The Utahn Family

We had a nice trip to Utah a couple of weeks ago. It was great spending time with Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Steve. There was lots of visiting in the form of game-playing, ice cream eating (we made 2 batches of homemade ice cream, fresh peach and raspberry pineapple), bowling, and drives. My grandma and her sisters threw us a shower so we also got to see some extended family. Because Jason had never been to Utah we made sure we did at least a little bit of site-seeing and took a drive up to Snow Basin with my Grandpa. Grandpa was a great person to ride with he told us about the history of the places we were in and even a little bit of family history!

One of my favorite parts of the trip was going through a book of my family genealogy with my grandpa and learning more about his family. Grandma was right there with us while we looked at it and even she asked some questions! My dads cousin Bobbie gave it to me as a wedding gift because last year she got me very interested in her genealogy finds. She even added pictures to it it is seriously so cool. I love learning about my family history and love going through old pictures even more!

Family means an awful lot to both of us. Its one of the reasons we work well together - our families are super important to us. We're excited to join our families together we have such awesome relatives and we cant wait for them all to meet each other. It is so special that by marrying someone you are able to join many, many people together into a family. Were making our own new, huge family. That is so cool. Plus, I don't know where we'd be without our families - especially our parents - we owe everything to them!

Here's a little more from Jason (!!!):

It was wonderful getting out to see the mountains again, it's been quite a while since I was last out west. I've always been a beach baby but I'm also very at home in the mountains, torn between my favorite to be honest. The visit was awesome, Utah is a beautiful place. Kaitlyn and I took daily walks, at both morning and evening if possible just to soak up the area. All of the family I met were great people, Steve got me to feed lines to his Aunts and a cousin. I look forward to bringing our families together because we sure are lucky people to have both sides full of great people. So many people have been a huge help in this monumental event in our lives and it would take forever to thank everyone individually for everything for small ideas, listening to every little detail, coming along with us to see places and vendors, and even imparting wisdom morning, noon, or middle of the night. We're very grateful to have such wonderful families willing to help us in anything we possibly need. The big day is fast approaching and I look forward to it more and more each moment, to combine two families near and dear to both of us and to marry the woman who completes me.

Like father like son waiting at the airport & Jake at our favorite "Jake's Over the Top" milkshake place. Yum.


Some of the bowlers (Jason kicked all of our butts both games)


Jake and Allison bowling


Grandpa and Grandma


Jake and Uncle Steve - "When Land Sharks Attack" - Steve always makes up funny stories and this trip it was about "land sharks"... soon enough, a land shark actually got Jake - here's the video proof. I LOVE his giggle.


Snow Basin drive


Wild turkey family! Babies and a momma.


Utah, we love you.