Utah Day 4 and 5

We finished up wedding weekend with a brunch on Sunday morning at the hotel.  It was the last time we got to see the bride and groom before they left on their honeymoon to Barcelona!  The pancakes were the best I've ever eaten, and made up for the two sprigs of lettuce at the wedding! 

 Alec and I at the brunch.  At this point we were OVER having to dress up every 5 minutes!!

 Love my mother-in-law! 

 Courtney and I brightened up the brunch :)

After the brunch we headed back to the place that the alpine slide was at and did the mountain coaster.  Walker cried and did not want to get on, but then LOVED it when it was over!  

 I rode with Clay.  This was about halfway up the mountain!

 They took you up the mountain and then you basically coasted (fast) back down.  It was so much fun!

 Courtney and Alec!

Grant's Utah family are mostly all of the Mormon faith.  Since Salt Lake is the home to the international headquarters, they took us downtown and showed us around the Mormon temple.  It was very educational and very pretty to look at!

 Courtney and I being tourists!

 Part of our group on the roof of the convention center where they hold their yearly meetings.  They made the roof look like a garden.  Very pretty! After our tour we headed back to one of the cousin's houses and had dinner and headed to bed!

The next morning Courtney left to head back to Maryland and we headed up the road to one of the popular ski resorts.  We rode the tram to the top of one of the mountains to take in the views.  The only other tram like this one is in the Swiss Alps!  The views were awesome!  We were so high it was freezing, and there was still a little snow on the tops of the mountains.

That night everyone came over to Grant's cousin Ashley's house for a grill out and games before we had to hop back on the plane the next morning and head back to Kentucky!  We had a great visit with his family, but I was ready to get back to my bed and to Grant!  I did absolutely love Salt Lake City and all the mountain views everywhere you looked.  The city was so clean and didn't seem as crowded as the big cities here in the south.  Grant's cousins were great hosts and we are already planning another reunion trip in Kentucky soon!

Thanks for a great trip Utah and congrats John and Suzy!!

Fourth of July Fun

I'm taking a break from Utah posts and talking about what we did for the 4th of July!  We spent the day at Grant's grandparent's pool.  We were in the water most of the day, so I didn't have time to take too many pictures!

 

 I've been trying to keep my chalkboard updated for each month.  I skipped June, but this was my July design!

 

 This picture was us on our way home from Utah.  The USA men's soccer team played that day and we were getting in the spirit of the 4th!  Just ignore the fact that my "S" is backwards!!  whoops! ha!

 

Grant's whole family came over to his grandparent's to swim on Friday.  We played volleyball, Grant wrestled with the boys, and we all got our tan on!  The weather was perfect!  Later that afternoon Kurt (Grant's uncle) went and picked up some ribs, and we had all made sides and desserts to go with.  Normally we would go watch the fireworks after dinner, but the big show was not until the next night in Murray.  So, we came on home to relax and then hit up the fireworks on Saturday night instead.

 

 Grant and I before the fireworks started sporting our red, white, and blue :)

 

The firework show was awesome this year!!  Totally worth the trip and the wait! We had a fun weekend celebrating the 4th with our family!

 

Happy Birthday, America!!

 

Utah Day 3 - Wedding Day

We finally made it to Wedding Day!  We had the morning and afternoon to ourselves before we had to leave for the wedding, so our Utah family took us on a fun adventure!  We ventured down the road to a ski resort that had a zip line, a mountain coaster, and an alpine slide.  It was so fun!!

 

 Selfie's on the way!

 

 We had to ride the ski lift up about 15 min to the top of a mountain to do the alpine slide!

 Part of the view on the way up!  Gorgeous!

 

 Getting ready to head down the mountain!

 

 Clay came down beside me so that I could keep an eye on him.  You were able to put on the breaks when you needed to, so you had control on how fast you could go!  Walker was a little scared, so it took him forever to make it down the whole thing!  After the slide, Alec and I did the zip line down the mountain.  Fun times!

 

After the fun of the day, it was time to go get ready for the 17 wedding parties that we still had to go!  We left the hotel and headed to a ranch just right down the road for the first cocktail hour.

 

 The boys were looking so handsome for the wedding!

 

 After the cocktail hour, we walked down to the wedding ceremony location.  I mean...gorgeous place to get married!  It was beautiful!

 

 The bride and groom!

 

 Courtney, Kem, Clay, and I after the ceremony

 

 They are hysterical together.  They love each other, but want to beat each other in everything!!

 

 Courtney and I with their cousin Holly.

 

 Alec and I

 

 Our side of the family.

 

The whole crew!

