Crazy Utah Trip!

A few weeks ago I kept feeling like we should take a trip down to Utah to visit Collin's mom.... no reason in particular besides that we hadn't in a while, and probably wouldn't get another chance over the summer. SO, after working everything out we headed down on Thursday night! We stopped in Ogden to visit Aunt Candy and Uncle Beard.... {Tara any time you want to actually post those pictures so I can steal them would be great...} then continued on down to Saratoga Springs! 

On our way down Redwood Road (which goes close to Eagle Mountain then on to Saratoga if you aren't familiar with it) that evening, we noticed a decent-sized brush fire burning up in the foothills. It looked like there were a good amount of helicopters dumping stuff on it so we thought it looked like it was about put out. We didn't give it a second thought! Ashlyn had a great evening seeing Nana (she is SO good at saying Nana and thinks it is so fun to say. I mean, when Nana's around I hear constantly "Nana.... Nana.... Nana...." it is so funny.) and even went right to sleep that night. (insert: Hallellujah!!)

The next morning Nana headed off to a funeral before we were going to run some errands and do fun stuff later. As she was driving out of her neighborhood she called us and said that there was a big fire across the hills behind her neighborhood and it looked pretty big and close! So we turned on the TV and sure enough, the fire we had thought was taken care of the night before had spread and grown! It was above 95 degrees that day and super windy, which made fire fighting super difficult! This is what was on the news AAALLL day long. I finally had to just turn it off for a while. The newscasters were making such a huge, scary deal about the fire it was just freaking me out.

Darlyne lives on the Southern end of Saragota Springs, so for the most part the fire was burning Northwest of us. For the first morning they were evacuating people in Eagle Mountain and the northern Saratoga areas. Darlyne talked to her home teachers and some other ward members and they told her that they had been advised to be ready to go in an instant in case they needed to. The bad thing was that the wind was blowing so much and changing direction, they had 0% of it contained almost all day so it was very unpredictable and spreading fast.

So we packed our stuff back up! This was around 12:00pm. Darlyne came hurrying back home from the funeral as quickly as possible and had to pack whatever she could. It was scary at that time, having to get out her important documents, photos, and whatever other necessities/valuables she needed to bring, really not knowing if her house would survive the fire! This happened to fall right on the anniversary of Collin's dad's funeral, actually, so it was kind of an emotional time anyway. We were so glad that we had decided to come visit, to be there during that scary time with her!

After we had packed up it became a waiting game. Darlyne actually left again to pick up our niece in SLC, and when she tried to get back they wouldn't allow her back into Saratoga Springs but forced her to stay at the local high school--the evacuation site! So there we were, at her house while she wasn't, waiting for the evacuation orders! (She did eventually make it back like 2 hours later on the back roads)

Ashlyn was having a pretty good time wandering around checking everything out, and playing with some of Nana's fun toys also. Lucy was doing the same of course. Lucy LOVES to run up and down Nana's stairs. I bet she feels like she's doing a fancy trick or something. It's pretty cute. By the way, in this picture look closely behind Collin's head! ha ha ha!

It was pretty weird being stuck in the house, waiting to see if we would need to evacuate or not. There were a couple of false alarms and some people came door-to-door letting us know that we were supposed to be ready to leave..... but still they didn't evacuate her neighborhood. Ashlyn started getting pretty antsy so I took her down the street to the neighborhood park. I took this picture on my way to the park. Darlyne's house is the gray one right behind the stop sign!

Ashlyn had a great time at the park. She L-O-V-E-S to play in pretty much all things dirty, much to my chagrin. I have started thinking oh great, she is going to be one of those kids that is always filthy and playing in the mud and worms and dirt. Awesome. Anyway, so she had a big party playing in the bark. It was like 100 degrees while we were there so I was really not having fun, but she had gotten so grouchy at Nana's house that this was the other option! It was frustrating to not be able to leave to go shopping or any of the other things we had originally planned for the day. But then again that frustration felt pretty petty when considering people's homes were in danger! There were quite a few cars driving by in the time we were there and all the people were looking at us like we were nuts. I guess it probably did seem weird if they didn't know that I didn't actually live there. But on the upside the park was completely deserted so we had it to ourselves!

I LOVE DIRT!

What's the big deal? It's just woodchips! (Which were coated onto the inside of her diaper as well! score!)



