Utah's Top 10

Our four weeks in Utah this summer were packed with lot of fun things. In no particular order, here is our Utah's Top 10:

1. Jolley Family Reunion (My mom's side of the family).
2. Jared & Shannon's Wedding
3. Grandma & Grandpa Davis' backyard:


The boys spent countless hours in this HUGE sand pile. The picture only shows half of it. Here is a view of Justin and Tyler's river. Heaven for little boys! :)

We played games on the sport court, rode tricycles and wiggle cars on the winding sidewalk pathway, filled the birdfeeder for the quail family and enjoyed backyard birthday parties and picnics with all the family.

4. Day Trips: Cascade Springs,


We went back to visit the place where Travis proposed!

Bridal Veil Falls,


We went on an adventure to see the waterfall with Elana (Heidi & Joe's daughter). These little cousins had a fun time together running down the trails and then discovering all the animals at The Bean Museum.

BYU Bowling,


The boys loved these nifty ramps for the bowling balls. Even tiny guys can enjoy bumper bowling this way!

and shopping with my sisters.Maybe this one should be #1 :)

5. Playing with Grandma & Grandpa Davis, Great-Grandpa Jolley and cousins. While Travis and I were in Hawaii, Justin and Tyler had a great week with Grandma and Grandpa and all their cousins. Justin wasn't ready for us to come back yet.

Grandpa Jolley was staying with my parents in Provo while we were visiting. It was fun for the boys to get to know him better. We took walks with Grandpa in the morning and helped him with his projects around the house. He even joined us on a few adventures. The kids LOVED playing with their cousins. We took lots of walks over to play with the Wright kids. The boys liked going over to Elana & Josh's house to look for deer in the backyard. They also wanted to go "help" at Jared & Shannon's new house.

6. Game nights with family and get-togethers with good friends. It was fun to go to lunch and go visit with my friends and Travis went golfing with his buddies. Settler's of Cataan is aways fun!

7. Date nights to the movie theatre: The Bourne Ultimatum and Harry Potter.

8. Visits to Thanksgiving Point:

a. Dinosaur Museum - two times!

The boys had a great time digging for dinosaurs with Chandler, my good friend Jennie's son.
There were so many hands-on activities for the kids. They even learned how to make a ceramic fossil to take home.


b. Children's Garden and Botanical Gardens with G & G Davis, Great-Grandpa Jolley and Aunt Tawnya. Then lunch at Cabella's.






Justin loved being our photographer! We even caught some master hoola-hoopers in action:






c. Farm with Grandma Davis and the Wright kids.





9. Salt Lake City's Hogle Zoo,Signing Time Concert and lunch with Great-Grandpa Jolley.

10. Travis' mission reunion We were lucky to be in town for this get-together. It was fun to see Amber & Jeff there, too! Travis and my sister both served as missionaries in the Spain Las Palmas mission (The Canary Islands).

A Beautiful Day!

Jared and Shannon are married! August 11th was a beautiful day at the Mount Timpanogas Temple! I am so happy to have a new sister! We love you, Shannon!




Check out this link to a music slideshow of the wedding day.

The backyard wedding reception was so much fun! Towards the end there was dancing on the grass. The boys LOVED this part and Tyler cried when I stopped dancing with him! What a fun memory! We all had fun with the big send off! The cousins decorated Jared & Shannon's car with post-it notes and balloons! Justin was so happy to be a part of that. Congratulations to the newlyweds!

Kisses

What: The Famous Jolley Grocery Shower
When: Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Where: Jolley Reunion at Wallsburg, Utah (near Deer Creek Reservoir up Provo Canyon)
Who: The happy couples: Jared Davis & Shannon Hill; Andrew & Marianna Thiriot; Bart Burdette & Molia; and Paul & Nancy.
Why: A grocery shower has been held over the years for each newly married or soon-to-be married Jolley child or grandchild. I'm pretty sure it all began with my parents when they got married. This year, four Jolley cousins are getting married. We decided to hold the shower during the Jolley Family Reunion.
How does it work: The couples are contestants on the "Newlywed Game" with a bunch of get-to-know-you questions. Afterwards, when each couple opens their gifts, the ribbons and bows are tied in the girl's hair. For the groom to kiss out, of course! :)







It was a good reunion. Justin had a great time with Grandpa Davis' water-balloon launcher. Justin and Tyler had so much fun running around with their little cousins for three days and sleeping in a tent for one of the nights. He got to get up early one of the mornings and go fishing in a canoe with Grandpa Davis and Dad. He keeps asking us, "When will I be able to go 'fishing in the morning' again?"

Aloha

Hello, Sabbatical!

On July 26th, we took off on our first road trip to Utah with the boys. On the 30th, Travis and I left the boys with Grandma and Grandpa Davis in Provo while we flew to Hawaii for a week of bliss. We called it our "7th Anniversary/Happy Birthday Travis Getaway". We visited the island of Oahu and stayed at the Marriott KoOlina Timeshare Resort. What a dream!



