A Long Way From Home!

Well, since Rhonda's not cooperating this won't be as exciting as it could be, but here's my take on our Family Vacation. This is Rhonda. Actually Linda dear, I contributed the title and a few additional things. Sheesh! But our dear readers, I do hope you enjoy this post from Linda. It's been a long time huh?

We went to Utah. It was great fun. One morning we went to buy some groceries and we found this in the parking lot:

We liked it a lot. There were no handicap parking spaces only "Expecting Mothers" and "Senior Citizens" and yes they were right by the door.

One day our cousins borrowed our car to move their sister who just got married. We went to see 17 Miracles and took their van. We had to take a picture of us with a small van.
Rhonda here. This was pretty funny because our cousins took a picture with our van too. We must all have a sense of Huber. Te he!

We got to light fireworks because it was Pioneer day. It was great fun!

And, we hope the ozone layer is okay after all of our fires!

On Monday morning we went on this hike. I HATE hiking!!! I always have, and I always will. I was a sport and went anyway. I ended up hiking all by myself. If I couldn't see my parents down the way I would stop until they came into view and then I'd keep going.

I made it to the "creek" which looked like a river to us Arizonans who never see water (although we learned that Utah is the second driest state and Arizona is the third. I don't believe it!).

Rhonda, the avid hiker, made it to "THE BIG ROCK"! I made it to a big rock too, but not this one!
Here's Rhonda again. This hike was SO MUCH FUN!!! I've never been on a hike with actual trees surrounding me before. It was amazing!

Monday night Rhonda and Kara had the semiannual arm wrestling tournament. They are equally strong. Maybe someone will work on their arm muscles before the Christmas tournament comes.
For the record, Kara almost beat me at the left hand. I was definitely surprised!

Party in the Kitchen!
Ha! We're funny.

On Wednesday we took a quick trip to temple square. Nothing too big or major.

Marcie and Anna were exhausted afterward and fell asleep in the car.

Comfortable...yes?

All of my sisters have this thing with socks. I really don't, I used to, but I found out cool socks make your feet stink. Well, I found some really cool socks that are also wicking socks so my feet won't stink. Rhonda's slightly jealous. She says my socks are the coolest. Can you guess which ones they are? Hint: they have 2 dots on each toe. Amendment by Rhonda. I am actually VERY jealous of Linda's new socks. Too cool for school!

On our way home we stopped at Cove Fort. I was a grumpster and really didn't want to go. When I'm coming home I want to come home! Well, I was out voted and we all got to go anyway. My father's argument was that it'd only be an hour and then we'd miss rush hour in Phoenix. Well, we took a rather lengthy tour, what I refer to as "the three hour tour" (it was only 1 1/2 hours) it was longer than anyone else visiting, but we've all had our fill, and everyone in my family has now been there, EVEN MARCIE!!!!

After Cove Fort Rhonda and I played a killer game of "Trabble Scrabble". Hey guys, Trabble Scrabble is the bomb. I absolutely LOVE it and it's name! You should say it out loud. Just for fun. Go ahead...try it. You'll love the way it feels in your mouth. This is one of the best purchases I've ever made. We succeeded for the first time ever in my experience to use every single letter available, and we only kinda cheated a couple times. It took us one and a half hours, and we didn't even think once about going to the bathroom. We were even in such a good mood we told our father he could skip the bathroom break in Kanab (This is a big deal! The Kanab rest stop is our favorite stop, and we didn't stop there going up or coming back. It was rather tragic)! P.S. Look how tired we look. Ughh...it was a looooong drive. And guess who was in charge of keeping dad awake the WHOLE DRIVE HOME. Yup...yours truly.

On the reservation we got to wait for construction. It was great fun, we love sitting in the car and not moving (I believe we were also listening to conference talks at this point in time)! This girl in yellow kept us entertained twirling her orange flag, and hiding her phone so we couldn't see her texting.When it was our turn to go we started going and then all of these cars started coming at us! There was definitely a lack of communication going on somewhere!

Well, we made it home safely, even though our battery light came on sometime after we left Flagstaff, so we had to turn off our music, and the air, and the lights, and the windshield wipers. We drove into town, for the second vacation in a row, in a very hot car, BUT WE GOT HOME!!!! Hallelujah!

We had lots of fun, and it was great to get to be with our cousins and get to know our new cousin-in-laws. We can't wait to see them at Christmas!!!

There are two reasons why I'm glad I don't live in Utah though:

1: Daylight Savings Time-Not a fan, don't like it!

2: It's cool enough that you don't realize you should drink water and then you get dehydrated. Maybe I just forget to drink water sometimes though.
 3: Arizona skies are SO much more beautiful than Utah skies. Just sayin'. Our sunsets are absolutely brilliant and I missed them while I was away.

And this is for Nate. Nate is my aunt's sister (we would call her our Aunt-in-law or adopted aunt), and I love that we get to know my aunt's family and they're like our family. We had a party at her house on the last night we were there (and I didn't take any pictures darn it!) We were talking about books and I admitted that I have organized our bookshelves alphabetically by author's last name (I'm OCD! That's a definite yes.) She said she wanted to see it, so Nate here's one shelf! Sorry it's not better, and don't look too close because after I took the picture I realized that some books have not been put back in the right spot, apparently some of my siblings don't share my OCD tendencies. Ya...nope.

Thank you for joining us in this episode of "Linda versus Rhonda". Join us again next time on our next awesome adventure!  13 hours and 15 minutes....14...13...12...etc...