So, as we were playing down there the smoke behind Darlyne's house started looking blacker and blacker, to the point I was getting pretty concerned. I finally roped Ashlyn back into the stroller (kicking and screaming of course) and we headed back. I thought for sure with how close the dark smoke was getting that there would be evacuation orders, but there still weren't. 

Collin hiked up the hill behind her house a few times to take some pictures. As you can see the flames weren't too far away!

Finally at about 3:00 pm Darlyne got a call saying the sheriff ordered evacuation so we got all ready to go FOR REALS, but then 5 minutes later a second call saying it was cancelled came. Now we were really confused. And the fire still looked like it was getting closer. Darlyne called someone in her ward and they said that yes, the neighborhood hadn't been officially evacuated yet, but that they were expecting it any minute so it would be wise to just leave then to beat the big rush out. So we did.

On our way out every single neighborhood north of Darlyne's had already been evacuated and there were police at the entrances to block people from going in. It was pretty crazy.

We made a stop at Jim's grave on our way out of town, it is in the Camp Williams Veterans Cemetary. It is still pretty emotional to go there and I wonder if it ever won't be. Darlyne does a wonderful job of always keeping fresh flowers and clean flags at his headstone. We really miss Papa so much.

Darlyne and McKinzie (our niece) headed up to Tremonton from there, but our little family headed over to Provo to meet our newest little niece, Grace! She was already 1 month old by the time we finally got to meet her! Here is a picture of Ashlyn and Grace's first meeting! They are 15 months apart so I hope someday they will be buddies! We of course had to restrain Ashlyn from poking out Grace's eyes and grabbing her head, but she was pretty fascinated. Sam and Megan were nice enough to feed us dinner (Chick Fil-A! holla!) and let us deal with our kid and dog there for a little bit.

awww! She is so so cute! Made me super baby hungry.  But then again what's new! :)

The cute little family

Ashlyn was not at her best while we were there... she had been a grump all day and by this time it was really getting tiring! We ended up popping on a Baby Einstein movie for her just to keep her from licking and smearing their TV!

After that we headed on up the road to Tremonton! We ended up staying there with Morgan (Collin's brother) and Lana's family for the rest of the weekend. By the time we got there it seemed like we had done a LOT of driving, and Ashlyn had about had enough! It was a little frustrating that we had driven clear down to Saratoga the night before, only to have to come 2 hours back the next day. But at that time we were still pretty worried about Darlyne's house so it wasn't a big deal! We had so much fun hanging out with everyone there, and Ashlyn had an absolute blast running around with the cousins. She even slept pretty decent there, considering we shared a room with her and the sun came into her room at like 5 am every day!

Hmm, can you tell that someone got a blue cookie??? This face absolutely kills me. I never know when she will do it or when she will do the classic "stone face" but I can't help but laugh every time she does this!

We tried to get a picture with McKinzie but it didn't work out so well....

Then tried with Aiden, and it did work once he held her head in place! lol!

And now for pretty much my favorite picture of the year....!!!

Saturday Collin and I were able to go to the Logan temple with Morgan and Lana. We have been going to the temple whenever we visit Utah or IF for the most part, since the Boise temple is currently getting remodeled. It was really nice, I have only been to weddings there, never a session. We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon and evening Logan also, they all went to a movie and Ash and I shopped at the Logan mall! (holla!) I haven't been to Logan much since I moved away from there back in 2003 and I forgot how much I really like that place. It has grown a ton in the last 9 years! We realized it wouldn't be half bad if we ever ended up living there . . . :)

This is a picture I also really enjoy. Morgan has these huge love sacs in their basement and we put Lucy onto one thinking it would be so funny to watch her wiggle and try to squirm her way out of it..... but to our surprise she just laid there! It was hilarious. She was like, "ahhhh." So then we had to kick her off.

Lucy and Snowball had some great bonding time in the backyard. Lucy was pretty put-off that she had to stay out there so much but it was good for her, the little princess! Good grief.

Ok, and here are the pictures from visiting Aunt Candy and Uncle Beard. I'm not sure why they're so crappy and I'm also not sure how to get them earlier in the post...so here they will stay. The 3rd one is my favorite for sure.

To finish the story about the fire--Sunday Darlyne got an all-clear to return home if she wanted to, so she did. They evacuated over 2,000 people, but not a single house got burned. Really makes you appreciate firefighters!! We were really thankful her home and the others were ok. It was definitely an interesting trip, but a good one! We were glad to get back home and get our kid sleeping through the night again also though!