We were able to attend a temple session on our first morning. The temple grounds are gorgeous!



The Polynesian Cultural Center was great! We enjoyed the different island presentations and especially the canoe pageant. The dancers from Tahiti were my favorite to watch.





Our luau dinner was a lot of fun and the big evening show was wonderful! We would have loved to have spent another day there.

On Wednesday morning, we visited Pearl Harbor. We went on a very interesting tour of the memorial with a boat tour out to the on-site memorial for the US ARIZONA. It was a very emotional visit as we learned about those who experienced the attack. As we waited for our tour to begin, Travis and I checked out the swap meet down the street at the Aloha Stadium. We bought a little surprise for the boys.



At the Dole Pineapple Plantation we took a little train tour. It was interesting to see how pineapples are grown. I didn't know this before, but they just chop off the head of the pineapple and plant it with the leaves poking out of black plastic that is spread out in the field. I enjoyed seeing mango trees, banana trees, papaya trees, macadamia nut trees, birds of paradise plants, bamboo, and many other tropical plants. We also had a tasty pineapple whip cone and fresh pineapple to snack on.



This was our suite at the resort. It was so nice, we didn't want to leave! I loved the beautiful kitchen with granite countertops and the his and hers bathrooms. We stopped at Costco on our first day and bought food for the week. I didn't mind going back to our room to eat because it was such a fun room...and the maid did the dishes every morning. We had a meeting with the timeshare agent for about an hour and a half on one of the mornings. He was great and the deal was so tempting....maybe someday. The resort was a lot of fun! We spent as much time as we could exploring each of the 4 private man-made sandy coves. It was so great to play in the warm water. There were these cute little tiny lizards that would dart around in the sand.



The resort held a fish feeding time each morning in one of the coves. The Hawaiian host gave a traditional blessing to draw the fish into the cove. Then we started tossing fish food pellets into the water and a ton of fish came up really close to feed. There are lots of fish in these people's shadows. The boys would have REALLY loved to feed these fish!



The sunsets were mesmerizing! This is a picture of one of the open-air hotel lobby. The sunset really looks like that! I thought it looked like a painting! Amazing!



These are the pictures that pop into my mind when I want to remember the feeling of pure bliss...perfect.



On Friday, we went on a dolphin/snorkeling tour. We sailed on a catamaran and watched for dolphins. We didn't see any though. When we arrived at the coral reef, we went snorkeling and saw a sea turtle, some puffer fish, tons of angel fish, and lots of other beautiful fish. Travis really enjoyed his first snorkeling trip! The trip back to the marina was great. We ate lunch and then relaxed on the netting over the water in the front section of the catamaran. The water was rushing right beneath us. Wow!



As we finished the tour, the captain offered us a second trip because we didn't end up seeing any dolphins that day. So, the next day we went on another fun snorkeling trip! It also happened to be Travis' birthday. This time we saw 10-15 dolphins right in front of the catamaran. I kept thinking we were going to bump into them, but the captain explained that the dolphins were familiar with this particular boat and would swim close by because they knew it was safe. It was amazing to see them so close. We stood right at the front edge of the boat to watch them. Amazing!



It was great to go snorkeling two days in a row. On the second day, we were more comfortable with our gear in the water and really enjoyed the experience. (Until a spear fisherman swam right in front of me with his spear and freaked me out!)

We had a great day! We had to check out of the resort, so we drove through Honolulu to Waikiki to spend our last night. We got settled at the Hawaiian Prince Hotel right on the marina and went to dinner downtown. There were so many people out on a Saturday night! It reminded me of Las Vegas - nuts! We finally found a parking spot and walked to the Cheesecake Factory for Travis' birthday dinner. What a fun birthday! We'll have to try to top it someday!

For our last day, we drove around the whole island to get our last taste of Hawaii. We thought the windward coast was amazing! Hanama Bay was so pretty. We really liked the area around BYU Hawaii and the temple grounds. We went beach hopping and just enjoyed the scenery.



Here is my handsome husband on the North Shore (without a surfer in sight). It was wrong time of year for pipeline waves. (We did see some surfers on the other side of the island off of Waikiki Beach, though.) The ocean was smooth and breathtaking. The sand was made up of teeny, tiny smooth pebbles. After a relaxing day, we reluctantly drove to the airport and headed back to the real world.



When we arrived back in Provo, Justin said he wasn't ready for us to come back yet. He had a great week with his cousins! Tyler gave Travis a 10 minute hug and let me pick him up for 1/2 a second. We are so thankful to everyone who helped care for the boys all week! We brought back ukuleles for the boys to play with. Now when I play my guitar, they can get out their little "guitars" too! We'll practice so we can play a little song for our next trip to Hawaii...someday!