School's Out! Part 1

June 1 - The LAST day of school!  Can you tell how excited these kiddos are?  I have to say, I was pretty excited, too!  I LOVE summer!  It is so fun to have all the kids home and do fun things and have the weather be nice and just PLAY and have no real schedule.  The night before the last day of school, Darren and I got talking and decided we wanted to do something really fun to celebrate that school was out, so we ended up taking a short little get-a-way to Salt Lake and surprised the kids.  They love fun surprise adventures like that and sometimes it is a little less stress when you just decide to go at the last minute.  It is totally crazy, but it comes so fast that you don't have as much time to stress over it.  At least I don't.  Anyway, when Logan got home from school, we loaded the kids into the car and started driving!  They had a million guesses, but we didn't tell them.  It made for a long drive with the "how much longer?" and all the guessing.  Of course, they were guessing things like Disneyland and stuff, so I was a little worried they might be disappointed, but they weren't.  As a matter of fact, when we surprised them with Disney, there were tears, but this time, it was all happiness! 

Actually, there were a couple tears at first.  Or at least some whining.  By the time we got down there, it was about dinner time, so we pulled into Applebee's.  That was my surprise treat to myself!  We don't have one here and there was one right by the hotel, so we decided to eat there.  I was thrilled.  The kids were a little less pleased.  They wanted the surprise!  They weren't interested in eating dinner!  We ate a yummy dinner and then got ready for the REAL surprise! 

 Avery and her spaghetti face!  

This was the little guy's first real road trip.  He celebrated it by having his first massive blowout.  Of course, it was at the restaurant, so that was great to clean up....  He was a great little traveler though.  And SO darn cute!
 
 We have driven by this hotel a lot of times and always wanted to try it, but we usually don't really have a reason to pay for a hotel in Salt Lake since we have so much family there.  But, we decided that we would do it for something fun and different and when we pulled up to the hotel the kids FREAKED!  They were so excited about a hotel and when they saw the water slide, they were even MORE excited!  Such a fun surprise! 
 
This was the inside.  Not only did they have the big waterslide that went outside but they had a little kid play area that my girls loved since they weren't tall enough for the big slide.  They were in heaven! 

All checked into the hotel!

And ready to go SWIM!!!  Love how Rylee always poses... 

Poor Bronson didn't get to get in on all the fun, so he chilled poolside with mama. 

The kids swam for a LONG time!  They had SO much fun!  Avery kept coming over to tell me all about the fun things there were to do. 

Miss Rylee striking a pose...

Or maybe a couple poses... 

Bronson hanging out... 

Logan ready for the BIG slide!  The girls were a bit bummed they weren't tall enough but Logan was so excited to go.  I was a little surprised (and REALLY glad) that he was so excited.  Sometimes we have to make Logan try this kind of stuff because he gets a bit nervous.  He always ends up loving it, but he has some anxiety about new things that seem a little scary.  We were so proud of him and he ended up going OVER and OVER again!

Avery and Daddy

The kids swam for about 2 hours, and little Avery needed a break for a little bit.

Ry is getting to be a great little swimmer! 

Mr Bronson fell asleep like this by the pool.  He is such a good baby! 

Mama and Avery just hanging out by the pool.  She hung out on my lap for awhile since the big kids just wanted to keep swimming.  I love my girl! 

Rylee is a bit of a dare devil and was so bummed she couldn't go down the BIG slide but she did this little one OVER and OVER again!  She loved it! 

Her break didn't last too long.  She couldn't stand to see everyone else having so much fun and ended up back in the water. 

I didn't get many pics of Logan swimming because he was so busy going down the slide so I took one before we headed back to our room. 

We headed back and got the kids all bathed and into PJs.  I have a bit of an obsession with having matching outfits for my girls and they ended up switching their PJs.  It made us all laugh! 

Since we had eaten so early that night and swam SO long, the kids were starving so Daddy headed out to find a treat.  While he was gone, the kids snuggled up to watch a movie on the ipad. I think it was Despicable Me or Monsters Vs Aliens. They were so cute watching the movie all together. 

All my cute kiddos!  Daddy ended up being gone for a LONG time!  He couldn't find a place and got a bit lost in the "hood" of Salt Lake....  And then he finally found a place and they took FOREVER to get our shakes and ice cream and by the time he got back, it was kind of a melted mess and almost 10 o'clock.  Oh well.  Just another fun adventure! 

We ended up with the wrong room and only had a king bed and a pullout, but they all fit on the pullout ok.  It was a big of a squeeze though...   It was kind of a rough night's sleep at the hotel.  The kids could NOT go to sleep!  They were bugged by any noise we made or light and they kept bugging each other and talking.  I don't think they fell asleep until 11:30.  It reminded me of why I don't like hotels with kids!  And why I booked the suite room for our trip to Disney! 

Love these kids and had so much fun surprising them, even if they wouldn't go to sleep!  There were still a few more fun surprises to come...