utah trip

A week or two before Thanksgiving, Kevin's aunt, Annette Meador, passed away. She had been courageously battling with ovarian cancer for over 4 years, and it eventually (and very quickly) went to her brain. I have never seen someone deal with adversity and physical pain with as much grace and beauty as she did.  Her strength was truly inspirational.  

When we heard of her passing and knew details of the funeral, Kevin began looking at flights.  We all loved Annette and wanted to be there, but due to the cost of flying, we were just going to send Kevin.  A few days later, after finding out that ALL of his cousins and so many lifelong family friends would be there, Kevin told me that he really wanted our whole family to be there.  He shared with me his plan of flying into Las Vegas on Spirit Airlines to keep things economical. We had to pack extra light since they charge for everything above a backpack, but we managed to do it. 

It was a very early morning as we woke the kids at 4 AM to get to the airport by 4:45. 

We originally assumed that they would seat us together, but since you have to pay for specific seats, there was a high likelihood that we would not be seated together.  Since that completely freaked me out, we ended up paying for 3 seats together each direction.  I sat  with the kids on the way out, and Kevin sat with them on the way home. 

Brooke pretended to sleep, but they both stayed awake for the whole flight.

We waited for what felt like an eternity to get our bags, and everywhere I looked, I saw questionable pictures and ads for shows and casinos in Vegas.  They had a giant screen near the baggage claim, and when I saw a bunch of guys doing flips and tricks, I directed Colby's attention to the screen.  Seconds later, it switched to those same dudes hip thrusting and advertising for "The Men From Down Under."  I wasn't expecting that, so quickly tried to divert his attention.  Lesson learned! 

We picked up our rental car, devoured the yummiest breakfast at a place called The Broken Yolk, and then started our drive to Cedar City.  Colby promptly fell asleep, which was fine, until he turned his head and had absolutely no neck support.  

I asked Brooke to try to prop his head up, but it was dead weight and we were both laughing about the whole situation.  

Eventually, we asked her to quickly move over to support her brother's head.  She is the greatest sister of all time!!

She definitely took one for the team :)

Then she fell asleep as well, and Colby woke up pretty mad.  Thankfully, he went back to sleep, but I'm pretty sure the poor kid felt like a wreck after such an early morning. 

We made it safely to Cedar City, Kevin took a tiny nap in the hotel while the kids watched a show, and then we headed to Washington to go see my cousin Brittany, her family, and my Aunt Kathy and Uncle Donn. Brittany's husband (Tom) picked up our Cafe Rio orders, so we sat around and chatted while we ate.  Brooke and Colby were excited to go play with Brittany's twins, Carter & Crew, and we didn't really see them for the rest of the night. 

I hadn't seen them since Grandpa's funeral two years prior, so it felt good to catch up.

The next morning, we met the Peacocks in the lobby of the hotel we were both staying in, ate some breakfast, then headed out for a drive to explore the area.  We stopped at Brian Head so these cousins could play in the snow. They were loving life and would've been happy to stay there for hours.

Love this cousin picture!!

The joy on his face was just precious.  He wanted to bring the ice balls with us "as souvenirs", but I convinced him that a picture would last longer.

Brooke needed her ice chunk documented as well.  Lucky for her, I found a pair of gloves in my jacket pocket so she was the only one without frozen fingers. 

Mel and I recently talked about how we never take pictures of the adults together, so we put Colby on it.  He was perfect for that low angle that is so popular right now, haha. 

Love this girl's face and the happy giggles coming from her all day.  It made us SUPER excited to finalize our plans for our upcoming winter trip!

I love this guy as well :) We just couldn't get over how beautiful the snow was and how warm it was despite the cold temperature. I guess the sun makes all the difference.

We continued our drive and made it to Cedar Breaks, which was absolutely stunning.

The combination of the evergreens, the red rocks, and the snow was just beautiful!

Adventures with our family are my favorite...

Peacock family picture...

The guys thought they were pretty funny with their posing.  But hey, we were killing it with our documentation of the adults!

The pictures really don't do the views justice, but we had to try.

After Cedar Breaks, we headed over to Uncle Larry's house.  He hadn't been feeling great, but we were invited over and we were all eager to see him and to express our love to him during such a hard time. The kids all piled on Grandma and Papa. They hadn't seen them for almost two weeks, but you would have thought it had been longer :)

So much love on that tiny couch...

That night, we headed to the Black Bear Diner to see family and friends.  It was so good to hug everyone that came to town for the funeral and just be together. 

Our kids thought it was pretty cool to eat dinner with Daddy's cousin's kids.  At one point, we looked over and they were all trying to get in a selfie on Rylee's phone, haha. 

Nothing beats a hotel breakfast in your pajamas with cousins...

The funeral service was beautiful and I felt so grateful that we were all present. As stories were shared, especially by her daughter Jamie, I felt such gratitude for her example in my life.  She's not my blood relative, but after being in this family for 15.5 years, I definitely had a connection with her. I was especially grateful that Larry and Annette had just come to Texas in October because Brooke and Colby made a connection with Annette during that trip.  I wish I had a picture of her teaching the kids to make her famous bundt cake, but hopefully the memory will be enough.

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This was Brooke and Colby's first experience at a cemetery and although they had a lot of questions, they seemed to find comfort in our belief that we'll see her again someday. 

Childhood friends: Kevin, Donny Johnson, Jill (Meador) Kimball, Melanie (Meador) Peacock, Jenni (Johnson Bitter and Kevin Johnson

After the funeral, Larry hosted a big meal in his huge garage.  His friends (and Jerry and Bev) were super helpful in setting up and preparing all the details, and I think it was a great chance for everyone to spend more time together. The kids thought it was pretty great that they got to sit near Uncle Larry's boat.

These cousins adore each other and played together for hours on the rocks while the adults ate and talked.  My kids have decided that they want to live in Utah, and Colby was extra happy that Larry let him take a special rock from his property. 

I love portrait mode, but I had to also zoom out so you could see the beautiful views from Larry's property. 

At one point, I went back to check on the kids and they were practicing a rendition of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which they later performed for Larry. 

As the sun was going down, we decided that we needed to get started on our drive back to Las Vegas since we had another 6 AM flight the next morning.  Colby fell asleep on the drive, woke up while Kevin was in the hotel lobby (at nearly 10 PM) trying to figure out what was wrong with our reservation, then wouldn't stop crying for like 45 minutes until Kevin came out to get us. My nerves were shot.  Then we couldn't find our hotel room, and when we did, it smelled of smoke and the AC wasn't working.  At this point, we only had a few hours to sleep anyway, so we quickly got ready for bed and tried to sleep.  Well, the fire alarm went off 3 times between the hours of 2 and 4 AM, but shockingly the kids slept through it. We can chalk that up as the worst hotel stay we have ever experienced, but the good news is that we made it safely back to Texas and found all well at home.  

I'm so grateful that we could make the trip and spend time with those we love!