July trips

At the end of July Alyssa and I flew out to Utah and had a great time visiting with family and friends.

My youngest brother returned from serving in the Oklahoma City Mission.

It was fun to be able to go up with the family and Welcome him home.


Alyssa loved having fun playing with her cousins.

Painting with her cousin Tessa. She picked out her apron and then had to accessorize by adding the orange scrunchie she found as a headband.

We also got to celebrate the 24th of July while we were there. We spent the day with the Gillan family. We had a BBQ and then did some fireworks.

Getting ready to do fireworks with Brett and Megan.

Alyssa Loved the sparklers. She thought she was a little cheerleader with her sparkler pom pom's.

More dancing around with Grandma Gillan.

The whole gang watching the fireworks!

Later that week we helped Megan celebrate her Birthday with a trip to the Hogle Zoo.

Alyssa and I at the Entrance.

I hadn't been to this zoo since I was in elementary school, So it was fun to get to go back and show it to Alyssa.

This lion drinking fountain is one of the only things I really remembered when I would think about this zoo, I was excited that they still had it there. Alyssa thought it was really funny to get a drink from the Lion's mouth.
Alyssa loves Hippo's and was so excited to come see one at the zoo. She was really upset that they didn't have one, so Grandma made it up to her with some Ice cream.

I think she got over the hippo pretty quick!

We were also able to spend time with friends!

Lunch with Holly, Tina and Julie and Cafe Rio. I love getting together with these girls. We always have the best time and they are some of the best friends you could ever ask for!

I also got to get together with my friend Kim and her little girl that is just a little bit younger than Alyssa. It was fun catching up and the girls had a great time together playing in the water.

Alyssa and Brooklyn

While we were enjoying our time in Utah, Ryan was having his own fun in Chicago. He signed up to go to a job conference out there and His friend Jason met him out there to hang out.

There wasn't any way they were going to go to Chicago without going to Wrigley field. They were able to get awesome seats several rows up behind Home plate.

These pictures are of Ryan and Jason at the top of the Hancock Bldg.
Ryan at one of the museums

They also got to go watch an And1 basketball tournament while they were there.