Utah Weekend

Corbin, Quincy, and I flew to Utah for a very short weekend trip for my nephew, Zach’s, wedding. Zach and Emma are adorable. I love love! I attended their sealing in the Mt Timpanogos temple, Quincy and I helped with decorations for the luncheon and went thrifting with my nephew Tyler and his girlfriend, India. Corbin played 18 holes of golf with cousin Steven and some of his YSA friends Caleb and Jace. Corbin and Quincy also went hiking with Cousin Brock (who just returned from his mission in Torreón, Mexico, well done, Brock!), cousin Steven, “cousin” Joey, cousin Garrett, Caleb, and Jace. My teens loved running around with YSA’s all weekend. Those boys were so good to Corbin and he spent hours playing pickleball, pool, foosball, and swimming with them. Quincy is fast friends with everyone and knew all their life stories by the end of one trip to ice cream. 

We held all the babies and played with great nice and nephews (Parker and Kelsea have baby Rowan, Tayler and McCoy have Hadley, Grayson, and Calvin.) I had arms full of babies all weekend and it was a dream. 

We got to see my brother Scott and his family (wife Kristie, nephew Ben) and we realized it’s been 6 years since we’ve seen each other. Madness. Loved catching up. Mark and Melinda are such generous hosts. It was their son’s wedding and they just remodeled their home(still in progress!) yet they insisted we all stay with them. My parents are at my sister, Amy’s this summer. 3/4 of my siblings plus their spouses together was amazing. Missed Paul and HolleeAnn and Aaron of course! My aunt and uncle Tami and Greg Palmer are serving their second round as mission leaders/presidents. They were in Veracruz Mexico before but this time they are right at home in Rexburg Idaho as mission leaders for the Rexburg Service Mission. They love it! They were able to drive down for the weekend and I loved seeing them! Greg also just retired from teaching mission prep and Book of Mormon at BYU-I. They are so gifted at connecting with young and emerging adults. They hosted Reese when she visited Tommy in Rexburg a couple times, and they spent time chatting with both of my teens. I loved that for them. They are incredible people and wonderful mentors and examples! 

Kristie, my mom, Taylor, Hadley, Greyson, Quincy, Amy, Melinda, Aunt Tami 



Emma and Kelsea—yay more nieces! Speaking of nieces, we got a text that my niece Jordan had her 4th baby this weekend! Welcome, little Isla! 

Tyler with baby Rowan

Quincy didn’t buy this thrifted dress bc it had been altered to have some less coverage. It was so cute but she passed. My mom suggested we just unpick the stitching in the front where it was unbuttoned and alter it back to close it back up….and we don’t know why we didn’t think of that!  The store was closed when we tried to go back and Quincy was really sad. Such a cute dress though! 

Josh being Josh and recording everything. Ty and India behind. They were so fun to go thrifting with. 

Zach and emma need a token pic with all their nieces and nephews. Grey wasn’t having it hahaha 

I love you Ben! 

Zach and Emma 

These two had a lot of bonding opportunities over the weekend. They are going to miss each other so much when Q leaves for school next year

It was a great trip! Mark and I hung out watching the Olympic gymnastics. Mark and Melinda owned gyms in California and LOVE gymnastics. Quincy is has always enjoyed watching gymnastics but is a pretty invested spectator if the sport now that she dates a gymnast lol. Corbin died over Mark’s wall of Nikes and coveted all the Jordan IVs and Travis Scotts. 

We haven’t done a trip in a while where the sole purpose is to connect with extended family. It was so good. Family dinners and BBQ’s, lots of story telling and laughter. Quincy and I hung out a lot with Melinda helping her with wedding reception prep, and with my beautiful niece Taylor (she’s such a sweet mother and person! I love her so much! She’s the same age gap to me as her dad/my brother Mark, and they lived with us when I was in junior high and high school. We calculated that I lived with Taylor nearly as many years as I did with my brother Mark!). I caught up with each of my nephews. I love these boys so much! This pic is missing Zach (who was busy being a groom), Ben (who had just left the reception), and Nico (who gets to live near me, here in Arkansas). 

(Zach, Steven, Garrett, Brock, Tyler, and Parker) 

(Garrett, Steven, Joey, Parker, Tyler, Brock, and Corbin)  I love these boys!! 

And a throwback of Brock, Ty, and Quincy rapping) 



Taylor


(Josh, Garrett, Corbin, Scott, Brock, Uncle Greg) 

Gray and Hadley 

Quincy got to babysit baby Rowan while Parker and Kelsea attended the sealing. They had never left him before—even with grandma (don’t be jelly Amy!) so Quincy felt very honored to be Rowan’s first baby-whisperer 

No pics posted for privacy but it blows my mind how much he looks like his dad! Parker was born when I was Quincy’s age, and Amy worked at my high school, so I had many pics of baby Parker with me and my friends. It’s fun to see Parker’s Mini Me being held by my mini me 

Speaking of Mini Me’s Taylor’s kids look just like little Taylor, Garrett and Zach. What a life.

Quincy and Garrett have a special bond even though they have an 8 year age gap. Garrett is a bit introverted, but will always talk for days with Quincy. He gave her boy advice and college advice and mission advice. Brock and Corbin shared a room at Marks house and Brock talked about girls with Corbin late into the night. Brock says “it’s easy with Corbin, we both have good rizz.” Haha. 

