~The Merrell's Brag Blog~

We had a great time in Utah this June with my family. We caught the Wild West show in Spanish Fork, took a drive up to Bridal Veil falls-which for some reason we do every time we come into town, and played as much as we could with our family.

Then we took an extended weekend trip with my parents down to Bryce Canyon in the 'ol motor home! It was great-the kids had never traveled in one before and it was fun to sit across from each other and toss toys back and forth and make faces at each other while Papa drove the big monster! We had a nice overnight camp at an RV spot at Ruby's Inn the first night and woke up ready for breakfast and a big hike down into the canyon with the kids. I should mention that while we were all still sleeping, Kenny woke up early walked up to the park and then did the rim hike all the way around and then came back to camp to get us. He has a little bit of loner mountain man somewhere in his genetic code I think because he really enjoys that kind of stuff.

The day was GORGEOUS. I don't remember a bluer sky in my life. Seriously. We had borrowed my brother's jogging stroller which we thought would be fine on the trails-it was mostly okay except for going down the switchbacks in the Wall Street part of the trail-very steep and rocky and Kenny got a lot of "Are you Crazy?!" looks on the way down. He was a trooper though. He pushed that thing with Audrey inside mostly crying or fussing the entire hike. Nolan loved it though-he loved running up ahead with my Dad and hiding behind hoodoos and then jumping out to scare us whenever they could. I'm not sure who had more fun with him that day-it was pretty memorable. We were all pretty exhausted by the time we were done and when we got back to the motor home we decided that we'd seen all of Bryce Canyon that we needed and wanted to find somewhere else to camp that night. My Dad had remembered a place that he and his Dad had gone when he was a kid...and by some crazy luck we found the place! We had a great night filled with the kids playing in the dirt, roasting giant marshmallows and watching the fire pop and crackle. Our little family slept pretty soundly in our tent that night.

It was such a fun trip to spend time with my parents!

When we got back with took a quick trip up to the cabin for the rest of the weekend and hung out with my brothers and their families before we piled into a rental and made the drive up to Richland, WA to continue the vacation with the Merrell side of the family. We had 11 days in Utah...but the always come and go so fast they feel like a heartbeat. Thank goodness for pictures to provide proof that it happened!

I've snapped several pictures lately of Kenny & Audrey that make me think one thing:

He looks like her bodyguard.

I'm sure I sound like a boastful mother, but with her sweet personality and gorgeous features she may just need one. :) I can't think of anyone better.

Does anyone have a good explanation for the Easter bunny? If so let me know, because I answered a lot of questions this year about his purpose and what he has to do with the Easter holiday, and I'm just grateful that Nolan didn't push for better answers because they were pretty dicey at best. Thankfully we have the resurrection story down pretty well and it makes lots of sense to all of us, so we mostly focused on that since it is the reason for Easter anyway.

In about one month from now, we will be saying our goodbyes to a group of people that been our extended family for the past four years. I tear up every time I allow myself to even think about it longer than 30 seconds. That said, I'm truly grateful that you cannot see me while I am typing this. These kids have been my kids first and best friends. Their mommies have been like loving aunts and the same goes for their Dads. The husbands talk shop with mine and actually understand what is being said. The wives swap kids stories, get advice, laugh and occasionally cry together. We attend church together, have weekly playgroup, have date night groups, attend birthday parties, and celebrate new additions to each family as they come along. It has doubled in size since we first got here, and I'm sure that will continue even as each year a few of the families move away. These are great people. They deserve every bit of happiness that they will find in this life. We love them, are thankful for every single memory that we have made together and are thankful that Heavenly Father put them in our lives path to help us enjoy our time in Med school. I'm so thankful for blogs, and that most of us keep ours updated occasionally so that we can stay updated with what new and wonderful things are happening in their lives. Because I can't possibly think that we will be saying goodbye forever.

Nope. I won't accept that. So just in case our paths don't cross again at least we'll have all of these great memories, and a way to vicariously live them together through pictures!

Here are just a few from the last month:

So much fun.

To all of our friends here in Milwaukee, thank you so much for sharing your lives with us-it makes for some great pictures!