A Trip To Manti

Stan and I took a quick but fun trip to Utah for nephew Matt's wedding.

We sadly said good-bye to Amy and our cutest local granddaughters

and happily said good-bye to our rapidly falling snow, which was busy murdering my garden.

We spent a day in Idaho Falls, where we discovered Megan sitting on Jessica's couch like she now is an adult and owns her own car. Oh wait. Yeah, I guess that's all true.

Aw, isn't that cute! She's pretending to do homework!

Jessica was also there, still hiding that large basketball under her shirt. She didn't want me to take a picture of her with her basketball-tummy, so 

I took this one instead.

Harvey was also there to welcome us, although I think he was more interested in the pizza than us. I'd be careful if I were you, Stan. Harvey looks hungry and you know how fierce he can be.

Krew was his typically delightful self, giving commentary on the Presidential debates,

showing us how to "fall on the ball"

posing in the new Target shirt we brought

and explaining to Grandpa how to replace the garbage disposal.

The dishwasher wasn't working either, because the broken, plugged disposal was causing it to back-up and leak. Apparently the new owners of the Backman home think the disposal and dishwasher should work. Stan is a disposal replacement pro, having replaced a few billion of these machines at our home and rentals over the years.

On Thursday, we continued to Utah where we viewed beautiful paintings by the famous artist Lisa DeLong on BYU campus.

Hey! We've seen this one before! Even discounting my slightly biased opinion, Lisa's work was the most beautiful and interesting art on displayed.

We even got a free booklet, detailing the philosophy of Artist DeLong and some other exhibitors at the art show.

On Friday we headed to Manti to the beautiful temple.

We got a kick out of the views from the temple: a cemetery

 and the high school rodeo arena.

We were delighted to meet up with some of our former traveling companions.

Imagine my delight when David appeared, carrying a cooler clearly full of ice cream. Alas, he sneaked away, and I never saw that cooler again.

Look at these happy parents of the groom.

Proof positive Stan and I were there.

The beautiful bride and happy groom emerging from the temple.

We went to a lovely luncheon, where I took frantic notes for our own upcoming wedding.

This is the same gorgeous place where the reception was held later that evening. In addition to our cousin Alan performing the wedding, we also saw Alan's wife Sheree, and later we had a chance to visit with our cousins Ted, wife Linda, and Gordon. 

Between the luncheon and reception, we took a nostalgic drive up Nebo Loop.

The afternoon sun lit up the trees

and the views were stupendous.

I have a distinct childhood memory of driving Nebo Loop with the family on a Sunday autumn afternoon and stopping at a turnout, where Daddy found some large rocks he put in the car and took home for our yard in West Mountain. Stan gathered a few rocks for me that we brought home and planted in our frozen garden.

Judy confessed to coming this way at twilight and gobbling at the turkeys on the turkey farms with her friends in high school. She demonstrated her technique for us when we came upon these wild turkeys. Apparently Judy only knows tame turkey talk, cause they ignored her

 and the herd of cows that had escaped and were wandering seemed disinterested, too.

We drove home on Saturday, stopping briefly to put Megan into a sugar coma.

We had a wonderful time!