Time Flies and So Do We

Welcome to our family, Gates! You will use your passport and frequent flyer number more than you'll ever watch Sesame Street (by the way, I still don't know who Big Bird is). So at 17 days old, we were off on Gates' first flight.

We headed to Park City for our annual Lybberty Days reunion. This is one of our most fun adventures each year. My grandparents, my mom's aunts and uncles, all of her cousins, and all of their kids get together for four days of competition and chaos - it's awesome.

And while there are only 36 of us, we act like a family of 100. We hike, bike, swim, play tennis, climb at the park, decorate t-shirts, play tee ball, compete with the stomp rocket, make s'mores, and the list goes on and on and on. This is a picture of my Uncle Adam during the Stomp Rocket competition - check out his air!

My mom's activity was limited this year but we felt very lucky to be able to attend and introduce Gates to everyone. He was pretty popular; I don't think his bum ever touched the bouncy seat, he was held by someone the entire time.

From Park City we headed to Sandy for the afternoon to hang out with my Aunt Jan and cousins and then Gunther and Caroline for dinner. Then it was off to my Uncle Rick's lake. Everything at the lake is more fun - even breakfast!

We water skied, paddle boarded, swam, built sand castles, jumped
on the trampoline, played on the playground, had water fights, watched movies outdoors, ate s'mores, swam in the pool, rode on ATVs, and played till we collapsed from too much fun.
The Johnsons, St Jeors, and Stockwells came out to the lake during the week, adding to our fun.

On our last night at the lake, they "flipped the switch" for permanent night lights on the lake. Picture football stadium lights running the length of the lake so that anyone can ski at any hour of day or night - it's incredible. My dad skied a bunch that night and then got the final ski of the night - somewhere around 1am (how cool is that!?!!). Our camera doesn't do night photos so well, but this gives you a (blurry) idea of what it looked like. You can also check out the Last Chance Lakes Facebook page or the website www.lastchancelakes.com to see pictures and videos from the night ski.

And some how we also snuck in visits to the Thanksgiving Point farm with the Cook/McQueen family and Midway with Amy Whitmore and two of her kids. At the farm we rode ponies, saw pigs, goats, and horses, and checked out a scarecrow.

At Midway we swam, played outside, and Hope showed me how to have a tea party!