What a weekend. Congrats Zach and Emma! 

Scott and Amy with their favorite sibling. 

Mark and Grandpa twinning 

Ben and Grandpa twinning 

 

Quincy and I made dozens of these tiny bouquets with Melinda and her sisters Andrea and Nicole. It was fun to see Melinda’s Yardley family together! 





Caleb, Joey, Amy, Steven 

Oh baby Cal I could keep you! 

We took a few naps together and they were legit some of the best hours of my life. Babies are the best! 

Big Willies do Orlando-Anna Maria Island

Last day of vaycay! We were all wanting the beach and we all wanted gulf side, so we packed up lunch and dinner in the cooler and headed west to Anna Maria island. 

Aaron rented an umbrella and two loungers and we spent hours and hours at the beach! The water was so warm! It was a pretty perfect day and a perfect end to our trip. 

Big Willies Do Orlando Day 6-Universal

Aaron is a lot of wonderful things. Before anything else, I would describe him as a really really fun dad. So fun, that he chooses every morning to forget the craziness of the day before and start fresh. It’s a beautiful gift. And this gift is also how we ended up going to another theme park just 2 days after our 12 hour “Disney Death March”. The Willy Universal Studios Death March was a straight up crazy idea from the start. Last time we did universal, he took the little guys home after 3 hours and swore “never. Again.” I stayed in the park until closing with just the older kids and we had park hopper tickets so we did the whole hogwarts express thing and it was pretty amazing. 

But here we are 3 years later, when he announced  we were going back. And we were all going to both parks. All days until closing. 

Did I just get old? I thought maybe so, because I legit did not want to go. 

But something magical happened yesterday and it actually was an incredible day! I braced myself for disaster, but everyone kept it together. It wasn’t perfect, but it was kind of a miracle and we had so much fun. We kept offering to split off into two groups, and a couple of times we were separated for a ride/attraction, but for the most part. everyone opted to stay together and just use the rider swap/family waiting room option. 

We ordered the feast from Three Broomsticks and added a few plates of fish n chips. Everything was 10/10. We also hammered 6 or 7 frozen butterbeer, several churros and (sub par) soft pretzels. 

CeeCee found a bottle of love potion at Honeydukes candy shop. No love potion for you, Q! You’re easily adored! 

We convinced Sloane to get on a ride, and she bravely did, only for the ride to break down with us on it lol. They gave us some single use express passes for other rides and that kept spirits up. We also bribed Sloane with candy to get on the next ride, and everyone benefitted from her giant bag of sour rainbows. 















I have a lot of photos of Sloane bc she was my buddy for the day, but everyone had a great day. 

I couldn’t convince anyone to ride the rip rocket coaster with me or the doom drop. They were not about that vertical drop. But once it was dark we walked back to Islands of Adventure and we went to

hulk. Bear was 1 inch too short and SO sad he couldn’t ride hulk. He probably would’ve gone on rip

Rocket with me if he’d been given a chance. That kid loves roller coasters and I love it so much. Esme likes them now too, but she is a little shorter than Bear so she’s a bit limited based on height rules. She is RIGHT above the cutoff for a few and they double checked her everywhere but she made it and felt like a winner every time haha. 

Corbin, Quincy and I rode Hulk and it was INSANE. So fast and intense. Loved it! Quincy decided to be brave and went for it. She was on an adrenaline rush for an hour after that. So proud of her for doing tough things. We had so much fun! There was no wait for the ride so the kids just watched us and then we all went to the Jurassic river ride together next.

We had two single use express passes left and I was the only one willing to ride the Velociraptor coaster with Corbin so we raced over there 9 minutes before they closed the park only to discover the fine print stating that this particular ride was the only ride excluded from the express offer. Corbin was super bummed out, but since we had made it onto Hulk he had a good attitude. He joined Aaron and the twins on the dusky do right riptide rush log ride. The ride broke down a few times with them on it and they just laughed. It was a great ending to a great day, they were soaked! 

Lemon Curd

I made lemon curd last week and took it with me to a luncheon at Megan house with my SBO ladies. Megan taught us how to make spring rolls and peanut sauce and I’m kind of obsessed. I also sent some lemon curd over to Saumi’s with Quincy in a jar I returned to Mary. She sent us this photo (she promises there’s a pancake in there somewhere haha!) and Megan asked for the recipe and I realized I don’t have the lemon curd recipe on my blog. Here it is! OG recipe is from Kasey (because of course all the good things come from K! She’s the best!) 

 

Lemon Curd

1 1/2 cups white sugar

3 eggs + 2 egg yolks

zest of 3 lemons (I prefer to grate this very fine, but you do you!) 

1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1/2 cup butter, melted

Wisk together and microwave in 1 minute intervals, then 30 second intervals, stirring each time. It will get really thin and runny, and then it will thicken to coat the back of a spoon. It’s about three 1 minute sessions and then two to three 30 second sessions for perfection. Don’t over cook it! 

Store in adorable jars up to 3 weeks, or give adorable jars away to win over adorable girlfriends.  

And here are my Orchestra Booster board ladies from last year (Jerushia, Marcie, Amy, and Megan). So thankful for these women in my life, I cherish their friendships.