week in review

on sunday we (jon, me, kristen, lauren, hailey and sara ness) took off for salt lake city, hauling a trailer with tod's motorcycle aboard behind us. originally, jon was not going on this little out of town, take hailey to camp, trip. but the idea of me driving with a trailer behind my car, got him worrying (i don't blame him), so he got us safely to salt lake and then flew home:). that night we met up with tod and sadie at temple square, utah summer nights are the BEST!, and enjoyed the peace and beauty all around.

monday morning hailey and sara began a camp at the university of utah called "be the best you"! i had intended to take a picture of the girls for this special post :), but by the time i dropped them off, hailey was pretty worked up. (huge sunglasses covering red eyes...you get the picture) yes, she too has been blessed with the stewart curse, the homesickness gene:(. i actually believe she had just gotten herself so worried about every little aspect of the week, and all the unknowns, and every possible thing that could go wrong (yes, she is also jon's daughter) that she couldn't control the tears, as much as she was desperate to! as we were checking in she said to me, "MOM, there isn't one other girl here with any tears!" embarrassing...luckily she has had a great week!

kristen, lauren and i then scoured the city for some things kristen was looking for. baby boy bedding, cheap furniture for lauren's new room...and WE WERE SUCCESSFUL! lauren was totally a trooper. going from car seat to stroller to highchair to car seat...all day long. we were totally blessed! since we had so much success the first day, we had time to go to the zoo tuesday. thinking we should really do something fun for little lucy, we woke up, got ready, and took off for hoagle zoo. before we ever left the hotel lauren was yawning. i asked her, "are you tired?" she answered (in her cheerful, excited way), "no, I HAPPY!" by the time we arrived she was almost asleep. poor thing! she wanted nothing to do with the picture taking thing, but she finally livened up when we started seeing the animals!

this is her very quick impression of what the monkeys say!

the zoo was GREAT! the animals were out walking around so we could spot them easily. some of our favorites were the monkeys, the elephants, the rhinoceros, the bear, the zebras, the giraffes, and the tiger! it actually got hot and crowded pretty quickly, but we enjoyed our stay. lauren perked up again when i pulled out some starbursts :). what a sweet, happy little soul!

we spent a couple nights and wednesday visiting with sadie in provo. it is always fun to be around sadie's happy, sweet, cheerful spirit too. we got to visit brenda and brooke for a couple really quick hours. baby adison is beautiful and perfect, and the mcdonald's toy in aunt brenda's basement will forever and for always be everyone's favorite! candice, can you find me one on ebay???

we drove home thursday.

update on hailey: she is SO glad she went. she is loving her experience! it has been really great for her! she loves, loves, loves, her counselor! (camp is over saturday morning)

update on megan: party is in her room every night :). (actual text sent after second night. with molly we would expect nothing less!) wonderful experience in the sacred grove! loving seeing the country. d.c. is still her favorite city of all time. the people they are with are all fun. everyone is getting along. yesterday she commented she was missing my good home cookin'! (pressure is on for making dinners next week:). and the last message i got was that she bawled like a baby at carthage!

hopefully they will both share some pictures and feelings when they return home!
one last night, alone, in my home, with my husband!!!!!