Our final days in Utah

Things are starting to settle down a bit for us here in Kansas. Miles is currently napping and I'm tempted to join him (it is Sunday afternoon and all), but I figured some of you would appreciate me updating the blog a bit so I'm selflessly doing that instead of getting some shuteye! You should be thankful. Lol! I have a lot of updating to do so I'll have to do it in parts.

The Saturday before Miles and I left Utah (7/14/12) we invited Dave's family to join us in Salt Lake City at the Hogle Zoo for sort of a farewell party. Two of Dave's brothers and their families and Dave's mom were able to join us. We had so much fun spending time with all of them and seeing all the animals. Miles LOVES being around his cousins and was thrilled to be hanging out with them! The Hogle Zoo has a new exhibit that houses animals such as a polar bear, sea otters, brown bears, etc. It was neat to see and the polar bear really put on a good show for us. Miles and Gwen got front row seats!

Miles not cooperating for a picture with mom

Miles, Dave, Ira, & Jake on the carousel

Dave, Miles, Lily, & Zach on the carousel. They were lucky ducks and got to ride it twice!

Miles watching the polar bear

Ira, Sam, & Gwen posing for a picture on the polar bear statues. That other little girl on the left was not very happy that she had to wait while we took a picture. She even managed to make it in our picture!

Riding the train. Apparently Zach, Tammy, & Lily were too impatient to wait for us so they had already ridden the train. Hence the reason they are missing from this picture.

Grandma Dorothy with the grand-kids; Lily, Sam, Miles, Ira, & Gwen

Dave's brother Zach and his family had already planned to follow us back to Provo to help Dave with fixing the tile & grout in our kitchen, but everyone was having so much fun that the whole crew decided to follow us home. Miles was so excited to be entertaining the bunch and refused to take a nap. As I've mentioned many many times on here before, Miles is so sensitive to sleep, or the lack thereof, that the day sort of got crazy for us and him, but I think overall everyone enjoyed spending time together. Dave, Jake, & Zach were able to get a few projects done while the girls and the kiddos played so that was very helpful. Dave & Zach started fixing the tile floor and that project kind of turned into a much bigger project than we thought it would be, but I know Dave appreciated having Zach's help and support.

I started itching that day but could not find any bug bites or anything that would cause the itching. Tammy thought maybe it was stress related. Come to find out nine days later after going to a doctor in Kansas, I had shingles and this was the first day of about two weeks of complete misery! Don't ever get shingles, get the vaccine (at least when you turn 50)! The doctor said my shingles was probably triggered by stress. I think moving to another state would be considered stressful!

Gwen, Sam, & Miles playing in our backyard

The kids got restless so we took them out behind our townhouse and let them run free