Alyce's Farewell

We all got up bright and early to go to Cedar City and attend Alyce's farewell. Well some of us earlier than others because we came up the evening before! We had dinner at Milt's with Stacey & Terri. What a great time we had visiting just the four of us. We need to do that more often. We stayed at the Springhill Suites and Hayden and Megan drove up Sunday morning. Because church was at 9am Utah time Ashley got the kids up super early and drove by herself to the farewell. What a trooper. Christina came up too but wasn't able to stay for the lunch. Actually we didn't stay for lunch but we just ran over to say hi to everyone and wish Alyce well. It was a great day.

 Hanging out on the lawn for a bit after church.

 Hayden evven got hugs from Shay! They were there to say goodbye to the family since they were moving a few days later.

Waiting for Baby

Hayden & Megan made it home in July from Nebraska. Megan had her ultrasound at the Dr to make sure everything was going well and the wait was on.

 They got some awesome maternity pictures done. They are just gorgeous!

 Can't even pick a favorite.

Then it was time for the baby shower.

 Alisha and Ashley and I rode up together. We had dessert with us. We had made a bunch of mini desserts. Kinda our specialty now. They were pink and cute. Ashley made a bunch of brownie baskets and I filled them with her strawberry cheesecake type filling. There was so much left over filling I just made little desserts with it all.

 The shower was so cute and she got tons of fun things for the baby.

 After the shower we weren't really in a hurry to get home so we went shopping really quick at TaiPan and then went to Waffle Love for a yummy waffle. It was such a fun night out!

IKEA

I had a week off work in the middle of July so one of the things we did was take a little trip to Vegas and go to IKEA together. Christina came down to go with us and Ashley and her kids. I really wanted the kids to get a chance to play in the play place and eat in the fun cafeteria.

 Turns out when we got there the boys really wanted to go shopping with us. So we did the showroom floor and they had a ball. Then we hit up the cafeteria for lunch.

 Lunch time there is so fun. Most of us got the meatballs.

 After lunch we went downstairs to buy stuff and the boys wanted to go play but it was full so they didn't get a chance to do it. We headed over to Trader Joes since I had just started the Terrafit food challenge and needed some organic and gf food I could eat. They didn't have much of anything I wanted so then we walked over to Old Navy and started school shopping for the boys. It was a really fun day together.

July 4th

We spent July 4th at home this year. We invited Ashley's fam over for a BBQ and Charlie & Alisha. We thought it was better to get pics of this cute family before we ate! Even that proved to be a bit tricky trying to get everyone to look the same direction at the same time etc.

But the effort was worth it. How cute are they. As you can see Benjy had to work though.

 All good Cooper gatherings revolve around food. Mendis smoked lots of meats and we contributed salads galore. And dessert. Must have dessert. This year was my July 4th Mini Trifles.

After our feast we headed over to Ashley's backyard. We head over there to watch the community fireworks and then we are conveniently located for the main event. Their neighbors put on a fireworks show that rivals any thing we've seen before except maybe the first year of the Smoke shop display.

And then the worst happened... Right in the middle of the extravaganza the cops showed up and shut him down. We don't know why but everyone was pretty disappointed!! Not sure what this means for the future of the neigborhood show.

Jackson, Wyoming

We had a super quick trip to Jackson Wyoming in June. We drove up Wednesday and decided to go through Wyoming and over for a change of pace. We actually stopped for the first time ever in Beaver at the cheese factory.

We've just never made time for it before so we really enjoyed it. Of course we got squeaky cheese but we got ice cream and some toys for the grandkids too. Loved that place. 

It was a cold rainy day as we got closer and closer.

I really enjoyed seeing the very first JC Penney too but as we got closer and closer to Jackson the temps dropped and the rains came. Not that that is a bad thing.

We arrived in time to grab some dinner.

 The next morning I headed downtown while Mendis had meetings to do some shopping and exploring. I saw this place and had to check it out. I can never resist a good bakery and they hot some much needed hot chocolate. That and a pastry was the perfect for lunch.

 That evening after Mendis we had the banquet but after it was still light outside and about 7 or so we decided to drive around and go exploring. So glad we did because even though we have been there numerous times it is just so beautiful. The Tetons are gorgeous.

We drove and drove until past dark. We went up behind Yellowstone and just went exploring on a mountain road. We ended going clear down a mountain and found a lovely tucked away resort at the bottom. Just delightful. Now we want to go back there someday!

 The next day we did some shopping and headed out before it got too late.  We drove through Star Valley on the way down and saw the new Temple.

 We really love it. It's mini but different. We had lunch with the whole Star Valley community then pressed on. We drove through Bountiful canyon and it was also gorgeous.

Quite a view too from the top.

 We wanted to get to Chateau Christina in plenty of time for Tuacannos! Luckily we made it with time to spare. The next day we had some lunch together before we headed home.

It was such a fast trip and this time it was my fault. I had to give my RS lesson on Sunday so we had to get moving. We really could have used another day or even two but oh well.