HITZ CLAN: Mainland Trip Part Nine: UTAH

On Tuesday, June 21st, we were SUPPOSED to fly home from Colorado. IT. DIDN'T. HAPPEN.

We got checked into our flight (which surprising took a LONG time since we checked in at the curb and had First Class seats- Ryan had been upgraded.) Generally it takes about 5 minutes when checking in at the curb. But 20 minutes later we were finally on our way to security. We went through security and arrived at our gate only to find the sign reading that it was a flight (currently boarding) to Maui! MAUI? We didn't want to go to Maui- we wanted to go home- to Oahu! Anyhow, turn out that our flight had been delayed EIGHT hours. And all this happened in the 10 minutes it took to go from checking in, to security, to the gate? I don't think so. The dude that checked us in at the curb HAD to of known what was going on and couldn't tell us... anyhow, it was super annoying and we figured that with family only an hour up the road there was no way we were going to sit at the airport for 8 hours with 4 small children.

So after a few phone calls made by my savvy husband to the airline and their customer service department- for a mere $100 more we were able to extend our trip for another 10 days and stay through Ryan's mom's birthday which was June 30th!

Soooo we left the airport and went back to Ft. Collins. It was a LONG day w/o seemingly getting anywhere! We spent Wednesday, June 22nd unpacking and repacking b/c we decided at that point we would attend my family reunion in UTAH!

Thursday, June 23rd and all is quiet in the car with one on his D.S., one watching a DVD and one watching a movie on the iPad. Oh yes, and one sleeping baby. Can't all road trips be this quiet? It was heaven! For about an hour :)

Lunch in Rock Springs, WY where the kids could run around!

We got lucky and found a stray soccer ball- a Godsend!

"Yay!" We are out of the car!

Mmmmm

Getting on the road again for another few hours...

A quick stop at Little America for ice cream, courtesy of G'pa Steve :)

We're here!! We've arrived at Thanksgiving Point where we'd spend the night!

Da Girls

Da Crazies!

Pretty Gardens

Da Fam

Awww, my cuties!

On Friday, June 24th we went to Payson Lakes in Payson, UT to spend the day with my extended family. It was FUN! We went for canoe rides...

Loved on some furry pets...

Witnessed surprises...

Hugged our family...

Ate dinner with tons of cousins...

Ate DIRT...

And had an all around great time!

My sisters and I even put together a couple of quick numbers to sing at our Talent Show! And we even won a prize- woo hoo!

I LOVE singing with my sisters! Unfortunately, we were missing my sister Emily who had to take her crazed and over tired twins home to bed :(

Da Boys.

The Gathering (for the talent show)

Tio Brett, playing with Kolea

We only spent the one day at the Reunion but it was a great day and we had a blast. It was fun to bust out the binies and heavy sweatshirts too! My mom had no idea that we didn't end up going back to Hawaii... when we showed up, Hunter found her first and walked right up saying "hi Grandma!" My mom was in complete shock and came running to find me- in tears! She was SO excited we were there. It was a good moment. :)

Saturday, June 25th we hung out with our wonderful friends, Angie & Eliot. Ever so briefly!!

And we took the kids around SLC and to our favorite pizza/gelato place- YUM!

Sunday, June 26th we headed back to Colorado by way of Vernal, UT. And we snapped a quick pic of the small temple there.

Somehow, along the way we missed a turn. We still can't quite figure out how it happened- but we ended up here... this spot before getting to Grand Lake, CO which is way out of the way... well it just takes a LOT longer to get home. Anyhow, we knew we had an adventure ahead of us! The kids were TROOPERS!

We were leaving Grand Lake and entering RMNP (Rocky Mountain National Park) which we had to drive all the way through- over Trail Ridge Road- to get to the other side, in order to get home.