My brother Benson called us and told us that he had arranged a cabin at Flaming Gorge and that he would love for our family to join his family and our parents on a nice weekend retreat. He assured me that we would be comfortable and that the cabin was wired for satellite so we could all watch conference together….he told me the place would more than meet my expectations. So we packed up the car and the kids and got as far as Springville, when we got a little news that we should probably pick up our daughter in Provo, so we made a little detour and grabbed Lizzy and then we were officially on our way.
Here is a picture of Benson for those of you haven’t seen him for quite some time.
We drove and drove and drove….it took a lot longer than we thought it would. It snowed on us the entire way there. It was a complete white out the last 50 miles…we honestly had no idea where we had ended up, we couldn’t see anything along the way. We were just so happy to see our family when we finally arrived. It was wonderful, I hadn’t seen my parents since Christmas I was so happy to see them and they were just as happy to see all of us.
Our first night of course started with cards…I grew up playing cards with my parents and my dad soon had us engaged in a competitive game of pinochle…it was me and mom against dad and Benson. And of course mom and I won….Girls Rule!!!
The next morning we got up and Benson and Katie cooked us a delicious pancake breakfast…I hardly ever get pancakes and Benson loves to make them, so I have to tell you I look forward to weekends with my brother. Yummy pancakes with real butter and lots of syrup. I was so looking forward to General Conference and it made it that much more meaningful because I was able to watch it with my family. Something that has never happened before was my dad watching it with us and this conference he watched all of it with us. I have to tell you this made me grateful for all the snow we were getting. He was snowed in with all of us with no place to go, so he settled down and listened….and you know, I think he really enjoyed it.
Well, the kids could not wait to jump into the jacuzzi and as soon as they had the okay from their parents they were in there….The snow was not going to stop them. Of course you can see Holden trying to find his muscles to show everyone…a daily occurrence at our house.
We decided we needed to take the kids out and get some of their restless energy out, so we decided a trip to the Flaming Gorge dam would be fun…Oh my, did I say the word dam? Well, my kids just totally cracked up at this and were delighted that they got to use this word…so they they proceeded to find every creative way they could use it that couldn’t technically be qualified as “cussing”.
Our first look at the outside of the cabin we were staying in….pretty nice huh!
We pulled into the parking lot of the “dam” gift shop….well, this is what my kids were chanting in the car. They were probably singing hymns in my brothers car on the way. His kids are so much better behaved than mine. I don’t realize how bad my kids are until we get with his….and of course what do my kids do when they roll out of the car and see all the snow….You got it, the shout of snow ball fight was cried out and the fight was on…..hmmmm, wondering if my children’s behavior has anything to do with their father!!
We finally made it to the “Dam” and everyone jumped for joy!!!
A few more pictures………………
and a few more…………
The day we left the sun was shining and the sky was a glorious shade of blue……….
