North To Alaska!.....Almost

Matt is fabulous and uploaded ALL the pictures of our great Hazard Family Reunion pilgrimage that we went on in August. Aaaaand I'm just now going to put a caption under some of them. Sorry it's so late. But just know that this trip took us across three different time zones from our house, to Oklahoma City OK, to Dallas TX, to Draper UT, to Rexburg ID, to Coeur d'Alene ID, to Rexburg ID, to Provo UT, to Draper UT, to Bartlesville OK, to our house...and that was just the places we stayed overnight. I packed and unpacked and repacked all three of our bags and Patton's pack n' play eleven different times over the course of a three week period. 

And it was GREAT!

Ashland and her girls were with us almost the entire time, and I must say we bonded on this trip. Because you always bond with the person you share life and death situations with...like traveling alone through airports and hotels with four children ages four and under. I'm happy we got to do this together :)

Patton hitching a ride on the baggage cart in the hotel in Dallas. We stayed there overnight before our flight to Utah.

Ashland, calling Griffin to tell him she had booked our hotel shuttle to take us to the wrong airport. And that we found out about it only after we had loaded four suitcases, four car seats, four carry-on bags, and four children into the shuttle van and were driving away from the hotel. It was an adventerous day, to say the least.

"Zoey, I'm so excited to go into space."

Patton completely fell asleep on me as I was putting his pajamas on in Utah after our long day of travel. Like, dead-to-the-world asleep. Poor boy.

Ashland lugging Bennett off to bed after our long day of travel. Both boys did awesome, by the way. They are great travelers.

Anna Sophia teaching Bennett how to groom her horse, Rhed.

Horse People.

...not horse people.

Raspberry picking at Amaw and Ampaw's house. This was easily the highlight of Bennett's entire vacation. He literally woke up at 5am every morning so as not to miss this opportunity. I loved that...not really...

Bennett's raspberry cherry tomato pea and powdered sugar pancake. He ate it all.

One day at the reunion in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho (Logan and Rachel hosted this year) it rained so we went to a bouncy house place. This is Patton standing up on his wobbly, just-learning-to-walk legs.

Rock climbing with the cousins and Ampaw. This was one of my favorite mornings. I even surprised myself with realizing I still had my mad climbing skills. (AKA-I made it to the top).

Boating the Coeur d'Alene River. Bennett had a blast. Patton endured.

Bear World back in Rexburg with Amaw and Ampaw. Bennett wanted to go on this ride, but sort of panicked once he realized it took him up in the air. And then dropped him. Repeatedly. Poor guy.

Patton LOVED the animal furs. He is a cuddle-buddy with anything soft.

Bennett's new best friend.

 

While in Rexburg, we got to visit with Matt's older brother, Jake, and his family. Here is Bennett with his cousins Kendall, Madi, and Emma. We hadn't seen them for a long time and it was so fun to catch up! These little girls got BIG!

And just in time for our visit Jake's wife, Janell, brought their first beautiful baby boy into the world, Carson Wayne Hargrave. This is Bennett with his newest cousin.

Me and Carson. I was so happy we got to be there for this!!

Amaw and Ampaw playing with Darcy and Patton at the splash park in Provo, Utah. We went down for my cousin's missionary homecoming and another cousins wedding.

 

 Milk: it does a body good.

While in Provo we stayed with my Grandma Hill. Bennett helped her get the mail each day.

Love this picture

Milkshakes at Great Grandma Hill's house. The tradition lives on!

Playing house in Grandma Hill's basement. This is pretty much how I spent my visits to Provo as a little girl, and now my kids are doing the same thing. Cool and weird all at the same time...I feel old...

Patton at my cousin Troy's wedding. He found a stick he was pretty proud of.

Aubree and her dad walking down the isle.

Dance party! My kids can break it down.

I loved the decorations at this wedding! So simple but classy. It was beautiful.

Oh I get so happy when I see this picture! This is my bestest best friend from Texas, Joelle. If you've read this blog at all you've heard about her and her family. A lot :) But they moved to Utah about a year before we moved to Oklahoma, so we haven't seen them in a long time. But on this trip we got to visit and meet each others newest kids and catch up on life and it was like we had never even said goodbye. I love good friends like that! I love Joelle!

And Bennett loves her little girl, Brielle. They are going to get married (but not until they're 24).

Also while in Provo we got to visit Matt's youngest sister, Sarah and her husband, Josh, and her tummy which is the current residence of my niece. Their little house is adorable and despite the fact that Bennett dumped an ENTIRE container of fish food into their aquarium, we had a great time with them.

Saying good-bye at the airport (pre-tears). We love these guys!

Flying home.

But we didn't go home to our house right away because we had to wait for Matt to come up and get us on the weekend. So first we stayed at Griffin and Ashland's house, where all seven of us shared a terrible stomach sickness and created a cesspool of germs in their bathroom.

Then we went home.

All in all it was a great trip, full of activity and friends and family and fun. I do have to say though, that I am happy to be back to normal life, on a schedule, sleeping regularly, and getting to see Matt everyday (he was only with us for a few days in Coeur d'Alene).

So until next time...