Much needed vacation...

Life comes at you hard, especially after a nice relaxing summer, so Dave and I decided to try and prolong the joys of summer by going to Utah in September. Let me just say that Dave and I LOVE Utah. It holds a special place in our hearts. We love the family we see when we're in Utah, Dave's family is in Sandy and my grandparents and many cousins live along the Wasatch front. Plus, there isn't another state in the world that is so saturated with many memories for both of us, Dave grew up in UT, it was my favorite vacation destination as a child, we both attended high school in UT, we both went to BYU, and the first 6 months of our marriage were passed in UT. Needless to say it was a totally rad vacation. We loved seeing Dave's family--they spoiled us the entire trip (thanks especially to Grandma Anderson!). Mark loved all the one-on-one grandma time he got with Grandma Anderson. Plus, he was able to play with his cousin, Jeremiah, who is just 4 months older than him. I realized once we got home that I wasn't great about remembering to take pictures, but here's just a few things that we did.

Hiking in Little Cottonwood Canyon (we also ran up the canyon, it was an intense workout, but some really great training for our marathon in 4 weeks!)

I love this picture with Steve, my father-in-law, and Dave. Dave has a love for running and hiking in the mountains mainly because of his dad, who loves those things as well and instilled them in his children. I've realized that next to seeing Dave's family, his favorite thing about UT is the mountains. I truly believe that if IL had mountains Dave wouldn't mind the cold weather so much.

We had a delicious meal with Oma and Opa (my grandma and grandpa Hoole)

Went rock climbing in Rock Canyon

Dave, me, Lori, Stephanie, and Steve after rock climbing

I want to thank Steve and Stephanie for arranging the rock climbing experience. We used their gear and their pep talks to get up that wall. You guys rock!

Visiting with Grandma Quinn before the BYU game

The Game

True Blue: Melissa, Justin, Natalie, Mark, Grandpa Quinn, me, and Dave

The BYU game. I'm not going to say much more about it (it's too painful) However, on the bright side, we got to tailgate with my family and show Mark the cougar stadium.

Leatherby's

For those of you who don't know Leatherby's I'm sorry for you. There aren't very many of them left, the only one I know of is in South Jordan, but they used to be all over. Leatherby's is an ice cream parlor that sells sandwiches and hamburgers. Every UT trip we have to stop in for Dave's favorite pastrami and swiss sandwich and a Tracie's Peanut buttercup Sunday (and yes it tastes as good as it sounds)