UTAH!

Raise your hand if you love traveling for 24 hrs straight?! Yeah, nobody. But Utah bound nonetheless to attend Grandpa Dibb's funeral.

Unintentional matching. When we landed in Utah we had a bunch of text messages telling us a photo of all the grandkids was wanted and could we be available in a few hours for the photo shoot wearing neutral colors? Extended family rallied and found clothes for my kids to wear...Kaiya ended up in a shirt similar to mine.

We ended up at the outlet mall to buy cold weather appropriate dress shoes. We've clearly been away a long time b/c everyone was in awe of the Chrissy decorations everywhere!

This is the cousin photo...it turned out great considering it was thrown together last minute!

The display table at the viewing/funeral:

I played some background music at the viewing. Mei was so exhausted that she fell asleep- twice. The first time she started to fall forward and ended up banging the piano keys- whoops. The second time she was smarter and laid in my lap. She was out cold for a huge portion of the night.

Song practice before the funeral started. The grandkids sang "I am a Child of G*d" in Spanish.

Our last official photo with Grandpa Dibb.

We were able to do some fun things in Utah in addition to the funeral. Goofing off at Walmart...

A BYU basketball game!

Eating their first cougar tail (a really, really long maple donut) at the b-ball game.

Going ice skating in Park City

Brian took the kids to a BYU football game! I stayed home and watched it with my dad in a nice, warm house...lol.

Mei got a hair cut- she looks so cute with shoulder-length hair!

Brian and I went to Cabela's so Brian could buy a pair of boots for his bear hunt next summer...only Mei came with us. Lucky for her, Santa was there!

My bro and sis-in-law do a service day the day before Thanksgiving. We joined them this year and raked leaves for a widow in their ward. The kids loved jumping in the leaves at the end.

On a whim, I signed up and ran the Thanksgiving Point "Thankful 13" half marathon the morning of Thanksgiving. It was cold and was supposed to rain/snow. Luckily, the rain/snow didn't start until after the race finished. It was still plenty cold though! Brian and Mei were great to wake up early and support me during the run. It was my slowest half time thus far...but it was nice to prove to myself that I can still run long distances. My knee is starting to feel a bit better these days!

Thanksgiving dinner with the Dibb family!

Brian's b-day was on Black Friday. We woke up Brian and took him out for breakfast. It was busy, but Kneaders brekkie is worth the wait.

Mina wore her PJ's to Kneaders. She even made a sign "I'm wearing my PJ's. It is a free country." I love that girl. She got a few chuckles from strangers. Kaiya didn't want to be seen near her- haha.

And that sums up our whirlwind trip to Utah. Obviously, the circumstances were not ideal. But it was so nice to be surrounded by lots of family and we even got to spend Thanksgiving with family- that hasn't happened in years! And we just love our home country- all things America is never a bad thing!