UTAH

This post is a little late. We have been back from Utah for well over a month. It was a good vacation overall. I usually come back to Arizona feeling ready and love being here. This time we spent some time in the canyon and it made me so homesick for this place. Provo canyon has always been one of my favorite places and I have missed it so much. We took our friends up to check it out. The boys all loved it! They threw rocks in the river, climbed on an old train and ran up and down the train tracks. The weather couldn't have been more perfect either (one of the only nice days while we were there).

The other big part of our trip was being able to see our cute little nieces Katelyn and Kassandra. It was our first time seeing baby "KK" and the boys couldn't get enough of holding her. She is such a sweet baby and is beautiful! Every time I go up to Utah Katelyn and Ezra usually don't recognize me which makes me sooo sad. I got to watch Katelyn a few days during the trip and we became friends. She played and smiled at me a ton and we loved every second of watching that sweet little girl!



Because I am a loser aunt I didn't get any pictures of Ezra:( I love that boy so much too. We got to do lots of things together and I love his fun personality to pieces!

One cool thing that happened was in Salt Lake. Me, Mike, Alyssa and my Mom decided to take the kids to the Book of Mormon exhibit in Salt Lake and then have lunch with Justin because he works downtown. We parked in front of the conference center and we were in a hurry after the exhibit. My mom asked us if we had ever been on top of the conference center, we hadn't and wanted to go. We were out of time but I just said let's just see if they will take us up real quick. After a little debating we finally just went up. The guide took us right up, we looked around for a few minutes (I could spend a long time, it is so beautiful up there)! We were walking towards the elevators when Mike stopped and looked across the small room. He started speaking Italian and ran over and started hugging a guy. We were so confused until he finally introduced me. Turns out it was an Italian guy and his wife visiting from Italy. He had been wanting to see Mike but everyone told him we were living in Arizona and it wouldn't be possible. Later that night we met up with a bunch of people and went to dinner. Mike was in heaven. They were really great and I had a good time but learned that I need to speak Italian. I was the only one that didn't speak. It was such a cool thing for him to see them!

The boy who potty trained himself

madden.

this funny little guy had no interest in being potty trained right when he was turning 2 but only a month and a half later he decided he was going to be. Madden would just come tell me "I pee, mommy" and so I would take him, and that's how it went with this boy. We have been going pretty strong for 2 weeks now. We have occasional accidents (especially at our friends house) but he is doing pretty well with hardly any effort on my part:)

He just comes up with things all on his own. Tonight Mike told him he would be right back and to count to 3 and he did....we never taught him to count to 3 but he just knew:) he is cracking us up all the time. We love this little baby guy!

gramps

Sunday morning (June 12, 2011) my sweet grandpa Schroeppel passed away. This weekend has been full of sadness. I was blessed to be with my mom, my aunt kim and my cousin meg when I got the news. We stayed up on Saturday night until about 2 am crying and talking, waiting to hear the news that he had passed. On Sunday morning at around 7:30 we heard that he was gone. We were all in a hotel room together in Tempe because we had gone to Les Mis the night before. Our girls weekend wasn't quite what any of us had expected but I am still grateful we were able to cry together.

Monday morning we all headed up to St. George to attend funeral part 1. It was so emotional for me. This was the first viewing I had ever attended. This is my first grandparent pass away. The whole experience has been hard to handle. Thankfully though, my grandpa has lived such a great life and that gives me a lot of peace.

I came away from the funeral yesterday with a feeling of such love and gratitude for my grandpa. He is one AMAZING man who is loved and respected by so many people. My grandpa spent his life in service for others. My grandpa is one of the funniest guys I know. He is hilarious. Yesterday everyone talked about his wit and humor and that is one of the things I will miss most about him.

Although we were not able to be with him when he passed and did not get to say goodbye, I am grateful for a great visit I had with him back in Feb. He was in the hospital and we were just getting back from our San Fran trip. I decided to make us leave later than we wanted so I could just go say a quick hello to my grandpa in the hospital. I ended up staying for 2 hours, just me and him. We talked, laughed and joked. During my 2 hour visit I think my grandpa had 3 or 4 different visitors from his ward and neighborhood. These people all told me how much they love my grandpa and what a great man he is. I loved this visit and for me, it was such a sweet memory that I have with him. I am thankful I was able to spend that time with him.

Grandpa has been such a good grandpa to all of his 49 grandkids:) I know my grandpa loves all of us equally and we all feel special and loved by him. I think that is a pretty amazing thing especially with how many of us there is!

I will miss grandpa but I know I can see him again. I am thankful to be a part of such an amazing family. I have so many great cousins, aunts and uncles. I feel pretty blessed.

Saturday is the final funeral in Utah County. I am flying up on Saturday to be there for it. I am guessing there will be more tears shed in honor of such a great guy!

Girls Night in VEGAS!

I have A LOT of blogging to do but I will start with my mother's day present this year. Mike decided to get some guys together and send us wives to Vegas for a night. We were all a little excited and a little nervous...we went and had a ton of fun! Our guys scored some major points for this one. They but us up in the Palazzo hotel which was AMAZING! Here are a few pics from our trip.

As soon as we got in our rooms (which were soooo nice) we realized we could be as dumb and immature as we wanted so we jumped on our beds, jump off a ledge onto our beds and giggled, it is pretty fun acting like a 5 year old again!

In the lobby of the Palazzo.

After Jack Sparrow scared the life out of me and Heather, she got a picture taken with him. He was very friendly:)

We thought we got all dolled up before we went out but then realized we were in a whole other world when the guy taking our picture asked us where in the Midwest are we from:) I think we might have been the only girls on the strip in denim at 10pm!

After dinner at our $40 buffet. It was the Wicked Spoon at the Cosmopolitan. It was much more gourmet than any buffet I had ever seen. The best part for me was the desserts, they were fantastic!

After dinner, we shopped until midnight, tried to find a karaoke bar, with no luck and did a little gambling....only a dollar on the penny slots. We got hit on by weirdo guys at 1 am and decided to head up to our rooms.

We spent the next few hours talking and laughing...Jill didn't make it the whole time:)

Ash, Heather and Me on one of our beds (picture taken at 4 am:)

The next day we woke up, went down to sit in the hot tubs, got ready and went to Cheesecake Factory for lunch. Here is a picture before we left Vegas.

We missed some of our good friends who couldn't make it but wanted to:( but we had such a good weekend and can't wait to do it again soon!