Part 2 of our Road Trip

Part 1 of our trip was all about the National Parks we went to see.  We took the long route to Ogden just so we could see some National Parks!!
This post is dedicated to the second part of our trip: One last time to see family in our home states before moving.
Jarom, Josh’s younger brother, returned home from the Brazil, Santa Maria Mission. 

He looked so handsome coming down the escalator, where Molly was the first to greet him!
I got to introduce Elder Jones to his nephew, Payson! 

There is something special about Jarom and Payson (and Great Uncle JJ).  Payson was born on Jarom’s 21st birthday, while Jarom was on his mission.  Jarom happened to be born on his Uncle Jeremy’s (JJ) 21st birthday when JJ was on his mission.  So for three generations nephews/uncles in this family were all born 21 years apart on Valentine’s Day!!
Here is a picture of the three Generations uncles and nephews!!

We didn’t only see Jarom on this trip, we saw lots of family!  I was able to go to Pocatello with Payson to show my grandparents, who hadn’t seen him, yet, while Josh stayed in Ogden to organize his old room so Jarom could move in. 
Here are some pictures from Idaho:

My Grandpa Wilde is serving a mission at the Bishop’s Storehouse in Pocatello.  He hadn’t seen Payson, yet, so we decided to bring Payson to the Bishop’s Storehouse so Payson and Grandpa could meet.
Here is the four generations from my side: Grandpa Wilde, My Mom (Teresa Bosen), Me, and Payson.

Payson doing exercises with Grandma Teresa.

Funny Faces

Tina and Payson

Payson’s cousin, Christopher, holding Payson.  Pay Pay wasn’t making it very easy for Christopher to hold him.

After going to Pocatello, we went up to the cabin.
Deana gave Payson a bath in the big cabin sink! 

A group of us enjoyed a nice hike!

We saw a deer, lots of birds, and even a huge bee hive!

Just hangin’ out at the cabin- being cute!

Payson gets lots of attention at home, but he gets even more attention when we visit family!  In this picture, Brigham, Savannah, and Abby were all playing with him.

On Sunday we had a lunch at Molly’s after Jarom spoke at church.  Payson, of course, got lots more attention!!

Great Uncle Dean was making him laugh!!

I finally got to meet Dexter, my cousin’s cute little baby.  He was born just shy of a week after Payson.  I can already tell they are going to be good friends!!

Payson has LOTS of grandparents still alive!  I was not able to get pictures of all of them holding Payson for some reason or another, but here is what I captured this last trip!!::
Grandpa Doug

Grandma Teresa (Note the socks!! I couldn’t find his little ones).

Grandma Molly

Grandma Deana

I didn’t get a picture of Grandpa Steve holding Payson this trip, so here is an older picture from when Payson was younger:
 
Great Grandpa Wilde

Great Grandma Wilde got to meet Payson before the rest of us!!  It was too special, so I didn’t get a picture!  (I wasn’t even there!
Great Grandma and Grandpa Bosen met Payson this trip, but I didn’t have my camera with me.  I will have to capture a picture of them holding Payson next time!!
Great Grandma Mayo

Great Grandpa Mayo

Great Grandpa Jones.  This picture was from Payson’s blessing.

Great Grandma Jones held Payson this trip, but he was hungry the first time, and the second was at church, so I don’t have a picture.  Next time!!
AND finally- Great Great Grandma Peabody

One last thing!- Not from our trip, but from this morning- Payson has rolled over a couple times the last week or so, but  I have never been able to get it on camera, except the times when I help him out a little!  Well, just this morning, he rolled over when I wasn’t even looking.  I put him back on his tummy, and he did it again, but this time I saw!  I pulled out the camera, and put him on his tummy again!!  He did it again for the camera!!  YAY!!  Then, he even rolled one more time for my phone camera!! 

Colorado National Parks Road Trip (First Half of Trip)

 

First of all, my baby turned 3 months old on May 14th, so here are just some cute pictures of him!!

 

Now time for the adventure!!

It is true- this was our 3rd TRIP in a month with a baby under 4 months old, and we are moving next week! It's pretty crazy, and instead of taking time to pack for our move, I am on here blogging!! (I guess I just need my blog time). We decided to take this trip for multiple reasons: 1.) Josh's brother, Jarom, was coming (came) home from his 2 year mission, and 2.) We hadn't seen some of the National Parks in Colorado, yet, and we are moving to Chicago, so we had to see them now or it might be awhile! So, instead of going straight to Utah to see Jarom, we detoured to some of the National Parks in Colorado! 3.) Plus, we wanted to see family one last time before we move even further away.

