Utah here we come! (Day 1)

So after discovering how awesome it was to spend the 4th of July in Utah, last year, we decided to try and make it a yearly tradition. We headed out for Utah on Wednesday of last week. The trip was pretty uneventful, which is a good thing around here. The kids enjoyed a day of being able to use ipods, play DS's and watch movies without having to use a ticket. ( Did I ever mention that this summer they have to earn tickets to do those things? They earn them by playing board games, reading, getting chores done without being asked, working on church stuff, doing flash cards, playing outdoors, etc. It's worked great! Boston knows his times tables, Ethan can read like a champ, and it keeps them from endless TV and computer time!) Anyway, we left home around 9:00 and got to Utah about 6:30. Our first stop was the Ellermeiers. They are old friends from North Carolina. We had a BBQ and the kids had fun playing with theirs, while we caught up. It was great seeing them and seeing how big their kids have gotten. We haven't seem them since I was pregnant with Sophia. (And I'm so mad that we didn't take any pictures! boo hoo) Time went fast visiting, and we realized, even though it was daylight outside, that is was 9:00 and they still had school the next day. We quickly left, and headed to OUR hotel. I say its ours because we have stayed there ever since I can remember. We always stay at the Courtyard by the BYU stadium. Its perfect! Maybe we like it because it's so close to Raintree (the apartments Ben and I lived in where we meet and got engaged. ha ha) It definitely is the best place to stay if you want to go to or at least see the fireworks that the Stadium of Fire puts on!

When we got to the hotel, the kids couldn't stay away from the pool. The boys had to stay behind for some reason (probably fighting) but the weren't too disappointed when I pulled out the Yatzee. That is their favorite game this summer. It's definitely great for their math skills! After the girls and Ben got back from the pool, Aubrie almost seemed disappointed that we were playing Yatzee while she was swimming! We tried to settle down to go to sleep. We had a big day ahead of us, which was going to start with a morning hike up to the Y! After a lot of talking and giggling, we finally fell asleep around midnight!