Summer Fun

Okay, I know it's been TOO long without a blog. We have been traveling and playing for a whole month and haven't had time to blog! Our vacation started out with a camping trip with my family to Capitol Reef National Park in Central/Eastern Utah. My family used to go there when I was younger with all of our extended fam, but this time my parents rented the whole camp site for just our fam since we now have a whopping 17 people in our family. (Garrett is on his mission so he was unfortunately not able to join us, so we had 16 total including kids.) My mom even made Jones Family Reunion t-shirts. :) If you can't tell what they say, they said All for jONEs for All. (You know, like all for ONE, ONE for all...clever eh? Hahaha.) And they have cute stick figures on the back representing everyone in the fam. It was a really fun weekend full of hikes, yummy food, lots of laughs, and even a really cool "devotional" with all the adults one of the nights. I love my family so much and am happy we all live close enough to be able to do things like this! My parents are in the process of buying a house in St. George, which will be awesome for us since it's only 1.5 hours from us! Sadly, Jared and Leesha (brother and sis-in-law) are moving from Las Vegas to Heber! I am super happy for them and the opportunities it will provide for their family but sad for us. :( It has been fun having them close and being able to hang out/switch babysitting/share food/etc. etc. with them. We will miss them a lot. And I know Luke will miss his cousins. I have LOTS of camping pics that will be posted next post :)

After camping we went to Heber for about 5 days and pretty much just relaxed. We visited lots of family and watched movies. Nothing TOO exciting but a trip to Heber is always fun. After a couple days in Heber, we started making our way to Moses Lake, WA to visit Drew's brother's family. We stopped in Twin Falls, ID on the way to visit one of my best friends, Jenna, and her cute fam. It was so fun catching up and playing games. Her new baby is the cutest girl ever. Love her. And Jace always has something entertaining to say or do. Cutie pants.

We got to WA late Monday night and talked about all of the activities we had planned for the week. We went to a water park with the kiddos, had the annual hot dog roast and s'mores at Gpa and Gma's, went to an amusement park on Kelsea's birthday without the kiddos, went to baby Zak's blessing, watched fireworks and had a BBQ on the 4th, and lots of other little activities in the middle of all the big ones. I have been wanting to record a c.d. of all my dad's favorite songs for him for father's day. Kelsea is an AMAZING singer so I decided I should include her so some of the songs would actually sound good. :) Brandon and Kels have a pretty awesome home-made recording studio in their spare room and Kels and I spent lots of time in there recording our stuff. I have only heard a couple of the songs we did so far but Brandon has made us sound pretty good! I can't wait for the finished project. Moses Lake needs to be a summer tradition for sure. Drew spent most his summers there growing up and we have been there 3 times since we've been married. We both love it and love the company when we go there as well.

On our way home from Moses we stayed in Boise one night just to break up the 13 hour trip. Then the next day we met my dad in SLC to see a movie and my mom took Luke home to get some much needed sleep. We didn't stay long in Heber on the way home, just 2 nights then we were on our way back to Vegas.

It was such a fun vacation and I am so happy Drew has summers off so we can do this kind of thing! I don't know if we will be able to drive the whole way next time because although Luke was pretty much an angel, I don't think it will be as easy if we had 2 kids or I was pregnant. We'll see.

I know this post is SUPER long but I needed to do a little Luke update since I don't write monthly letters anymore! I feel like ever since he turned 1 he is now officially a big boy. He is jabbering so much and though they aren't really words, I can tell he is close to having a bigger vocabulary. He weighed 25 lbs at his 1 year check-up! He is a solid kid. Haha. Along with talking more he has been eating like a champ. He eats anything and everything. And I mean that. There really isn't one thing he doesn't like. (So far...I hope he stays a good eater!) And on June 28th he started walking! I only remember the date because I took video on my phone. He walks all over now and has a few big "spills" with bruises and bumps to show for it. He is changing every day and I really love this stage although he is becoming more independent and throws tantrums. Whenever you do something he doesn't like or say "no" he "runs" as fast as he can head first into a couch. (or something he knows is soft because if he runs, he falls..haha) It's really cute...and dramatic. He literally buries his head in it and just cries. Hilarious. We love him so much and think he is just the cutest thing to ever walk the earth.

We are adjusting to being home with lots of house projects, but we will be going back to Heber at the end of the month for a wedding and to help my brother move. Also for one last quick get-away before Drew goes back to work. I will be substitute teaching in the fall as well so we have to live it up the rest of the summer! As if we haven't already.... ;)