For those of you that know Josh well, you can imagine that being married to him is always an adventure!! I love (almost) every minute of it, though! :-) I got my tires for my jeep at Les Swab the winter before I met Josh. They were really starting to ware down, so Josh thought they might still be under warranty. It turns out, they were, however, there are no Les Swab Tires around Fort Collins, CO. In fact, there are none close to Chicago, either. The only way for us to get any money back on the tires, was to bring them to a Les Swab more West. We didn't want to bring the jeep on our trip with us because we could put the miles on one of Steve's (Josh's dad) Hertz' cars, and the Hertz car would have more room for us to bring stuff back to our parent's houses to store. Plus, we were flying one way home from Salt Lake City. Since the Pathfinder (the vehicle we ended up taking) was full of stuff to store, we had no room to put the jeep tires. Josh said we could put our luggage on the roof, but I voted against that, and said to put the tires from the jeep on the roof. Keep in mind, we didn't know if we were going to get any money back from the tires that were supposedly worn out and still under warranty. It was totally a gamble to bring them.

After much contemplating, the tires went on the roof! We were at the Denver airport when we decided to put them on the roof, so we didn't have rope. Luckily, Josh found a gas station with bungee cords.

We had a garden hose to bring back, and so Josh thought of the brilliant idea to use the garden hose as a rope to secure the tires together on the Pathfinder!! It turned out to be smart idea! The only thing was, now we had a car full of stuff with tires tied to the roof with a garden hose! Oh, the comments we got along the way!! I can only imagine how many people pointed and said, "Look at the tires on that car tied on with a hose!!"

A different view:

Luckily, we got money back from Les Swab, but not until Josh did some convincing!!

Now for the details of our trip: The first stop was Grand Junction, CO. We stopped at Josh's great aunt and uncle's house. We got there too late to visit with them, but they made us breakfast in the morning! I didn't catch a picture, but I should have. It was nice of them to let us stay!!

We then went to Colorado National Monument. Since this was a road trip, I packed a cooler with food. We ate lunch here at some picnic tables.

Then, we went on a short hike to see the beautiful view!

I love this picture! Josh set the camera on timer, and jumped in the picture, but he was nervous his camera would fall over from the wind!

Our next stop was Black Canyon of the Gunnison! It was awesome! We didn't do any long hikes here. Most stops were just view points!

Our next National Park was Mesa Verde. I LOVED Mesa Verde. There was some very neat ancient Indian ruins. Some dated back clear to 500 AD.

Payson loved his front-pack. It's a good thing because we used it a lot during this trip!

Here are some ruins! The black is from the fires they used to build in their homes.

This was a Kiva where they practiced religion.

This is the ruins that dates the furthest back before the people because more civilized.

These structures under the cliffs weren't built until closer to 1200 AD when the ancient people became more civilized.

If you look closely, you can see the whole village in the picture in the cliff dwelling.

Here are some more pictures from our hikes:

Funny Story about this particular Kiva!!  While Josh had Payson in the front-pack, Payson kept dropping his pacifier.I had to keep picking it up, and the people around us thought it was kind of funny.  Well, when we got by this Kiva during this tour, Josh said, “Paci” and points down in the Kiva.  I said, “It dropped in there!!!!????” I thought Payson’s pacifier dropped in the Kiva. Josh said it didn’t, but he told me to look anyway.  I looked, and guess what was in the Kiva?  Someone else's pacifier!!  ha ha!  Glad it wasn’t ours!!

Look at Payson’s head hanging down in the next picture.  Poor little guy had to go on these hikes with his mommy and daddy where we climbed latters, went through tunnels, and scaled the side of the mountain.  This was actually the only time Payson’s head hung down.  Josh wanted to use both his hands to climb the latter!! (Sorry, Josh- gotta brag about me for a sec… When I climbed the latter I did it with one hand so Payson’s head would not hang.  Guess I’m just use to doing stuff with one hand these days) I gotta give it to Josh, though, he had Payson for the harder of the two latter hikes.

Josh scaled this mountain side with Payson.  Luckily it wasn’t too hard!!

Everyone on our tour was impressed that we took our almost 3 month old on the tours.  They were surprised how good he did!!  He really did do good.  He never cried, and seemed to enjoy it just as much as we did.

This was after the hikes-waiting for our Navajo Taco!!

The next day we went to Canyon Lands National Park in Southern Utah.  It was a quick trip, and we didn’t hike at all.  We just saw some pretty views.

This is what Payson wore the day we did Canyon Lands.  The little outfit he has on has a dinosaur on it, but apparently, when you can’t see the dinosaur, the outfit makes him look like a girl, even though it is blue.  We had two people comment on our cute little girl!  I am still going to put the outfit on him because I think it is cute!!

This concludes the first part of our trip!!  The next blog will be about Utah, Idaho, and family!!