Because we live so far from home, whenever we get a chance to fly home, we make the trip worth it. This year Natalya and I left in mid-July and stayed in Utah for 3 weeks. We missed Daddy a lot but he was busy with his first rotation (Internal Medicine) of 3rd year so it was good to let him focus on doing well in that. Our trip home was packed full of fun things to do with cousins and family. Seeing Talya play with all her cousins makes it so hard to come back to Minnesota. I wish we could have the best of both worlds ALL of the time but... since we can't, we will be happy with what we have.
Disclaimer... I forgot the camera so all the pictures taken were from my iPhone. Not too bad of quality!
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| Talya was such a good girl on the flight! She is really starting to enjoy going on the big Airplane. She gets so excited! |
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| The iPad is always a easy distraction. |
My parents, older sister, and her kids picked us up at the airport. It was an adorable reunion of the little ones and also a very long day of traveling. They were all pretty tired on drive from Las Vegas.
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| Talya going for a ride in the Rhino to visit Grandpa at work. She loved both of these things, the Rhino and Grandpa! |
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| Working with Grandpa! |
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| Painting with Hadlee. These cute cousins loved playing together. |
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| So happy to play with these little kittens. |
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| Every morning we'd find Talya (and Cubby) out in the garage playing on the Rhino. |
The VERY best part of our trip home was that Talya watched her cousin Hadlee go potty on the "Big Potty" and this just lighted the fire for her. I didn't push the issue at all but let her wear pull-ups the whole time. She went off and on with using the bathroom but by the time we got home. She was completely potty trained! Colten says it was the easiest potty training he's ever done. (Because he didn't have to do anything!)
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| Yea for Potty Training. |
We enjoyed a fun weekend camping on Cedar Mountain with my family.
We played lots and lots with cousins at Grandma Bracken's house!
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| Talya wore this Cinderella dress EVERYDAY at Grandma Bracken's house. |
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| Waving at the "Princesses" during the 24th of July Parade in Enterprise. |
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| More Cousin Lovin! Lina, Talya and Abby! |
We also got to be there for the 1st Annual Lee Bracken Family Reunion. We spent a little time with the family camping at Pine Valley.
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| Lina and Talya just adored each other! |
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| Crazy kids! Layla, Malia, Cooper and Talya |
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| We even found a "Real Beautiful Princess" out on our hike! |
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| Fishing for Prizes |
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| Face Painting. We did each others! |
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| Swimming in the Creek. |
We spent the evenings of the 24th weekend at the Enterprise Rodeos. Talya still loves horses! In fact, I watch this show called
Heartland about training horses and the main character is a young girl named Amy. When we first showed up at the Rodeo, Talya said, "There's Amy! No... that's not Amy. Where's Amy!"
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| Clay Boy caught himself a chicken! His dad somehow talked him in to trading it for a Root Beer! |
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| Swimming with Jess in Grandma's pool. |
I also got to be home to go to my 10 year High School Reunion. It was so great to see all of these people again and to see what and where everyone has done and been in the past ten years.
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| Class of 2003 10 Year Reunion |
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| In the country, 2 year olds get to help Grandpa drive his pick-up truck! |
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| Big Girl swimming with just floaties! |
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| She found a way into Grandma's fridge to get her own milk. |
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| Poor Kitty and Poor Cubby! |
It was also great to get to see all of our Grandparents. Talya still has all four Great-Grandmas alive and 2 of her Great-Grandpas. I made sure to get a picture of her with each of them.
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| Natalya and Grandma Bowler |
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| Natalya and Grandma Hunt |
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| Great Grandma and Grandpa Hunt with Natalya! |
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| Talya and Grandma Pollock |
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| Talya giving Great Grandpa Bracken a big hug. |
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| Talya and Grandma "Nel" aka Great Grandma Bracken |
A very memorable part of our trip was when Talya got to ride the horse named Lefty. She was miss independent and wanted to ride him "All by myself." She had a fit when Grandpa Hunt got on the back of her to lope him around. She didn't even want anyone to hold onto the reins. But as you can see, she was in heaven!
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| All the cousins on the Hunt side! |
When it came time to head back to Minnesota it was sad to leave. My brother-in-law drives truck to California 3 times a week so we caught a ride to Las Vegas with him and my friend from SUU, who now lives in Vegas, picked us up at the truck stop and dropped us off at the airport. Talya was great, she fell asleep in the sleeper of the truck and slept the whole way to Vegas. We had a long night after being delayed on the runway for 45 minutes due to bad weather but eventually we made it home safely and was very glad to see Colten again.
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| Headed home! |
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| A Disney Plane! How cool! |