 

After the wedding ceremony we had another cocktail hour, then a dinner, then dancing, and then an after party!!  The brides family spent a TON on the food (and the wedding in general).  They brought out the salad and it was literally two sprigs of lettuce.  The boys face when they saw that was priceless!  We were serenaded by a former American Idol and danced the rest of the night away! 

 

We were exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel room that night, but we had a great time!  It was fun to spend time with our Utah family, dance silly, and celebrate the bride and groom.  Don't worry, we still had one more wedding event the next morning...the never ending wedding was close to coming to an end!



Utah Day 2

Day 2 was Friday and the day of the rehearsal dinner.  We woke up (early) that morning and decided to go out and explore a little before we had to come back and get ready for the dinner.  We headed to a little shopping center with a TJ Maxx, and then went downtown Park City to eat lunch and explore.  Downtown was such a cute little area with lots of touristy shops!  It reminded me of downtown Gatlinburg on steroids!  We ate at a café, walked around, and bought our souvenir tees!  It was freezing this day!!  It had rained the night before and we were in the mountains, so we were COLD!  Thankfully it warmed up later in the afternoon!

 

 The downtown area is built into the mountain, so it was a workout by the time we got down the street and then walked back up to the top!

 

After lunch, we still had a little time to kill, so we decided to go check out Olympic Park.  It was so neat and only a couple of miles from our hotel!  Now that the Olympics are over, it houses a museum with some neat items from the opening ceremonies and things like the Olympic athletes outfits.  They also have some activities that you can pay to do, like going down a part of the bob sled course and practicing jump skiing.

 

 This is part of the Bob Sled Course.  They said it was insane to go down!

 

 Outside the museum!

 

 I turned into a professional skier while we were there :)

 

 Replicas of the Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals from that year

 

 The park is also now an official Olympic training location.  So, we got to see a couple of professionals practicing their jumps off of these slopes and into the pool.  It was so neat!

 

 The view was incredible!

 

That night the rehearsal dinner was held at the house of one of the groom's friends.  It was gorgeous!  Everything about the views in Utah I LOVED!  So pretty!  The house was in the mountains and on a golf course.  They took all the furniture out of the living room and put tables inside and out for us to eat at.  It turned out perfect!

 

 Love this picture!  Walker and Clay are taking in the views!

 

 The view from the back porch!

 

 Tables all set up and ready!

 

 This is Courtney and I with Grant and Courtney's cousin, Holly.  She is the sister of the groom.  Everyone always tells them that they look a like and technically they aren't even blood related! 

 

 Gran and Pop!

 

 Courtney with the groom!

 

 

Courtney and I with Alec!

 

The rehearsal dinner was beautiful and the food was WAY better than the wedding food (just wait)!  Afterwards they had a dessert reception back at the hotel that only Courtney, Gran, Pop, Alec, and I went to and then went and watched the boys swim.  Wedding weekend was now in full swing!!  They had parties every five minutes from here on out it seemed like!!

Utah Day 1

I just got back from a family trip for a wedding in Utah!  We had a blast and definitely left with tons of new stories to tell!  The first day was spent mostly traveling and was exhausting!  The wedding was for one of Grant's cousins.  Grant couldn't go, so I volunteered to represent our family!  

 

His grandparents, and cousins Alec and Walker, and I left on Thursday morning at 5 a.m.  Since I have been out of work mode for the past couple of months, 5am came WAY early!  We drove the two hours to Nashville and got to the airport two hours early (per Grant's grandmother's request :) love her)

 

We had a two hour layover in Phoenix, so we sat down and ate at an authentic Mexican restaurant and tried to waste some time with an 8 year old.

 Walker thought this lime drink was so cool...yuck!

 

 The 4 am wake up call got to Alec! haha!  She got me back though when she snapped a picture of me with my head falling over and drool running down my chin! Ha!

 

We finally landed in Salt Lake City around 4:30 their time and Clay, Kem, and Courtney were waiting for us at the airport!  We rented a couple of cars and then headed to the spaghetti factory to meet the cousins for dinner.  We visited for a while and then headed to our hotel.  The hotel was in Park City, Utah, where they held the 2002 winter Olympics!  We stayed at the Waldorf Astoria (fancy!) and it was beautiful!! 

 

 This is the pool area. SO gorgeous!

 

 Another view of the pool area.

 

 Courtney and I after a LONG day of traveling!  Love being reunited with my sister-in-law!

 

 Every night they had s'mores stations set up by the fire pits.  Of course that was the first thing the boys wanted to do when we got there!

 

 Walker, Clay, and Kemy trying not to burn themselves or each other!

 

 Thankfully they just burned the marshmallows!

 

Loving on Clay!

 

After we settled in and roasted our marshmallows it was off to bed!  Clay was still on Maryland time, so after little sleep all day he was up at 5am Utah time!  Ughhh!  No rest for the weary!