The Root'nest Toot'nest Family Vacation in the West

We all had unbelievable amounts of fun on our trip home this summer! It was absolutely blissful spending so much time with so much family. We are already counting the days until we can do it all again. We spent our first couple of nights with the Lewises and as per usual neglected to get any photographic evidence of it-- probably a good thing since the amount of fun we have with them has been known to make viewfinders explode with glee. Instead I will share a shot of what remains of my genuine Erin Lewis pedicure. That is right folks I have been walking around town with a two month old, grown out pedicure and not even feeing bad about it. (Erin, I need you). Also, don'cha just love our trendy linoleum. (Mel avert your eyes.)

Our time with the Andersons always includes lots of eating out at our favorite restaurants. We plan ahead for months which ones we are going to hit. One of our favorites is La Carreta, a Peruvian restaurant, were we love to have saltado and ceviche. The most delicious thing at this meal though was these beautiful Anderson girls. --The boys are pretty cute too.--

We had lots of fun at Sharon and James' playing with the girls and watching "so you think you can dance" with the ladies. Adele was the catch of the day when Katie went fishing.Next we had an incredibly fun Anderson family trip down to Zion National Park which will get its very own post that I will put up later. Basil then had to head home all by himself to start his training for medical school rotations while Rhoda and I kept the fun going with more family visits. There did turn out to be one glitch in this plan though. I accidentally sent Rhoda's and my suitcase home with Daddy while we ended up with his (matching luggage borrowed from Mom Anderson). That’s right, clothes, shoes, toiletries, the whole bit. Fortunately we were able to scrounge up some stuff at my mom's house until we could get some reinforcements in the form of hand- me -downs from Adele for Rho and from Emily for me. (Yes I know, that girl [Em] is tiny, but she is also generous and we found some things that worked. Man, I long for the days when I could closet swap with her.) Then Meg and I had a blast filling in the holes at the Rexburg DI.

We had one more day in Utah Valley and got to go to this amazing toy store with some other Andersons (my cousins) and our awesome friend Heidi. Here are Heidi and Evan with Rhoda and Gabe, neither of whom cared much for life as royalty. There was time for another delicious meal with the in-laws. This time at my favorite Korean place, Sam Hawk. In addition to rockin' stone bowl bi bim bap --my fave-- they have this fun soda that you have to push a marble down into the bottle in order to open. I brought one home for the B-bay.We spent a sadly short amount of time in Tooele but I did get to see some friends while I was there (including Christine- yay!). Here are Rhodie and I with Julie, my very first (non- family) friend and her new daughter, Tenley. Wow, it is like 1982 all over again, before you know it these girls will be standing on milk crates singing 'Wind beneath my wings' to their dolls. I am SO glad my bro Kevin came over with his two oldest kids to see me and Rho. Katherine and Jerry are two of the most fun, hilarious kids you could ever meet! I guess this is no big surprise considering the parents they have. Some of the best, funniest times in my life were with Kev. During their visit I kept wanting to write down everything that came out of Jerry's mouth and catch all of Katherine's sweet smiles on my camera.Kevin is an awesome dad and uncle. Good luck in Korea bro!Lastly we we got together with Grammy, Cousin Megan and baby Gabe and road-triped up to Idaho. We stopped at Frazer's and at Emily and James' in IF and had fun playing with the boys and eating grilled fish. Then it was on to Gram's where Danny was an excellent host and Em and the boys came up to see us twice and for their trouble got a construction zone speeding ticket and a cracked open head for Harry. (Em, I owe you so big! You are the limeade in the ice cream of my life). Grammy's truly is the most wonderful place on this earth. It was absolutely wonderful being there with my same sweet cousins (Neisha we MISSED you) and showing it to our next gen kiddos. Only now I feel like I got too caught up in taking care of grown-up business and didn't take full advantage of the opportunity; I guess I will just have to try to remember that in the future and remind myself that even though things change they can still be as wonderful as ever when we are with the ones we love. Beautiful girls Em and Rho.Will, Rho, and Gabe get some Grammy lovin' + Grammy gets some baby lovin'.Harry and Rhoda love each other SO much. It is the cutest thing in the world to see them snuggle and play.

Angel baby.Can you believe I found this "cutie"(hah, understatement!) dolly in the antique store. I picked her up and took her right home with me. What a steal!

Still to come: Rhosie's blessing, Zion, Grandma Rhoda's farm, and the FWN