Had To Get Away (Vacation Part 2)

I love my cousins. When I was a kid and my cousins from the Pacific Northwest would come into town, my excitement would skyrocket to spaztic proportions. My kids are no different. As an only child, there are no first cousins on my side of the family for K & J. We have wonderful cousins on my side, but we don't see them often enough. Mike however, has five younger brothers. And because it took us three million years after we got married to get around to making actual babies, the girls have cousins that are older than them as well as a host of younger rug rats as well. And just like their mama AND daddy, they worship their cousins. Especially Cayden who is one year to the day older and a boy and knows how to climb up on stuff super high and jump and will happily always agree to be the "monster" and allow them to permanently play the role of princess/puppy/kitty/cheerleader/dancer etc. (I would like to point out that I encourage my daughters to also pretend playing CEO, star athlete, corporate tycoon etc. Katie told me when being CEO means she can wear glitter and sparkles and pink lip gloss she'll think about it. I told her that a CEO could wear glitter and sparkles just not during work hours. So far, it's not catching on and we remain a heavily populated princess household) ANYWAY, cousins are the coolioest. And so is elk hunting with brothers apparently blah blah blah. So our travel savvy foursome found ourselves driving East to the lovely (?) state of Utah where Mike's brother Chuck, my rad SIL Amber and the aforementioned Cayden (aka the super hero), his 3 year old sister Emma and my new little bitty beautiful niece Gracie lives.

Mike ditched us and went up the mountain to go elk hunting with his brothers and Dad. They watched conference, the Steelers game, blah, blah, cold, snow storm, blah, full moon, blah, too cold and bright to produce good hunting, blah and blah and then he came back to Chuck and Amber's. Meanwhile, Amber and the kids, my other SIL Faith (married to Ken living in North Carolina) and her daughters Sariah and Chloe, my MIL Marilyn and my entourage spent four happy days hanging out and doing things geared to the awesomeness that IS cousin time. Basically, they ran around Amber's house destroying it and screaming in delight. We attempted to tire them out at the bouncy place but their energy knew no bounds. We went to the Mayan and watched the cliff divers, the girls went to preschool and ballet class with Emma one day, we cooked and hung out and lunched at delicious Bajio and Blue Lemon. I cooked my Julia Child chicken. We laughed and went to Rodizio and got caramels from Trolley Square and just hung out. Amber let me drive the whole time because you know...my freakishness? I was thankful and relieved. Mike came back from hunting early because it was so cold so we got to spend time with the boys as well. Funtastically fun. We had the best road trip and we rocked out to my new stereo in which you can plug an IPOD. 2,000 + songs of rocking out and singing at the very toppest of our lungs.

Great times with my great little family. We have fun together for which I am the most thankful of all.