Back after 14 years

August 8, 2010 –

We started the day off going to church in Idaho with Connie and her family. I’m sure my mom was smiling down from Heaven to see her grandkids going to church in a small Idaho farm town. We all had lunch together, and then we said our goodbyes to Connie, Chuck, Robbie and Ammon. They really went out of their way to make us feel at home while we stayed with them.

Fortunately for us, today was the easiest stretch of any of our travel days of the trip. Our friends Travis and Alicia live near Salt Lake City, Utah so we had a little over a two-hour drive to get there. Becky has known Travis’ family for years; his mom was one of Becky’s teachers when she first joined the Mormon Church, and his dad actually baptized Becky. We even had our wedding reception in their backyard. When Travis was in graduate school about ten years ago, he did an internship in California one summer so they lived with his parents for a few months. We all hung out together, and Becky and Alicia became pretty close so they’ve stayed in contact over the years.

We get to see them fairly regularly when they are in California to visit Travis’ parents. A few years back they built a big home in Utah, and we’ve had an open invitation to visit if we ever found ourselves in Utah. We’ve finally found our way back to Utah (yes, we did graduate from BYU in 1996, but I have never been back since then although Becky’s been here to visit a couple of times).

Visiting Utah has been a discussion point in our family for the last couple of years. Most Mormons have some kind of family connection to Utah, and some of the kids’ friends from church go to Utah regularly for vacation. For a little while, I think our kids envisioned Utah like a giant Disneyland. Since Becky is a convert to the Mormon Church, and I only have a couple of my mom’s half-sisters (who I haven’t done a good job of keeping in contact with) in Utah, we really haven’t had anything pulling us there. While I think that the kids had outgrown their idyllic image of the beehive state, I think they’re still pretty excited to finally visit Utah.

We got in early this evening, and they have a beautiful home. Our kids are having a great time playing with Travis and Alicia’s four kids – Tanner - age 14, Marshall – 11, KJ – 9 and Kennedy – 7. Katie especially loves playing dolls and following Kennedy around. Katie loves our Alex, but Alex is a little too much of a tomboy to play dolls with her younger sister.