Luke Turnes 9!!

Our little man is growing up so quickly!  It was very nice to have Trent be here to celebrate with us.  Luke has really been the most affected by this deployment and it meant a lot to him to have Dad there!  What luck to have had this conference at the same time, ya!!  We were planning on celebrating his b-day while in Palm Springs, but parties are always more fun with lots of family involved!  So aunt Angela, Cohen, Emry & Carley made him a cake while he was gone fishing with Trent, Travis & Kendrick.  We celebrated in style with cake, ice cream & presents!!

 

Happy Birthday Lucas!!

Hanging Out in Utah!!

We stayed a few days in Utah to play with cousins.  

we went to the Children's Museum...

we painted blocks...

we visited temple square...

we toured the conference center...aka "da supernacle"...

Family Vacation 2011- Roy, UT

We went to this super cool indoor play arena.  For $10 we bowled, jumped on huge trampolines, played glow in the dark mini golf and lazertag!  It was totally awesome!  The boys all played a few rounds of lazertag, and the girls joined in too.  We even put Carley in a suit.  We got to run around this arena and shoot each other, it was so much fun.

 

Here is a video of Todd I had to get on tape since he'd recently had surgery! 

 

Cohen, Angela, Grandpa Kay, Grandma Beth & Travis

wipe out!

Emry was doing her own thing!  She couldn't throw her balls down the alley with enough speed so her balls kept getting denied!  It was pretty funny.  She didn't seem to mind at all.  We offered to help, but she wanted to do it all by herself. If you watch the video carefully, you can see the guards come down over the pins before her ball gets there!!  funny!!

At first the little kids were scared of the glow-in-the dark mini golf.  Once they made it through the first time they had to go again!

Later that evening, after the family left we drove down to Sandy, UT to have dinner with my parents.  They were in town because my dad was speaking at a conference.  It was a good coincidence! 

Daddy arrives for a visit!!

We were all so excited that Trent was flying in today!!  We get to have him to ourselves for 2 weeks!!  He called us from Bahrain before boarding his flight to Washington DC, so we knew he was in the states when we woke up.  We stayed at Travis & Angela's house (thank you so much you two).  It ended up being a mini family reunion.

Here's who came down to see Trent:

• Merlin & Joy brought Gpa Kay & Gma Beth down from Idaho Falls
• Tyler flew from Portland to Boise, picked up Todd & Tobin and they drove down
• Bryce & Tawnya drove down with their 3 kiddos from Idaho Falls 
• Plus our family and Travis & Angela and their 2 boys!! It was a house full!!  

We had so much fun and Trent was so surprised to see everyone!  But, I'm getting ahead of myself here.  

 

 

Sunday morning we had the kids make a big welcome home banner to hang on the garage before going to sacrament meeting.  We left for the airport directly after to meet Trent's plane!!  We parked the car and went in to wait at the baggage claim.  We were so excited.  The kids looked so nice in their Sunday clothes.  You could feel how anxious they were, it was very fun!  So we waited.  Went potty.  I was keeping an eye on the arrival screen and I saw that his plane had landed, but no Trent.  So we waited some more...I was starting to get a bit nervous.  Then my phone rings and it's Trent.  He says, "where are you guys?"  I answered, "we're here, waiting at the escalators for you to come down to baggage!  where are you?"  "I've already got my bags, I'm waiting at baggage claim."  silence...then we realize that I went to the wrong terminal!!!  I said, "stay right where you are, we're coming to you!"  I grabbed the kids and we ran!  Up the escalators, through the tunnel, down the sidewalk of the parking garage, back through another tunnel, down more escalators and there he was!!!  The kids started running and I just started crying!  I couldn't even keep my phone steady to take a proper photo.  If I'd been thinking I should have just video taped it!  It was so precious to see the kids so elated and all wrapping their arms around their Daddy!

After hugs and kisses we got everyone loaded back into the van and headed for Travis', Trent didn't know a huge group had assembled, all waiting to see him!!  The ride was great, the kids got to have Trent's undivided attention and they talked about what they were doing at school, showed him their DS's, he talked about his island and fishing.  It was lovely!


As we pulled onto Travis' street we could see that he'd put about 20 flags in his yard to honor Trent.  It was so nice, Trent was embarrassed of course, but I'm glad Travis thought to do something so patriotic!  The rest of the day was spent getting caught up and laughing!