What time is it? SUMMERTIME!!!!!

Warning to all readers: no pictures provided due to a lost camera that was not really lost!!!

Summer has begun!!! Oh, wait, not for us, no, we still have ummmmm, lets see, aaaaaa, oh my, a whole 2 weeks left. Is Salt Lake the only place that's lame enough to keep kids in school after Memorial Day? Don't they realize that EVERYONE, me included, checks out at that point. I think my kids will watch a lot of movies and play a lot of games and who knows what else to pass the time away during "school hours" until it really is summer. Well, that's where I live so I guess I best be getting used to it. One lonely voice wont do much to change the monster.

So on that note, we had a really fun weekend with lots of excitement both wanted and not really desired, but it turned out to be great. After changing our minds a few times, not paying any attention to the "real" date of Memorial Day, sickness, and whatever else might have stood in our way, we ended up kind of inviting ourselves to go with some friends to St. George for the weekend. (aren't we good friends?) Oh, and does anyone else want to invite us to go anywhere with them? (just kidding)

On Friday we were able to head out a little earlier than expected, which turned out to be better than we imagined due to the overwhelming amount to traffic also trying to flee the dreaded sight of the city. Please, don't get me wrong, I don't mind Salt Lake, but bear in mind of where I grew up as well, DELTA, where you can actually drive a mile in less than a minute, and you pass more cows than people. (got off subject for a bit, sorry!) Anyway, so on our 4 1/2 hour drive, just about 2 1/2 hours of that time were spent listening to our dearest Ali scream. She is not the most pleasant child to travel with since somehow she has decided that she must compete with everyone for attention and the loudest one seems to get that all desired outcome. Finally we made it! We took the kids swimming and after that tried to put 8 kids to bed in one room. Did you catch the "try" part that was exactly the case . It took about 2 good hours for them to finally calm down and give in (I guess I can't really blame them).

On Saturday, we took our time getting up and out, but in the end we headed up to Snow Canyon to have a picnic lunch at the sand hills there. After about 4 - 5 u-turns, we were about 5 minutes from our destination and Ali threw-up (not just a little either). Jeff decided to go back to the condo and clean her up while the kids and I climbed in the Moores van, just a little squishy, and continued with our plans. We had a great time, we buried most of the kids about neck deep and got a small amount of sand in places we would rather not have it, and when we were done with that, we headed back to the condo. We decided the best bath for all of us would be an immediate plunge in the pool. I'm sure they really appreciated the sand bar we brought with us. At the end of the day, Ali had managed to heave 4 separate times, making it only once into the sink. Jeff was the lucky one who got to clean it all up as well, thank you dear!!!! I love you!!! This night it seemed to only take a little less than 2 hours to get all the kids to sleep, I think we are getting the hang of it now.

Sunday we woke up really early because our family need to be in Las Vegas for a baby blessing at 10:00 am. We thought if we were gone by 7:45 we would be there in good time. In the end we left about 8:00 but still we thought we would be fine. After crossing in to Nevada, I was fiddling with my cell phone and realized we forgot to take into account the time change. OK, so we are idiots at times, I know that, but we really could have gotten an extra hour of much needed sleep. Well, we can just believe we wanted to be there really early so to be sure we would not miss the beautiful baby blessing of my brother, Clark and Susans baby, Lucas. That was great to see Susans family again, after only meeting them once at the wedding. And most of all we got to see baby Luke for the first time. He is adorable, stick thin like most of the Johnson babies, and slept through most of the days festivities. I was glad we were able to attend the parties. After we got back to St. George, the group decided to walk around the Temple grounds and we watched the family presentation, which is fabulous if you ever want something fun to do for FHE (it's at the SL visitors center as well). After our return to the condo, another round of "how long will it take us this time" began. I don't think we improved our time from the last.

Monday finally arrived and no one wanted to leave. The condo was a mess, we still had a few more Jelly Bellies left, and we hadn't got any sun either. Shameful!!!! So what do you do? Let's go swimming for 4 hours, I think that will motivate us to clean and get on the road. And so we did. In the end, we arrived back at home around 10:30 pm, we walk upstairs and Bella throws up all over the carpet in her room. WELCOME HOME!!!! Obligation kicked in and I went right to work at cleaning this round of puke all over the floor. How in the world do you get the smell out of carpet? I certainly don't know.

All in all, we had a really fun weekend, even though, so far 4 out of the 8 kids (including the Moores 4) have gotten sick. Sorry guys for infecting your family with whatever kind of bug it is. At least it only lasts for less than 12 hours so far.

Great friends, yummy food, beautiful scenery, and a place to lay our heads. That makes for a fabulous vacation that will be remembered.