Our last day together

On our last day together, we crammed in quite a bit.

We went Ice Skating. We used to ice skate in Scottsdale when these girls were tiny. That's how we found out Victoria had a knack for skating. She was 4 years old and just did it. The two of them would skate all over the place and then throw themselves on their bellies and called it the Polar Slide. I remember once one of the attendants told them to stop doing it that they were going to hurt someone or themselves. Scottsdale Ice Rink had so many rules it was stifling. Eccles Ice Rink is awesome! They even let you push babies in strollers on the ice.

We had lunch at Romo's Mediterranean Grill, our favorite restaurant! 

We browsed our tiny mall. We had to show them how small it is in comparison to Paradise Valley Mall.

The girls made Snuffle Mats for their dogs.

It makes me cry seeing this last photo when we were at the airport that night. Victoria and Hannah were drawing on Victoria's phone and laughing about the craziest things. It was almost surreal that they were here and leaving. I couldn't believe it had been a whole week already. I miss them!

 

Hiking Tony's Grove and Temple Fork

It was a little late for wildflowers at Tony's Grove Lake, but it was still a beautiful day with lots of flowers still blooming. It was fun to share it with them. I remember the first time we ever went. I was in awe because everything was green!

Kelly and I will forever be friends. We don't have to worry about any time making us distant. It can't and won't happen. She's like a sister. We have been friends for 21 years. Kaleb was just 5 months old. She would prop Kaleb on her hip while we had our Homeschool Co-op and would preoccupy him with their pencil box. I loved that she took the time to interact with him. 

Those days of Homeschooling are long gone. We could have had a great time schooling under these trees.

We sat on this rock and watched Victoria and Hannah walk all the way around to the other side. You could see them chattering away, turn to look behind them, and start walking back the way they came from to find us.

Hannah giggles ALL the time. There was never a dull moment with them. They almost had a language between them like when they were little. 

We hiked Temple Fork too because the boys came home for the weekend, and Kirk came too. It was kind of funny, for some reason, we just stopped right here and talked about random things. 

I LOVE these two!

 

Kelly and Hannah are HERE!!

In looking back, I still can't believe that Kelly and Hannah came for a visit from Arizona. 

This was at the end of July. 

It was the best week ever! 

We had a very long, long list of things that we wanted to experience with them. There was almost too much but we wanted them to have a fun vacation in Cache Valley.

For starters, we headed to Bear Lake....of course. And on the way we stopped by to see the boys. They were building a cabin in Bear Lake. You can see the lake in the back ground. There was quite a bit of smoke though from a fire in another state.

This is their high tech paper weights to hold down their blueprints.

Kaleb and Jared were shocked to see little Hannah all grown up. It has been 9 years since we saw them last. Hannah was 11 and Victoria was 9!

You gotta love Kaleb's mexican shade hat.

These two picked up right where they left off. It was like they have been together all this time. The funny thing is they both have red tricolor border collies. Hannah's dog's name is Cooper.

We kayaked and floated in tubes. I would have loved to have had time to take the kayaks to a different, more secluded place with birds but of course, we didn't have time.

We met up with the boys and ate dinner before heading back through the canyon to go home. I didn't want the day to end but boy were we tired.