Babies, Easter, Family, Fun, & Misery

I know the above picture is definately not the most flattering of me. This is me after 2 days of traveling and sitting in aiports. I figured that I'd start with the misery part of my trip, but then end it with the good. I got to go to Utah for the last week and a half to spend time my family and see my niece Sunny get blessed. However the end of my trip was kind of crazy. My sister Lynsee and her daughter Addison and I flew out of Salt Lake on Friday at about 12:50. We were supposed to go to Houston where I would be connecting onto New Orleans and Lynsee and Addie would head on to Nashville so both of us could head home. Well we left Salt Lake on time, but that is about the only thing that went right on our flight home. As we were in the air heading for Houston, our pilot told us that Houston was having bad weather so we would have to land in San Antonio until the weather in Houston cleared up. We sat on the plane in San Antonio for 2 1/2 hours. Thank goodness Addison was a great little flyer, most other toddlers would have been going absolutely crazy after flying for 3 hours then sitting on a plane for 2 1/2. Anyhow we finally got the clearance to go to Houston. When we got to Houston we found out that our connecting flights had also been delayed about 3-4 hours because of the weather so we thought that we might actually still get to go home on Friday night, well boy were we wrong. Lynsee raced to catch the flight to Nashville where they boarded them on the plane only to be told that their pilots had timed out and were not allowed to fly so they were cancelling the flight. Well if that wasn't bad enough, I got on my flight to New Orleans, we taxied out to the runway were about to take off when the flight attendant came over the speaker to tell us that if we had left 2 minutes earlier we would have been able to leave, but since we didn't take off soon enough that the our pilots had also timed out and we would be returning to the gate. If this wasn't bad enough, then they didn't have a gate open for us so we got to sit on the tar mack for another 2 hours. What was sad is that our flight was only supposed to be an hour long. So after we finally made it back to the gate at midnight, I went to meet Lynsee and Addie to head to the hotel. We finally made it there about 1:00am. The next day Lynsee and Addie were able to catch a flight to Nashville at about 10:30am. However the soonest flight that they could get me on was at 1:00pm to Jackson, MS instead of New Orleans, but I was okay with that as Jackson is closer to Hattiesburg. Well due to weather once again my flight got delayed for 1 1/2 hours, luckily I finally made it home. My bag has not made it yet, but should hopefully be here tomorrow. so now you can understand the picture and how gross and nasty and tired I look. Luckily the rest of my trip was a lot of fun, so even with the pain of getting home I did have a great time.

Before all the of getting home we had a blast at Emily and Brad's. Lynsee, Addison, and I flew in at about 1:30 in the afternoon a week ago Thursday. On Friday I drove down to see Blaine's parents and his Grandma. It was a lot of fun to see them once again.



On Saturday we took Addison, Macey who is Emily's oldest daughter, along with my young cousins Keaton, Brianna, and Karli to the annual Perry Easter Egg Hunt. It was so fun getting to see little kids at Easter again, it makes it so much more fun.

Mom with Addison, Brianna & Macey

(Brianna & Heather)




(Most of the gang at the Easter Egg Hunt)

The biggest reason for being there was to be able to see little Sunny, Emily's new baby. She was so adorable and has tons of beautiful hair.

(Heather and Sunny)

After the Easter Egg Hunt we went over to my Grandma Smoot's house to help her clean out her storage room. It's amazing how many memories and things someone can collect over a lifetime.

(Alex & Heather wearing Alex's hat)

Sunday was Sunny's baby blessing. I wish that I could have gotten more pictures of this, but I was pretty busy trying to help out Emily and Brad. However Brad did a wonderful job blessing her. It was also fun to see aunt, uncles, and cousins that I haven't been able to see in a long time.

On Monday we had a really warm day so we decided to head down to Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake. I love going to the zoo, especially with young kids. We had a great time seeing all the animals and just spending time together.

(Most of the crew at the zoo)

(Heather, Lynsee & Ashley)

(My cousin Payton)

(A cute picture of Macey)

(Keaton & Brianna)

(Becky, Mark & Brianna)

(A fun one of Addison)

This picture requires some explanation. When Blaine is teaching the 10 commandments he has rhymes for all of them. For the second commandment the rhyme is two zoo. Then he thinks of this lion fountain at the Hogle zoo. He says that you can consider the lion as a graven image, which leads you to the 2nd commandment "Thou shalt not worship graven images" so now every time we got to Hogle Zoo we have to get a picture inside the lion fountain.

Though I do not have any other pictures the rest of my trip was spent having fun to including a job interview, going to temple square, visiting with grandparents and other family, seeing good friends, and just enjoying seeing each other as a family, so thanks Emily and Brad for all of your hospitality, it's not easy having an additional 10 bodies in your house, but we did have a blast.