Road Trip: Roosevelt

My mom is in San Saba helping with Grandma Cuca, but we still wanted to spend time visiting with my Dad. I checked with him and he said he'd be up for hosting us. Yay! Then I asked if I could bring two extra grandkids. Then I asked if Destiny and her family could meet us there, too. Ha! It turned into quite the crowd for the man who'd been living alone for the past couple of months. I'm so glad he was up for hosting us, because we had a great visit.

Drove through the Wasatch Mountains

Back to the desert.

Glad these two were up for hiking with me.

Hiking in the desert makes my heart happy.

We were tall to begin with the.

The setting sun makes our shadows

REALLY tall. :) 

Dancing pics! 

Another gorgeous sunset.

I store them up in memory to last the rest of the year,

since they're just not the same at home.

How teenagers hang out.

Cold cereal and phones.

We played lots of card games.

Sydney and Caroline taught us two versions

of a card game that was new to me, GOLF.

We always spend some time at the school playground. 

Sometimes C turns it into a ninja course.

Sometimes the kids end up running through the sprinklers.

Sometimes I can talk the teenagers into playing games with us.

(It doesn't mean they'll put their phones down...)

Oh, how I love visiting with my nieces and nephews!

Wii battles

We drove out to Altamont for Longhorn Days.

Most of their activities were geared for younger kids.

The teenagers were bored.

The rest of us had a great time.

They had a candy canon.

Sugar rush!

It's not every day that you end up with

Tootsie Rolls in your hair.

The most hilarious part of the evening,

was the Chicken Chase.

It is nuts.

They divided the kids up in to age groups,

then let them run out into the field,

chasing chickens, ducks, and pigs.

If you caught a chicken or duck,

YOU GOT TO KEEP IT.

What???

I warned Care Bear not to actually catch one. Ha!

The pig is greased up and has dollar bills stuck to it.

She did manage to get a dollar off the pig. Woot!

They had a yummy waffle food truck.

The girls and I stayed a little later to watch Dumbo,

but it got too cold (in July!) and we gave up and headed home.

Also had a T-shirt canon,

where C got this one.

Oh, and these girls got their faces painted.

More card games

We headed out to Starvation Reservoir one day. 

Robby's brother let us borrow his paddle boards,

but they were inflatable and didn't hold air like

they were supposed to.

The girls still had fun with them.

We also rented the water trampoline/obstacle course.

That was fun.

We drove out to Vernal on the 24th of July.

The five of us left super early to hike at Moonshine Arch.

I hadn't been there before.

It was a great hike.

We saw a baby rattlesnake.

It's not too long of a hike and has a cool 

payoff at the end.

The tricky part is finding the trailhead.

I was glad we had my dad with us or 

I might have never found it.

My dad and I found a geocache on the way down.

 The rest of the family met us in downtown Vernal

for the Pioneer Day parade.

It was cute and not too long.

The unicyclers are still going strong!

We saw them a few years ago at a different parade.

Gayla is a good friend from dental hygiene school.

We hadn't seen each other in YEARS,

but she has moved to Vernal, so we met at Cafe Rio 

for lunch. It was SOOOO good to catch up with her.

She is amazing.

Utah sells fireworks for the 24th of July.

And since we had kind of lame rained-out

fireworks experience for the 4th,

we made sure to get some. 

We taught the Gerber cousins the joy of

sparkler photography art.

They did good!

The stars were tricky.

We ALMOST got it!

Destiny and I always like to sneak in

time for a pedi if possible. Yes!

There is a GREAT bowling alley at

Ft. Duchesne where I had never been. 

It was so fun and they had a super affordable summer special.

I think it was five dollars a person for 

two games of bowling, shoes included

Paul wasn't the biggest fan...

My bowling is usually comical.

But I somehow managed to win both games,

scoring 126 in the second. I think that's a new record for me!

The arcade prizes in small town Utah

are different than the prizes we see in NC...

We love cousin time!!

Before we took off, Robby and Dest got a cake

so we could celebrate these three, who all

have July birthdays.

What a fun-filled week! Even if we had a super small Gerber reunion this year, I'm glad we still got to spend time with most of our family. Celeste has been living in Hawaii for the past six months, so we still miss her. Hopefully next reunion, we'll be able to get EVERYONE together.