On July 23rd we left home for our long awaited vacation to visit our Blackburn family in Las Vegas, Nevada! We’d been working hard and saving for months and were so excited to be out west for a few weeks. We got out of town at about 9:30 a.m. and drove for 16 hours where we stopped and stayed the night in Santa Rosa, New Mexico.
Here’s a view of us on our way…Charlie had just come off of a 12 hour work shift so needed to get some sleep…good luck with 4 noisy kids in the car right?!
After leaving Santa Rosa in the morning we headed to St. Johns, Arizona to stop for a few hours and visit my grandparents, Jess & Helen Broadbent. I hadn’t seen them since July 2008 so things had changed quite drastically since the last time I’d been there. My grandma suffered a stroke in May of 2011 and has since been wheel chair bound with other complications. It was so hard to see her in that state. But…I am very grateful for the opportunity to see them, it was wonderful to visit my grandma and grandpa.
These are the steps we used to take pictures on when I was little…I just couldn’t resist! Too bad the sun was so bright, they couldn’t keep their eyes open!!
My beautiful grandma and I. She had lots of good advice for me. I love her so much. Their home holds so many special memories for me, I love it!
Grandma Helen, Grandpa Jess, the kids and I
Me and my grandpa. He was so sweet to me, telling me how special I am to him and how beautiful I am, it melted my heart. I love him so much.
Their care-taker took a picture of everyone together.
Well, after St. Johns we had another 6 hour drive to get to Las Vegas and we finally made it there at about midnight. Phew!! That was a long drive…about 28 hours!
We stayed with Charlie’s sister, Heather while there and she and her husband live in a gorgeous home with an amazing pool they recently finished building. We spent a ton of time in it and enjoyed every minute!! Here’s a few photos from July 26th:
This is my nephew Blake! He is so cute and really funny, he is 5.
This is my Sister-in-law Heather with Blake
On the 27th we drove 3 hours to Hesperia for a quick 2 day trip to see some old friends. We lucked out that the weekend we came our old ward was having their annual beach trip and we were so happy we got to see a few more old friends than we had thought we’d get to.
Here’s Beau wearing the Kermit hat Momo gave him, he became quite attached to it right away!
Here is our old home in Hesperia, Charlie’s childhood home, the home his dad built with his own two hands. It will always hold a special place in our hearts…we had to drive by and see it.
We spent that first night with our friends Heather & Derek Stokes. They were so kind to open their home to us, it was so great to see them again, we miss them so much.
This is Libby and her best friend there, Kaylee Madison.
Kaylee, Libby, Mason, Beau and their brand new puppy!
The kids had a blast with their old friends, they got comfortable real quick and everyone started leg wrestling that evening. This is Quin and Jessalyn.
Drex and Emily…looks like he got versed!!
On the 28th we spent the day at Huntington Beach. It was so great to at the beach again! The water was cold and there was a little breeze but overall the weather was perfect. It seems like every time we go to the beach Charlie either digs a huge hole or makes something else really cool and this time was no different! He made two different animals this time: a shark and a turtle. All the passersby and kids swarmed..some strangers even asked for photos with them!
Libby and Kaylee, friends forever!
Quin was on a mission to collect as many sea shells as possible, we brought them home as souvenirs!
There was a surfing competition going on at the pier, so we started walking down there and Beau fell asleep…that got heavy real quick. I couldn’t make it, although we got close..it turned out to be 2 miles from where we were at…I swear it didn’t look that far at all!!
Here’s the turtle Charlie made:
That evening we stayed the night with our good friends Jill & Jason Stiber. We love this family so much and were so happy we got to spend some time with them. Their son, Noah was Drex’s best friend when we lived there also, so it was great to get them back together again. All the kids had a blast together. I wish I’d remembered to get some pictures of us with them, but unfortunately didn’t.
With Charlie’s grandparents, Philip and Bernice Blackburn only 2 hours away from Vegas (Santa Clara, UT) we knew we had to take the opportunity to go and visit them. We hadn’t seen them since their 70th wedding anniversary in July of 2008. They are still getting around quite well…it is amazing! Before going to their home we stopped at the Dinosaur Discovery at Johnson Farm in St. George to see the dinosaur tracks. It was so cool!
This lady was in the beginning stages of painting this dino and let us take a picture with her.
This is our family with Grandpa & Grandma Blackburn, they were so sweet and grateful we came. We had such a nice visit.
On July 31st we went to Vegas’ most awesome zoo…Roos ‘n More in Moapa Town, NV. Heather had gotten us a private tour so we got seriously spoiled! This is a small little zoo with quite a variety of animals. Our tour guide gave us tons of information about each animal and allowed us to hold, pet and play with them. It was so cool, and such a unique experience! We took a million photos, it was really hard to choose just a few to share.
Quin & armadillo
Drex and mini turtle
Quin and bearded dragon, that’s our tour guide back there..she was great!
I’m pretty sure this is a Lemur or at least a close relative. He would climb from one back to another, all you had to do was lean over and get close and he’d climb on over!
This is a bear-cat, he liked to sniff hair and smelled like popcorn…I’m serious! Really funny animal.
Several of us got ‘camel kisses’ by feeding the camel a carrot with the mouth…I was too busy taking pictures and didn’t partake this time.
Our favorite part was holding and petting the monkeys. They were so small and cute!
Here’s some more swimming pictures from August 3rd. Drex & Quin learned how to dive this day!!
I loved swimming every day and getting some sunshine!
August 5th we drove over to Boulder City, NV to see the Hoover Dam. It was a pretty quick trip, it was extremely hot outside so we didn’t last that long…but it was really neat and we’re happy we got to go and see it.
Another fun thing we did but don’t have photos of is on August 4th we had an adult night out. Our 19 year old nephew Zackary was kind enough to watch the kids so we could go out to dinner at the casino buffet and go see “Carrot Top” live. We haven’t laughed that loud and long in quite a while!! He was really funny & we had the best time!
Well, they say all good things must come to end and our summer vacation was no different. Eventually it was time to pack up and say goodbye. We left the morning of August 6th and had another full day of travel. We took a different route home and got to see some of Colorado this time. Here is a photo of beautiful Colorado, the weather was a lot cooler there than Nevada!
We stayed the night in Stratton, Colorado and finally arrived home late the next day. We couldn’t have had a better trip, we are so grateful our travels went smoothly and we were safe.
1 comment:
You guys were busy! Looks fun!
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