmas 2011 we were able to talk to Grandma on Skype. She really liked seeing us on the computer and was amazed how well she could see and hear us. We love her and she will be missed. We are so blessed to have such a great woman in our family who was such a great example to her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. We love you Grandma. We'll see you again someday.
Love,
Matt, Shelley, Lily and Levi Mitchell

Friday, July 6, 2012

Idaho Bound...

On the way to Idaho we say IDAHO WOOT WOOT TOOT!!!!

We had a super, mostly pleasant trip to Idaho. We left Stillwater at 3pm, drove all night (with the exception of stoping outside of Denver for 3-4 hours to sleep in the car) and got to Pocatello at 2pm mountain time. The kids did great but it was a long time to be in the car.