TGIFF

This week I decided to feature:

Derek, Amy, Charlotte, Juliette, and Emily

Derek has always been an amazing big brother. He is always easy to talk to and growing up he said that I was the pretty one of the family which always made me feel good about myself. He has always been athletic and was the example in our family to be into sports and we loved playing basketball together either inside or outside. He tells the best stories and is fun to hang out with. Derek married a pretty awesome girl. Amy is also so much fun to talk to and be with. She is funny and she is very much like a sister to me. I love doing anything with her especially zumba. :) Charlotte will always have a special place in my heart since she is the one that made me an aunt. She was always my little buddy when she was little. She has the cutest freckles and is all girl. Juliette is also lots of fun and silly and she is pretty good friends with Paige. Emily is just cute and has the cutest little smile and the cutest chub. I am so glad that I get to call them family!

Smith Reunion 2014

 We had a great vacation this past week. We enjoying sight-seeing and seeing all the Smith family that was able to go to the reunion this year. 

We started our trip on Tuesday and made it to Payson, UT and stayed with Nate's cousin and his family. It was so much fun visiting with them and they have a little boy that is a couple months older than Paige and they had lots of fun together. They even live right next to the temple which is absolutely beautiful.

 The next day we made our way down to Saint George for the Smith reunion. About 14 miles out of Saint George we stopped at Red Cliff Recreational Area. I was trying to figure what to do on our way down but didn't want to spend the money for the national parks. I was looking at my friend's blog and she went here and it only cost 5 dollars. It was super hot but really cool to walk along the red cliffs and see the beautiful southern Utah scenery.

 We then made it to Saint George but had to wait a little bit for Nate's parents to get there so we could check into the condo so we went and walked around the Saint George temple and the visitor center.

 Our condo was so nice and it felt so good to go into after being in the 100 degree weather. The garage even had some fun bikes that we enjoyed.

 The first planned activity for the reunion was Thursday evening. We all went to Aunt Joni's house and we all brought our own t-shirts to either bleach or put black dye on. Then we all enjoyed the traditional burrito bust. It was so good and it was fun to visit with everyone.

 Joni and Drew have lots of birds that they sell and we got to see her feeding three little baby ones.

 Friday we started the morning with going to the Saint George cemetery  and went and saw Lydia Knight's grave. Lydia Knight was married to Newel K. Knight and is a relative through Grandma Smith's line (Her maiden name is Knight.) Aunt Leona told us Lydia's story and then Uncle Bill gave a family prayer.

 Then we headed to a museum was dedicated to the Knight family and had a lot of pioneer history about the people that settled Saint George.

The masks of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.

 Then for lunch we headed to a park where we had jam taste testing in honor of Grandma Smith and root beer taste testing in honor of Grandpa Smith. There was a really fun splash park which Paige loved and could have spent all day there.

 That night we all went to a skating rink and had a fun night of eating pizza and pie and spending a few hours skating around and being with family. Paige was not a fan of the roller skates. :)

Group shot- 101 people in attendance and that isn't even everyone!

Saturday morning most people went on a hike. We wish we would have gone on it but we decided that Paige needed some sleep and we knew we would have had to carry her the entire time so we decided to do our own thing for the morning. We first went to Brigham Young's winter home and got a tour there and then went to the Saint George Tabernacle and got a tour there also.

 Many prophets have spoken at this pulpit and the windows of heaven speech was give here.

 We then went to the Children's Museum which was a lot of fun and Paige enjoyed playing and exploring.

 She wanted to give the firefighter a high five. :)

 We didn't get any pictures of the rest of the day on Saturday but we got a pool to ourselves for the evening. We had hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner and then got two hours to swim and have fun. Paige loved the water and they even had an awesome water slide there that was so much fun. I went down the first time pretty slow and Lily almost caught me on the way down cuz I was going too slow so the next couple times I went down I tried to go faster. Then after we were done swimming we all headed back to Joni's and had homemade rootbeer floats and said our goodbyes. It was a great reunion that went by way too fast and we can't wait to see each other again.

We made our way home slowing. On Sunday we went and saw my roommate from college whom I haven't seen for about 4 1/2 years. It was fun to visit with her for a couple hours and catch up. Then we stayed with Matt and Nathalie again. Then on Monday we made our to Salt Lake and spent most of the day there. We drove through and a lot of Nate's mission areas and he pointed stuff out to me and told me stories. That was a lot of fun and then we went to Temple Square and walked around the temple, went through the visitor centers, the tabernacles, and went to the top of the church office building.

 She really wanted to get in. :)

 Paige went up the statue by herself. It was pretty cute and then when she came back she said that Jesus had big hands, bare feet, a white dress, and she said he needed a haircut. It was so funny and cute!

Our last stop in Salt Lake was at the Salt Lake cemetery. A lot of the prophets are buried there. I wanted to go and see who we could find. Before we got there I didn't think it would be that hard to find them but this cemetery is huge so here is the ones that we found: Joseph F. Smith, Wilford Woodruff, Joseph Fielding Smith, Heber J Grant, David O Mckay, John Taylor, and Gordon B Hinckley.