Vacation! Vacation! Vacation! (literally)

This may be my longest post EVER! We went on three vacations this sumer, and I must write about each one.

It's good that we went on so many vacations because it helps Elle with her new chosen career:

Travelist (trav'el ist) n. A person whose profession is traveling.

I'm not sure how she'll make money, but she thinks it's a great idea.

Here goes starting with most recent.

Utah!

My niece is the first grandchild to get married.

She and her husband were married in the Timpanogos Temple (Same as us!)

It was beautiful a wedding reception. The sky was cloudy all morning, but there were so many of us praying for good weather, it turned out to be perfect!

The happy couple is very cute!

Weddings, of course, mean lots of family, and most importantly, COUSINS!

At Thanksgiving Point farm, riding in the wagon, observing livestock, and square dancing.

More Cousins! Hanging around, just having fun, and being silly.

And getting wet, naturally.

We had a family picnic a couple of days before The Big Day

Elle and her cousins put on a show. Magic, dancing, and singing

And MORE cousins. . .

We hiked to Timpanogos Cave with Chris' mom, sister, and family.

We also went to Bombay House, which is the BEST Indian food we've ever had.

Ever.

Also, while we were in Utah, we celebrated Chris' grandma's 83rd birthday!

Luckily, we celebrated at Chris' aunt's house and not at Chuck-A-Rama.

Elle and Grandma made delicious homemade bread!

We made a pilgrimage to Provo while we were in Utah too.

That's our old apartment at Wymount #117

We have a picture of Elle in the slide hole when she was about 18 mo. old.

We just had to recreate it.

We played some glow-in-the-dark mini golf while we were in town, too.

Ya. I don't know how to delete this second image.

(Elle pointed out that it looks like you go up the stairs, through the tunnel, and into our apartment!)

With MORE cousins, we took a tour of Sweet's candy factory.

They make one of my favorite treats--cinnamon bears.

Unfortunately, everyone was on break, and some of the machines were broken, so we didn't see much.

We had free samples though, and that's the most important part.

Earlier in the summer we went to Weaverville, CA with our friends.

We rented a house in the middle of nowhere nestled in the mountains.

It was sooo relaxing, and sunny. (just what we needed during the dreary days of Seattle summer)

Chris and I took walks down the dusty lane.

The kids played outside, and we didn't have to worry about them.

We saw millions of stars at night--even the Milky Way!

The kids panned for gold in a nearby stream.

And we got to eat at Round Table! Their bread sticks were AMAZING! Gooey, garlic flavored cheese oozed out of them. yum....

We saw fireworks while sitting on the grass at the local school.

We also saw the anvil firing

Our first trip of the summer was to DC (remember I said that a few posts ago?)

It was so much fun! It was a first for me and Elle.

I wanted to take our Canon Rebel XT so we could take some nice picture of our Nations's capital

BUT

Chris has been traumatized from all his teenage years of carrying the family camera.

*ahem*

We did take a few pictures just to prove we were there, but we also just bought a nice book of pictures shot by a professional.

We got to visit the building where Chris' sister works--The National Museum of American History. It was fun to get a personal tour of the place. The flag was my favorite part there.

Seeing a Star Treck Fazer was fun too ;)

We visited the Air and Space museum, the Portrait Gallery, Art Gallery, and Natural History Museum.

We saw, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution etc.

We saw the world war memorials, Arlington cemetery (which was hallowed and sobering), Lincoln Memorial (that was my favorite),

the capital, white house, and some very yummy restaurants.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but that's ok. It was all wonderful!

And that's all!