Thorley Cabin Week 1

It's that time again! Summer, BBQ's, parades, and .... TRIPS TO THE CABIN!

Now that I live away, I realize how lucky I was to be able to live so close to the mountain when I was growing up. We were able to go pretty much whenever we wanted, because we were within 1 hour drive of my family's property. Now I live in Bountiful, I'm not so lucky, and I find myself having random bouts of 'Cabinitis,' if there's even such a thing.

Sofi was a peach on the way down to Cedar, and I think spent more time outside her car seat than in. Oh well, we arrived in one piece.

We had one whole day at the cabin to ourselves before the rest of the family arrived. Boy did we have fun!

She found a new friend

Sofi's Thorley side came out when we found a horny toad.

Selfie heaven! 

Swingin' with her baby and daddy

Hiking!

What a ham

She loved playing tether ball!

My parents and little sisters decided to join us on Wednesday thru Saturday. My mom sure knows how to shop for family outings, holy cow! It is a week later and I think I am still stuffed from everything we ate. Good food and good company. Everything is better on the mountain.

So excited to see Grandma!

My little sisters stole Sofi for an hour. They took her over to the zipline and she had a blast! I love this pic I got of them all walking back together..

Sofi was always wanting to help cook dinner. She loves to stir stir stir! (and eat the food)

When we forget the skewers, we improvise.

I finally got Greg to ride his first morotcycle! He may or may not have loved it.

Catchin' salamanders

The girls catching the salamanders they wouldn't touch.

If this isn't true love, then I don't know what is.

Greg was a man's-man and helped my dad finish an addition he was making to my great-aunt's cabin. It was fun to see him helping, because my dad built this cabin when I was 6! I have fun some memories there. It is where we would stay until my grandpa decided to build his own cabin.

Ever since my grandpa remarried, at the ripe old age of 82, I haven't seen much of him, so it was so fun to have him stop by the cabin on his way through. He is the oldest of 5 kids and they all were having lunch together at one of the other cabins. I had to snag a picture while we could. He just turned 89 on June 28 and I never know how much time with him we have left.

We left early Saturday morning to try and get on the road back to Bountiful in time for Sofi's nap. Boy was it hard to leave! We had a lot of fun and played hard. Sofi was so happy to see grandma's kitty was still around, they are best buddies!

Greg relinquished the drivers seat to me, and this is a pic I tried to snap while he was stuck trying to sneak through to sit with Sofi. Imagine a long legged creeper stuck on his back, and you've got Greg. Hahaha!! :)

I'm already counting down the days until our next week at the cabin. Only 3 weeks to go! 

Memorial Day 5-30-2016

Sofi loved playing in Grandma Thorley's backyard!

We were able to visit the graves for Memorial Day on Sunday to beat the rush. We were still in Cedar City on our little vacation, so it was fun to visit the graves I haven't been to in at least 5 years. It was fun to get a little family history from my grandma. I learned my great-grandpa Bauer had 4 older brothers who all died as infants - his mom had too big of babies for them to survive, and they all shared the same headstone. All were named but one. It was sad to stand there knowing there were 4 babies there.

I made the ultimate decision to drive back to Bountiful on Memorial Day. But before we left, we took a bike ride around the neighborhood with my mom and sister. Sof loved soaking her feet in the fountain in front of the Shakespearean building at SUU. Traffic was crazy, but we survived and arrived just in time to unpack then get back in the car for the annual Spjute BBQ.

Eating breakfast with Grandpa

Sofi surprised us all and let Grandpa Mark hold her! We think she is turning over a new leaf.

We ended the day by visiting Grandma LuAnn and Lindsey.

5 Years! 5-28-2016

This year was our 5 year anniversary. Crazy, right? Greg was kind enough to indulge me in planning a trip to southern Utah to celebrate, and I think for the most part he had fun.

My mom kindly offered to watch Sofi for a night while we stayed in St. George. How kind of her right? I had no worries because Sofi absolutely LOVES my mom, and her kitty, and the playset, and my little sisters, and Cedar City .... I could go on and on.

We left Thursday morning and were privileged to hear Sofi cry for 126 miles ... what a thrill.

We made it in time to enjoy the afternoon in Cedar and to go eat dinner at my cousins to celebrate his graduation from high school. It is always fun to see my Jolley side of the family. It seems like I seem them less and less. I am the 5th oldest grandchild, so it is fun to see how much my little cousins have grown.

We were able to photobomb Shelby's ipod and change her lock screensaver. She has since changed her password and the picture ...

For some reason my mom's cat loves Greg. Actually, any animal loves Greg. It is a mystery to me why he adamantly refuses all future pets. We shall see.

Patiently waiting to be petted.

Friday dawned bright and early, with Sofi deciding to sleep in. We left in time to see her happily eating frozen blueberries while my mom told us to have fun!

I had planned for us to spend the day in Zion, then the night in St. George. We grabbed subway sandwiches in Hurricane, then backtracked to Zion. Holy line of cars! It took a good 40 minutes to get into the park, then we had to find a parking spot, and then be bused up to our hike location. I decided to have us hike Observation Point, which is a 2,000 ft increase elevation-wise in 4 miles (8 miles round trip). It was pretty much awesome!

On our way! childless...

Greg had some serious swass going on but you can't tell in this picture.

I love the clouds in this shot!

See that scrawny middle peak? That's Angels Landing. We were WAY higher.

We made it!

lunchtime!

The rain was coming towards us, so we started heading down.

Found Thorley point! 

These pretty little guys were all over 

Super unflattering, but why not?

Look at that form 

We beat the rain, and were able to drive through the tunnel twice. Greg drove like a madman the whole time in Zion, but he was on vacation so I guess it's good he cut loose.

We made it back to the town house to get ready for dinner. I had made reservations at Buka de Beppo(?) and it was really good! the prices were a bit high, but it was served family style so we ordered one plate to share. Super ghetto, but a fun change of scenery. After, we saw the new X-Men: Apocalypse movie. It was dark and heads were rolling. that's all I'm going to say.

On Saturday (our anniversary), we made a trip to the temple. What a beautiful day it was! Pretty much identical weather to the day we were married, and it was on a Saturday again. So fun to reminisce! It was cool enough that Greg allowed us to walk the few blocks to the temple, then we had breakfast before our session. How beautiful it was! We don't get to the temple near as often as we like now that we have Sofi loaf, so it was fun to be back where we were married on the day we were married. There was a sealing going on in the East sealing room, so we weren't able to go up and look around. Oh well, we remember what it looked like.

After our session, we packed up and stopped to each get a Nielsen's concrete before returning to reality. Sofi was asleep when we got back to Cedar City, and my mom proudly reported Sofi had slept 13 hours that night and had a 3+ hour nap. What fun we all had!

This was one a shot taken during our engagement pictures. Greg was such a good sport that day! We missed a whole day of general conference, and this is proof that he had had enough. What a character I married and I can't help but laugh every time I see this.