vacation from vacation

well...we just got back from a long, intense, but fun, trip to utah and colorado to see family and friends. liam cried the whole way. we spent some time in slc where jeremy became enraptured with the pool slide and the kids all had their cousins to play with. we also got to see some movies (don't wanna see "rescue dawn" for another 10 years, and "bourne ultimatum" was awesome), and i helped aunt rachel decorate her room. it's really interesting to decorate someone else's house--i only had a limited time to get things right! at ikea, i ran into nate's old byu roommate, luke nichols, and his wife becca, which was quite random. too bad the store was about to close, or i would have spent more time catching up!

after a few days there, we drove with our stanford friends, the clarkes, to colorado (they went to spend time with her parents, and nate's family was having a reunion), which worked out wonderfully (except for liam crying the whole way).

for the reunion, we stayed at the estes park ymca, which is where the boyce family had their last reunion 14 years ago. we figured we had to go now, b/c gramma and grandad won't be alive in another 14 years! it was great, although our room was a little small, but the endless supply of chocolate milk made up for it (although i think the cafeteria people wanted to kick us out for allowing liam to make such huge messes all over the floor!). jeremy became addicted to mini golf and katya spent her time hiding her supply of sticks or rocks from her cousins. liam and seth took turns wanting to be held constantly.

here are some of the extended cousins all hanging out before we went horseback riding.

here we are on a hayride, which was cool (and raining!)

all told, there were about 60 people from the family there, so it was fun getting to know people we've never met before. there were also late-night games of mafia, which showed nate's true colors of lying well (i guess being a lawyer is a good fit).

anyway, after all of that, we went back down to denver to hang out with the clarkes again--went to a playground, had family night (which we used to do together back at stanford), and ate dinner. the best part was when we were moving our stuff, some guy comes toward us carrying liam, saying that he was out in the street. of course i thank him for getting my child, but then he says something to the effect of "well, i hope you've learned your lesson." so, to the colorado guy who saved my child (luckily it wasn't a busy road), i'm sorry that we've we inconvienced you by making it possible for you to perform a small act of service to our family. we won't ask you to do it again.

on our way on the road again, nate got the sudden idea to call his trainer from his mission, who lives close to denver. so, they got to catch up a little bit and he knows my family members who live in the area--better than i do! the world is such a small place.

so, then on our real way back home (with liam crying the whole time), we decide to get back sooner rather than later to catch up on our callings and recover from this trip. plus, we wanted to be able to sleep in our own beds without the kids in the same room! it was so nice to be home, although we are in the middle of a heat wave and my plants are suffering--we had to put the kids to bed in the basement since the upstairs was so hot from the cooler not being on. but, i had 4 large zucchini and some beans waiting for us, which was nice. now we are just trying to get things taken care of and i'm finding that being home isn't that much more relaxing, but it's better to be getting stuff done now than by myself once nate starts work again on monday!

jeremy starts kindergarten on wednesday. yeah!