August 2009 Pictures

Our summer (primarily working for Jayd) vacation extended into August as we piled up more miles "driving all over creation" (as my mom would say). We were able to spend a couple of fun days in Las Vegas at the Luxor with Tauni's brother Drew and cousin Jason (aka "J-Mo"). It was awesome to hang out with them as we rarely get to see them seeing as they live in Alberta Canada and we live in Texas. Here's Drew with Coen and Ella:

From Las Vegas, we continued north to Utah and spent a few fun days with our friends Max and Sally Brown and their two young kids. They have a gorgeous new house in Fruit Heights and we were able to crash their "basement" (more like a well-furnished 2 bedroom/2 bath apartment!). We spent a good day together out at Bridal Veil Falls.

From there, we headed south to South Jordan and spent a few nights with our ex-Texan great friends the Stahelis. While there, we were able to attend the open house of the new Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple which is about one mile from their house and is gorgeous.
Coen loved being reunited with his old buddy Parker Staheli who he used to hang out with in Texas before they moved.

Kayla joined us in Utah after her semester finished at BYU Idaho. Then, after Utah, we headed back to California where Coen was able to spend pretty much everyday with his cousins. He's pictured above with Vanessa and Savanna, his two female cousins on the McFerson side. As you can see, he loved these girls.

With my sister Jennifer's help, we were able to find a new place to swim pretty much everyday, which Tauni and Kayla were freaks for. You can see Kayla above trying to imitate Jayd's legendary "Dead Man's Fall".

After another week, we said goodbye to Jayd's family in California and started the trek home to Texas. Fortunately, Tauni had arranged a nice one week stopover in Las Vegas, where we took advantage of extremely "recession-friendly" lodging. Jayd's brother Jeffrey and his family joined us in Las Vegas, which was awesome. Coen hung out with his cousins Ian, Hyde, and Leif, non-stop for a week and loved it. Here are the hooligans, pictured below at The Mirage's Shark exhibit.

All told, Las Vegas was nice and relaxing as Jayd was finally able to take some time off work instead of burning the candle at both ends. As you can see below, Ella enjoyed her rest and relaxation!

Tons of other pictures here.