Taylor family visit

 I love love LOVE when I get to see my family! It's hard living away from my family (I'm so grateful I have such a wonderful in-law family who live so close).  My parents and brothers live in Arizona and my sister and her husband live in Colorado, so it's hard to get all of us together. The last time we were all together was during Christmas and this was the first time we were all together since Nixon was born.

 As you can probably guess I was in HEAVEN and so was Nixon, he got a lot of love and attention. :)

My sister Chelsie and her husband Matt arrived a day before the rest of the family so they got an extra one on one time with Nixon.

Aunt Chelsie changing Nixon's diaper. Nixon was nice enough to leave her a special present. 

The weather in Arizona right now is down right hot and miserable, so my parents and brothers were loving the Utah weather. There is a picnic bench in the backyard of where we live so we ate dinner out there every night.

Uncle Connor hanging with his favorite nephew

Connor was nice enough to let Nixon play (more like suck on) his phone. now that's a great Uncle

I love my dad in this picture :)

What a good lookin group

We insisted that the whole family stay with us in our cozy basement apartment, I wanted every second I could get with my family. As you can tell by the pictures it was just that, cozy. It helped that our family room is pretty big and could fit 2 air mattresses in it.

While my family was here we visited my sweet 92 year old grandma. It was her first time meeting Nixon and Nixon was very excited to meet his great grandma.

4 generations!

Taking a little dip in the fountain

This is such a sweet photo- Nixon is NOT a cuddly baby so it's pretty special when he cuddles up to you.

We decided to have family night playing an assortment of activities:

A little bit of golf

  A little football

and a little Frisbee

Melts my heart seeing my two boys together 

who couldn't love this face?

Such a sweet picture
It's hard on my parents (and me) that they can't see Nixon anytime they want, good thing for Skype

Grandma watching Nixon while we play

Love Utah summer nights

The main reason why all my family got together (besides seeing Nixon of course) was for a 60th wedding anniversary party for my dads parents.
My grandparents are from a little Utah town called Loa. I have an Aunt and Uncle who live there so that's where we had the party.

Lance couldn't make it to the party, he had a business trip that weekend. We sure missed him.

Connor's ready to get this party started

These are my wonderful grandparents. They are so kind and loving and would do anything for their family!

Missing the hubs

Precious

We met up with the rest of the Taylor family at a church building and ate lunch. After lunch we watched this cute video my aunt made with pictures of my grandparents through the years.

Grandma's got the magic touch

Meeting Uncle Mitch for the first time- he warmed up to him after a bit  :)

After we ate lunch my family went over to the house where my grandpa grew up. My grandpa's brother's keep up the house so people can stay there if they want to come visit.

Zac is hanging out in the cellar of the house. According to my sister we had spent the night down here once when we were younger and she said it was one of the scariest nights. I apparently didn't have a problem with sleeping down there because I don't remember that. :)

 The bed I'm guessing my sister and I slept on is in the upper right cover of the room, under stacks and stacks of Ensign magazines my great-grandma must've been collecting. I found one from the 1960's. I'm not saying that's old, just cool. :)

The house still had a lot of the original furniture that my grandpa grew up with. The piano thing next to Nixon is actually an Organ! That thing is so cute and tiny, and so is the organ. :)  (that was cheesy I know)

I probably shouldn't let him chew on this old cassette tape I found on the dusty couch

My Aunt and Uncle brought their dogs up to Loa so Nixon got to see and touch a dog for the first time.

I love his face in this picture

This log cabin is where my great-grandparents lived for the first year they were married, before they moved into the house (which is right next to the cabin) my grandpa grew up in. I tried to think what it would've been like to have lived in a log cabin and lets just say I am grateful to have been born when I did and have all the luxuries I have!

The log cabin is now used as a storage shed for all the farm tools and equipment, but I love that it's still there.

This is probably going to make me come off as a bad mother but Loa is such a small town that while driving from place to place we didn't put Nixon in his car seat. He was in heaven looking out the window while we drove.

After visiting my great-grandparents house, my cousin saddled up some horses for us to ride.

brother-in-law Matt, sister Chelsie and brother Zac did not hesitate to hop on a horse

It was really really windy that day and Nixon wasn't to happy but my cousin had a cute tiny pony that we wanted Nixon to take a ride on to see what he thought.

 He didn't cry while riding but he wasn't all smiles either, so we'll say he tolerated it. Maybe next year he'll get a kick out of it.

He kind of looks like he's having a good time in this picture

I think he's about had it

sorry about the wind noise

My mom, Chelsie and Matt

 After Nixon took his turn on the pony we waited in the car- out of the wind- till everyone was done.

 The weekend we were in Loa for my grandparents 60th anniversary was the same weekend Loa celebrates the founding of their cute little town. The night we were there was their annual demolition derby. My mom was sweet enough to take care of Nixon at my aunts house while I went with the rest of my family to the derby.

After the derby they had some fireworks. We decided to head back to my aunts house to check on my mom and Nixon and watch the fireworks from there. Nixon was supposed to be asleep but he knew we were on vacation and wanted to stay up with the rest of us. We took him outside to see fireworks for the first time and he LOVED them. He was smiling every time a firework went off. It was the cutest thing.

This is how excited he was for the fireworks, Sorry I cut off half your face Chels :)

We tried to get a picture with the fireworks in the background but we were a little to late. We did get a cool light effect from a car driving by.

This was the room I slept in that night. Anytime I got up in the middle of the night I wouldn't let myself look at this goat because it would freak me out! ha ha

My uncle has a lot of big kid toys. Like this cool car (which I forgot the name of already ) and 13 snowmobiles! He also has horses and 4-wheelers. Lance would've had a blast if he could've come. We'll just have to come back and visit soon to play with all the toys! :)

That next day my family went our separate ways. My parents and brothers headed south to Arizona and my sister, brother-in-law and myself went North.

It was SO fun hanging with my family for a few days and I'm glad we got to spend some time with my extended family down in Loa. We used to go down there in the summer a lot when I was young so it was fun to visit and reminisce about all the memories.

Thanks Aunt Veann and Uncle Mitch (and all my cousins) for showing us a good time!