Salt Lake City

On Saturday, March 16th we loaded up the car and headed to Salt Lake City Where Ryan signed up to take an implant course at White Cap.  Scott and Denisse were nice enough to let us come and stay with them and borrow Scott's car.
Monday through Friday Ryan left early in the morning and came home late for his course that was actually in Heber City.
Sunday evening Clay came down to Utah to stay for a couple of days.  On Monday, the kids found Scott's golf clubs so Clay was showing them a few pointers.

Golfing with Grandpa March 18th

Golfing with Grandpa March 18th

Later on Monday we went to the hotel that Clay was staying at so the kids could come and swim.

Braden's cannonball

Nathanial

Brielle, Nathanial, and Grandpa

Christopher and Grandpa

Nathanial Swimming

While we were in Utah I wanted to get together with some of Ryan's family that lives there, his Aunt Penny and cousin Jana and her kids.

On Tuesday, March 19th,  we decided that we would meet up at the Hogle Zoo.

Elephants

Rhino

Christopher, Nathanial, and Grandpa

All the kids: Macie, Parker, Brooklyn, Braden, Nathanial, Christopher, Emily (Brielle was at school and Brooke was with Denisse.)

Emily and Brooklyn (they are only a week apart)

Emily, Christopher, and Nathanial :)

Grizzly Bears

Christopher was sad that the polar bears were not there but he was pretty happy to see these ones.

giraffes

Grandpa was nice enough to buy tickets for all the kids to ride the merry-go-round

Christopher chose the polar bear

Emily was NOT happy...

...until it started to move then she kept saying "wee, yee-ha, woo-hoo"

Nathanial chose the rhinoceros

Braden and Nathanial playing with the bubble machines

Christopher playing with bubbles

On Wednesday, March 20th we headed over to the Sandy Fire Station to visit Jana and Rob for dinner...

Christopher, Braden, and Nathanial playing in the fire truck

Emily

The Kids: (L to R) Christopher, Braden, Emily, Brielle, Brooke, Parker, Macie, Brooklyn, Nathanial

Christopher

Christopher

Nathanial--the future fire fighter

Nathanial

My mom came down for the day on Thursday, March 21st, to see us while we were in Utah.  We went to the mall to look for my birthday present, a new dress.  We ate lunch in the food court and then let the kids play.

Emily, Christopher, and Nathanial playing

After we ate luch we were about to give up our shopping when we went into Mr. Mac, they had a few dresses on display.  After trying on a few I found what I wanted and, as we were paying, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf walked in to buy a few ties for the upcoming conference.  I shook his hand and the boy gave him a "high-5".
 

On Friday, March 22nd the WHOLE Miles clan came (EXCEPT for Kaden, he thought a baseball game was more important--it ended up being cancelled) and we went around Temple Square.  Our kids see so many pictures of the Salt Lake Temple it was neat for them to actually go and see it.

Nathanial and Christopher climbing the steps to the temple doors

Nathanial, Emily, and Christopher by the Temple doors.

The boys helping Emily down

Kids in front of the reflection pool.

Statue of Joseph Smith

I really like this picture of Christopher looking up to Christ

Emily and Nathanial

Emily, Nathanial, and Christopher

The conference Center

Salt Lake Temple

It was a great trip to see some of the family.  After a couple of weeks of traveling we were ready to head home. We ended up heading home after a wonderful dinner at a resort with just Ryan and I.  Thanks to Denisse for watching our kids.  A really bad storm was coming and we wanted to get on the road before it was too bad.  We left around 10:30 Friday night and ended up getting home Sunday morning around 4 AM.  We were driving in a really bad snow storm until Omaha, NE!  It took forever to get out of the storm.  We were driving anywhere from 6 MPH to our max speed 50 MPH.  I would say for the most part we were driving around 35 MPH.  At one point there was an accident on the highway and we had to wait for it to be cleared so we were stopped for over 45 minutes of course I was driving and had just finished 3 Mountain Dews so I was antsy and ready to go while Ryan and the kids had a nice peaceful sleep at 2 AM.  I almost hit a deer in WY in the middle of the night.  Over one of the passes there was so much ice on the road that they actually had to come and make rivets in it so it was drivable.We finally were able to make it home and count our blessings that we made it in one piece. 

 One of the things that Ryan and I thought was funny that I want to write down while I remember it is about Scott's car.  While Ryan was driving it, he was a little embarrassed by it.  He would park at the far end of the parking lot and walk to his course, the reason? It had an Obama bumper sticker.  So one day I came up with the solution to take a piece of paper and tape over the sticker.  It looked A LOT better :)  We are not sure how long it took Scott and/or Denisse to notice it.