Keepin' up with the Jones's

It all started with the Jones/Butler side.

We sprinted out of our car as soon as we pulled into Draper. We were in that bad boy for 18 hours!!! Avery did great, Delores (our car) was who we were worried about. She was acting up, so we couldn't go over 60 MPH for half of the trip. Very frustrating!

Anyway, as soon as we got to Draper, we said hi to the parents and the Jolley family, then we slept. We had driven the whole night and were dilirious. As soon as we caught up on our sleep, we left to go camping. We went to Scofield with the whole Butler side of the family.

This was Avery's first camping trip

She loved all of her cousins and all of the attention. She didn't love the tent. We wussed out and ended up sleeping on the floor of my aunts little cabin. So much for catching up on sleep.

The thing I think I will remember the most about this little trip is when we decided to take one rhino and fill it with me, Trav, my dad, TC all four grandkids and snikkers the dog to venture on a very steep and scary ride. My mother in law would have been so mad. For some crazy reason I just trust my dad with my life. I don't know why because I was scared for most of the trip, but it worked out.

It was a short and sweet trip, one day. My family is not the camping type and by the end of the trip we had to call the "wah"mbulence.

I either look like a giant or my sister looks like a pygmy in this picture

A couple of days later we decided we hadn't had enough of the great outdoors, so we went to Snowbird ski resort. We didn't really have a plan. We knew we wanted to hike a little bit. My mom had the brilliant idea to hike up to the tram and back with a baby. I was reluctant, but I guess I trust her with my life too, so agreed. Again, here I am, alive to tell the story, but I don't know if I will keep this trusting my parents with my life business up.

This is how the story went:

We were all happy and content, maybe even a little bit of singing was going on.

I was noticing that the trail was getting harder and harder to see. Before we knew it, the trail was gone and we were on the face of the mountain. Come to find out, we didn't even start on the right trail.

I was tempted to turn around, but it was pretty steep. We continued on and found some sort of trail. We definitely ignored the signs that said to stay off. I kept thinking, "aren't those the kind of signs you obey, its a freaking mountain and people die here!"

Our little girl was doing awesome. We did have to stop and feed her (I wasn't planning on such an intense hike and didn't bring much food so had to feed her the natural way), change her and even switch drivers

It started to get long. The temperature seemed to be plummeting along with Avery's patience (OK and mine too). The beautiful scenery all of a sudden turned into a snowy tundra. Avery had had enough of the backpack, so my mom took her out and held her and she quickly fell asleep in my moms arms. It was getting pretty slippery. We had to walk on the side of my mom so she wouldn't fall. Each step was pretty scary. We were getting pretty close, when we noticed one of those rescue sleds on the side. We snatched it up, had my mom sit on it with our sleeping baby (I don't know how she slept during all of that) and pushed the sled.

The operator of the ski lift was watching all of this. I was so embarrassed, I was going to pretend that my mom was Avery's mom!

We got to a point where the snow was cleared and in 20 minutes we were at the top!

Avery was the coolest baby that day!

We were a little scared to ask the tram attendant if we could grab a lift since we didn't pay for a ticket. He was the nicest guy and said that since we hiked a the way up here, we could ride down for free. Thank you Steve!

We were so spent!

We were 11,000 feet high

We are a little retarded, but what a fun adventure. One of these days I'm not going to live to tell the story.

The rest of the week consisted of swimming, BBQ's, movies, games, etc

I love my crazy family! Even if they are trying to kill me.

This was just the beginning...