The First Few Days of Our Utah Trip

We are back from Utah and trying to get re-settled back into normal life!  I took so many pictures while we were there that I am going to have to break it into a few posts :)  The first week Rick was there with me and we stayed at his parents house in Alpine.  Rick's sister, Sophie, was getting ready for the Alpine's Distinguished Young Women Program (formerly known as Junior Miss). I won my local Junior Miss program back in the day and I absolutely love everything about the program.  I had so much fun helping Sophie get ready for it and I had the fun opportunity of being her backstage mom!  I did her hair and make-up and played cheerleader.  It was such a blast!  Most of the week was spent working on Junior Miss stuff (which I will do in another post) but we were able to squeeze a few other things in there :)

This is Daci at 4am the morning we flew out.  She was so excited to go to "hootah!"

We got to the Roberts house and Daci was READY for a nap.  Unfortunately, she figured out how to climb out of crib at their house.  One second Daci was in the crib, and the next we heard some strange noises coming from the neighboring room.  She had climbed out and gone in the next room over and was playing all by herself.  I was kind of upset about this because I knew I was going to move her to a big girl bed soon, but I really didn't want to do it while I was on vacation where she wasn't in her own house and learning the rules on her own bed.  Luckily, she did fairly well the first day.  She just stayed in the bed and put herself to sleep.  As the week went on though, she realized she could climb out of the bed and we had a few little problems :)  Hopefully I can train her now that we are home and she won't do that anymore!

Daci asleep on the big girl bed. Of course, she had to have all of her animals next to her!

The day we got to Utah Daci started acting sick.  By that evening she had a 101 degree fever.  The next day it went to 102 and the next 103!  After four days of a bad fever we took her to the doctor.  The doctor was so confused as to why she had this horrible fever when her ears and throat looked perfectly clear.  He thought that she might have a UTI.  He said we needed to do a catheter on her and it about broke my heart.  It was such a hard thing to watch.  The worst part was that it came back clean so we did it all for nothing.  Well I guess not nothing, we did rule it out.  He put her on antibiotics in case it was bacterial and within a few days it started to clear up.  Phew!

Even though she was miserable and extremely sick, she wouldn't let that keep her from playing and exploring.  She wanted to live up her vacation!  The Roberts' neighbor has a fun playground in their yard and she called it that "barn park".  She must have thought it looked like a barn or something.  She would always say, "I wanna go barn park!"  Fred and Penny were such troopers to take her over there all the time. These pics were taken after she went to the doctor with 103 degree fever and she got a catheter.  She just wouldn't sit still, even though she was feeling awful!

Then, on Monday we finally got to see my family!  They came out for a BBQ at the Roberts house.  Grandma came bearing gifts from her recent trip to Disney Land.  A whole set of Little Mermaid figurines!  Daci loved them!  Unfortunately I didn't take any more pics of that evening :(  Darn!

The next day we went to see Rick's grandma and my Grandpa out in Salt Lake.  It was great to see them.  We were blessed with awesome grandparents.

Daci at Grandma Jean's piano

In Grandma Jean's backyard.  This is the exact same swing set that Penny grew up on!

As I mentioned before Daci was still pretty darn sick this day.  We got pictures with both his grandma and my grandpa and both times Daci had a meltdown.  She is bawling in both the grandparent pictures.  Darn!  She really does love them.  She just really didn't want to take a picture :)

Next we went to my Grandpa's house.  He has an INCREDIBLE garden that has been featured many times in the news, etc.  He also always wins a million ribbons and Best in Fair at Utah's State Fair.  Here he is trucking out of his garden to come see us.

And here Daci is, bawling her head off again :)

Even though I spent a TON of time with Penny and Sophie that first week, Rick and I did manage to slip away and have a few fun dates.  They were MUCH needed since we rarely go on dates out in Chicago.  Thank you for the babysitting Fred and Penny!

One night we went to the Sweet Tooth Fairy in Draper and got me a Gluten Free cupcake and Rick a regular one and then we went to see Harry Potter.  Such a fun date!

Another day we drove up to Park City and had lunch and walked around.  It was such a beautiful day and it was so fun to get away together.  We drove back and went to another movie (we love movies!).

So that is the first few days of the trip.  Stay tuned for more!