Coyote Kissing, Utah and Matt's Birthday

There is a stone coyote that sits at the exit of Fort Iriwn. It is a well known tradition at Fort Irwin, that when you move, as you drive away, you stop and kiss the coyote farewell or you will be stationed there again. We all kissed the coyote, except for the boys. It is fairly gross, hands were sanitized, but what do you do for lips?

Before moving to Germany, we spent almost two weeks in Utah. It seemed like a long time at first, but it quickly flew by! There never seems to be enough time to do all the things we would like to do. The main thing we wanted to do, but did not have time to do, was go to the Manti pageant. I was pretty bummed, I thought it would be awesome for the kids, and fun for the girls to see the temple where their parents were married. Someday we will get to the pagaent! We did get to spend lots of time with good friends, lots of family and doing some fun activities.
Grandpa Overton and Hunter playing "copy cat"

Great-grandma Gale spending some quiet time with the boys

Matt also celebrated his birthday while in Utah. It was a great day! We ended up being able to see most of his family that day, one way or the other. We also were able to do some fun things as a family. One of the things Matt has wanted to do for a few years now is go on the Heber Creeper. It is an old steam train the runs down Provo Canyon, purely tourist. We had never had time to do it before, but this year...for Matt's birthday, we made time. We got to the train station in Heber with only minutes to spare, but we did make it. Unfortunately, the train was so full that we were all in separate train cars, luckily we did find enough seats together that everyone had someone to sit by.

Great-grandma Gale was able to go with us. Grandma Overton came as well, they with the girls sat together in one car.

Matt, the boys, and I, were in another car. During one of the "breaks" the train had, we noticed this toddler boy in the row in front of us. He was about as old as our boys, and was playing with his mother's cell phone. All of the sudden he chucked it out the window!!! Luckily, with the train stopped, she was able to quickly hop off and retrieve it. Matt and I kind of laughed because it was so like something Jack would do, yet we vowed NEVER to let the boys play with our cell phones...especially by open windows!!!

The whole gang that went with us on the train. Now you know why we couldn't find seats all together. It was so neat to have everyone there. Along with my mom and grandma, Matt's mom, sister and two nieces were able to come too.

The girls in front of one of the engines.

After the train ride we stopped at "Granny's" for a world famous milkshake...at least famous in Utah. Anyone born and breed in Utah knows that you can't go to Heber without stopping at "Granny's" for a milkshake! Later I borrowed Matt's mom's oven and baked his favorite cake, yellow with extra chocolate frosting. And we conned his nieces into babysitting the kids, while we went out for a birthday dinner with his parents and sister and her husband at "Los Hermanos". It was a very fun day! One of the best we spent while in Utah.

Sadly, our time in Utah came to an end quickly. We found oursevles packing up for the drive back to California (yes we drove west to fly east...it is the army way! They wouldn't pay for us to fly out of Salt Lake...and we didn't want to pay when it would be free from California...so driving we went). It was a great trip. We feel blessed to have such wonderful family, and friends, and to be able to spend some time with them. Hopefully we will see them all again soon!

Thankyou Utah for a wonderful visit!