Mama's Day(s) Off!

A couple of months ago I got wind of the fact that all my sisters and mom would be in Utah at the same time.  I immediately envisioned them eating amazing meals, going to the spa, basically frolicking through the fields all without me.  Never one to be left out, I decided to buy a plane ticket on a whim and join the fun.  No frolicking without me, thank you very much.  As I looked through the pictures from the weekend (thanks to Ashley, our resident photographer, who actually documented the weekend) I realized we were true to form and ate our way through Provo.  So brace yourself for lots of pics of the Carleton women waiting for our food to arrive. 
  

Oh wait here I am actually eating the food, not waiting for it!

But wait there's more!  After all that yummy food, Ashley talked the sistas into trekking up Y mountain.  Let's pause a moment for confession time.  I lived in Provo for 5 years, have visited a million times and have never hiked Y mountain.  How is this even possible?  This time around, I fixed that.  Before leaving for the hike, I talked to Evan (who's done it a thousand times) and made the mistake of believing him when he said it was an easy peasy hike.  Just a few switchbacks and 20 minutes later I'm there.  Someone failed to mention that the trail went straight up the mountain and on the way down I might fear for my life.  Not to mention the snake we saw.  It was a jungle out there!  We persevered, made it down the mountain with no broken bones, and burned a few calories in the process.

Here we are in Coldstone.  But wait!  We were just there to use the bathrooms.  Promise.  While waiting for Ash to come out of the potty, Heather decided to try on my wedding rings.  Somehow when she was passing them back to me, (cue the slow motion moment) they dropped onto the floor.  No biggie except that we could not find my bling anywhere!

 Seriously 20 minutes of us and every person in Coldstone looking and we found them.  Whew!

After a few days of hanging out, watching chick flicks (hello Zac Efron in The Lucky One!), shopping, going for a jog on the Provo River Trail, hanging with my girl Chanel who happened to be in town at the same time, painting some UGLY pottery, me missing Delaney wondering if she would remember her mama, and some good ole fashion laughs, it was time to head home.

Best part of the airport was getting to see this sweet guy.  I have not seen Gavin since Christmas and loved getting to hug his cute self.  Darn the fact that I live so far away and he doesn't know his Aunt Rebecca like he should! 

 

Thanks to these ladies for letting me crash their Utah plans and come party.  And thanks to my awesome hubby who didn't bat an eye when I decided to buy a plane ticket and leave him with the kiddos for a few days.

Happy Easter!

We started out the weekend with our backyard Easter egg hunt. Our neighborhood doesn't do one, for some reason, so to the backyard we go. Evan filled the eggs this year and I think it's safe to say only about half of the candy actually ended up in the eggs.

I'm thinking by next year the egg hunt won't be just a spectator sport for this sweet girl.

I had way too much fun dressing the kids up for church on Sunday. My mom started the ball rolling by sending me Delaney's dress and shoes. Fast forward to a couple days before Easter and I'm frantically picking out matching fabric and sewing (with a lot of help from a friend) the boys' ties to coordinate with Delaney.
I might have lost some of the true meaning of Easter as I'm sitting for the first 20 minutes of church trying to fix Colt's tie. Not my best moment, but there you have it, in the spirit of full disclosure. We have 9 am church and since my plans of being ready for church early failed miserably, we didn't take any pictures until we got home. After three hours of church, there was no amount of bribing that could convince my boys to tuck their shirts in for another second.
I will say it was ridiculously fun getting to dress this little girly up. Love her!

And on a non-Easter related topic, Colton was playing at a friend's house a couple days ago and decided to climb to the very top of their playground and you know...jump off. Because (as he told me later), "It didn't look that high up." After some tears (real ones) and a lot of serious limping around, I decided to call Evan. His comment to me, "He jumped off and landed on his feet? I really need to teach him how to roll." Yes, Evan, because our son's a ninja. PS...the verdict is in and he didn't break his foot.

Cali

At the end of February, we headed out to Oma and Opa's house in LA for a week of fun in the sun. And California did not disappoint, not for a second. We left the cold temps and winter jackets behind and spent the whole week where the grass was green. It was so blissfully warm we were even able to do this...
Heaven I'm telling you! First things first, we headed out to Disneyland. The boys were such a perfect age to go and really enjoy every ride. Well, in Cade's case almost every ride. He was a bit...nervous...for certain rides (like maybe a mini meltdown before boarding the boat at Pirates of the Caribbean). After a ride he wouldn't miss a beat in telling me how much he loved it, how much fun he had, and how he never wanted to ride it again. Never. I really just enjoyed watching the boys and living through them and their excitement. Disneyland really is the happiest place on Earth, I'm telling you. And it didn't hurt that Oma was there to hold Delaney while Evan and I went on the rides with the boys. As you can tell by this next pic, Colt met the height requirement for every ride. And he reminded us of this fact every five minutes.

We went with Colt's BFF, Cousin Anna, who both boys think is the best thing since sliced bread. There might have even been tears from a certain six year old when we pulled away from the house to head back to Chicago.

After Disneyland, we headed out for our next adventure. If you can see past Delaney's chubby cheeks, you'll notice that I'm standing in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Well...I'm standing on a boat (not even a big boat!) in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And for those of you who know I have a certain fear of large bodies of water, especially those that contain predators of the shark variation, I felt reckless and wild and above all, I survived!

We went whale watching and actually saw them! Amazing. Colt, on the other hand, was not so impressed. I guess he thought they'd be close enough to pet (a result of his close encounters with Aunt Valerie at Sea World no doubt). On the way back into shore, we saw a huge pod of dolphins doing their jumping thing right next to the boat. Consider Colton satisfied. After a couple of fun filled days, Evan left for home to do the work/school thing and we stayed and played like it was going out of style. Some highlights included:
Milkshake moustaches. Had to get my In-n-Out craving taken care of.
Funny face sandwiches for lunch. None of your average PB&J's here!

Parks, a trip to a Noah's Ark museum, playing outside, soaking up every last bit of the sun, a green eggs & ham breakfast by Oma, playing soccer with Aunt CJ, and more playing outside.

Pretty sure that by the time we left, all of the kids had smiles on their faces like this one. Thanks to the Jones clan for a great week!