Day 10 - Movies!!

We hit Crossfit Lehi this morning. It was a cool facility, but oddly laid out. there was a wall right down the middle, forcing the coach to walk back and forth to see both sides and try to watch everyone. But she was good at it and we liked the workout. No good t-shirts to buy, so that was dissappointing. Mark's Father's Day gift this year was to visit all these gyms and buy a t-shirt at each one (and sometimes one for me...he's so generous!)

Mom wanted to treat the kids to a movie, so we grabbed tickets to Aladdin at the theater in Spanish Fork and went to see a matinee. We loved it! Which is a huge relief, because I really didn't love the cartoon one.

And just to make sure we watched all the movies in one day, we drove up to the Redwood Drive-in and met Bri and her family for Toy Story 4. We listened to our new favorite music all the way: muscials! Mom said she loved it!

Megan tucked safely into the trunk....any power supply is a good power supply.

Remind me again why we pay money to watch movies on the concrete? I had to restart the car every 20 minutes because the auxiliary power was trying to save me from having to get a jump start.

Mathew and Quinten bonding over video games!

Bri and me!!

Utah trip -- SLC with the cousins

We started out with grand plans.

We were going to have a picnic at Liberty park, followed by a stroll through the new City Creek Center, hop over to Gateway to let the kids splash in the fountains and then we'd dry off and go to a drive-in movie on Redwood Road.

Quite an ambitious line-up, don't you think?

So here's what we actually did:

We made it Liberty Park and we had a picnic during which we only had to walk all the way to the bathrooms 3 or 4 times with each child that didn't need to go to the bathroom only minutes before when we were taking one of their cousins all the way over there. This happens because they all took an oath to do this at their last Union meeting.

The picnic was yummy, though, and the park was beautiful.

It was becoming very obvious, however, that there was absolutely no way we would have time to do all we had planned before the drive-in movie started. So we ditched City Creek Center and Gateway and we went for a dip in the splash area at Liberty.

I say "we", but I really mean that sweet Amanda did all the work and kept Anna from going under.

This is Megan's version of holding your breath under water. Only a couple feet lower and she has it perfected.

Ethan's pre-middle school muscles.

I was feeling queasy and pregnant, but I wasn't feeling as pregnant as Cheyanne. You're such a one-upper, Cheyanne. :)  <---- you know I'm joking right? I put a little smiley face there, just to be sure.

Right before it was time to dry off, we tracked down the source of the water and tried to dam it up with our many Blanchard bodies.

I'm sure the people at the bottom really appreciated us.

Then we headed to the Drive-in where the kids enjoyed to novelty of watching a movie outside.

But I focused more on what kind of snacks were available.

Never let it be said that I let a little queasiness get in the way of the munchies. You can include it in my eulogy.

Thwarted by the fat hand

The very day that we said goodbye to the Youngs, we said "Hello!" to Bri and Amanda and their two boys! They arrived that evening after driving for MANY MANY hours from Ohio. They were beat, but they still came over to chat before they headed to their hotel. It was so good to seem them all. It had been over a year since my last visit to Utah.

The next morning we had big plans. We thought we would go downtown to see the sights and let the kids play with each other. Quentin is Mathew's age and Mathew was soaking up the cousin attention. On our way to play, we met up with Mark at a local Mexican restaurant to glut ourselves upon the chips and salsa. We chose Mi Ranchito because they share a business space with a tire shop. EVERYBODY knows that the best Mexican places are located in tire shops.  As we were eating, Mark noticed that Ethan's hand was quite fat. Ethan had showed me earlier, but I didn't think much of it, perhaps a bad mosquito bite. Mark pointed out that Ethan was having a difficult time bending his fingers and we should probably get it checked out, just in case it was a nasty spider bite or an allergic reaction to something.

We decided to head back towards home and called the urgent care. I wrung my hands and worried what to do. I took a photo so that I could check later and see if it had gotten any bigger.


I swear this doesn't do it justice. It was a chunky monkey.

In the end, I went in to the Walgreens and talked to the pharmacist there. He suggested ice and a dose of antihistamine.

A bit anti-climatic, but just enough drama to derail our plans for the day.

We opted instead for a cool dip in the hotel pool and dinner at our house.



Bri held Anna and we cooked and gabbed. I loved it.

Later we were entertained by an excellent round of killer nerf guns.

Thomas really got into it. He snuck up behind Mark and tried for an easy kill.


But, alas. Mark is the Grand Poobah of Nerf War.

The hunter became the hunted.


He stayed in character and died a noble death. 


Mark flying Mathew's birthday helicopter.
 
Bri and Amanda praying that they aren't about to get chopped in the head by a rogue helicopter.

Polishing the night off with Moosetracks.

Charismatic Quentin


Sweet  Thomas.


Even though our day didn't go as planned, I LOVED spending time with my sister and her beautiful family. Bri, I think you are awesome! Thanks for being willing to drive all that way to come and see us. It meant so much to me to have you here.