To Utah and back...congratulations Mike!

We got back from our very fun trip to Utah this past week. It was so great to have a vacation! We drove through Las Vegas to St. George the first day, spent the night with our grandparents, then drove up to Spanish Fork/Provo the next day. Natalie did great in the car, especially because we took a portable DVD player and played her Baby Einstein movies. She would say, "mamoo! mamoo!" every time we got in the car meaning she wanted to watch the "animals" on the screen. While we were in Vegas we stopped to visit our friends the Kishpaughs who moved there last year (sniff). This is me, Natalie, Katie, and her daughter Ava. Ava is just a week older than Natalie and they are so cute together. It was so awesome to see them!

Here's Natalie riding in the car. She's so sweet. We bought her this doll at a Walmart along the way to give her a new toy to play with in the car. She loved it and carried everywhere.
We visited the Bean museum at BYU which has all sorts of taxidermed (is that a word?) animals--everything you can think of was there. Natalie was in animal heaven. She wandered around shouting "mamoo!" the whole time!
You can't quite tell in this picture, but it's snowing. It was so cold up there! Brrr. It even snowed so hard during the graduation ceremony that Mark (who was in the hall with Natalie) couldn't even see the trees outside. But thankfully it warmed up by the time we all went outside to take pictures. I was ready to pay one of those graduates for their warm gown...I remember being so hot in mine the day I graduated.
Here is the person of the day, my brother-in-law Mike Collette who graduated in International Relations. He also had two minors--French and business, I believe. What a guy!
This is my beautiful amazing talented kindhearted smart friend Emily Rosell and her sister Kristen. We all went out to dinner since her mom and my mom were best friends in high school and Emily and I were college roommates for three years. She is so awesome and I'm so happy I got to see her! She teaches second grade and is dating a great guy. We hope the best for her.
On Saturday after all the graduation festivities we went up to Salt Lake to visit Temple Square with Natalie and drop Aubri off at the airport. We met up with some of Mark's family's friends, Melanie and Murray (I won't even try to spell their last name) and walked around with them a bit. They are from Ogden and were so nice to come down to Salt Lake! We had fun visiting. Here is Natalie and me in front of the Christus. She kept saying "ss ss" (Jesus) all reverently.

Natalie smelling the flowers. They were so beautiful!

This is our family in the tabernacle. Here we were trying to snap an innocent picture and Natalie has to do THIS!!

Natalie found a little friend with whom to run around the fountain wildly. I think it's funny that their feet are doing the same thing. She loved the "la la" (water) more than anything, I think.

And of course, Natalie had a great time with her cousin Brooklyn. They are sharing Brooke's stroller.

Sitting in a tree at a rest stop. Some day we are going to FLY everywhere! Enough of driving with a small child.

So Melanie and Mike have moved here! We are so happy! Natalie's face pretty much describes how we feel about them being here. Welcome you guys!

Whew! I think that's it. Thanks for reading!