Josef's Graduation Trip!

Josef graduated from his physical therapy doctorate program in Provo in mid December.  We made the trip up to be there and spend time with family.  It was especially nice to see them all since we knew we wouldn't all be together for Christmas! Robby got off work early on Thursday so we could leave a little earlier and be up there for dinner and to go and the the Lower Lights concert my mom had gotten tickets for.  It was a group of many different artist that did some folk type versions of Christmas songs.  

Keeping himself busy during the the drive up reading some star wars books.  He read for almost and hour and a half before he crashed and fell asleep.  He sure does love to read and was enjoying his star wars books from the library! 

Clara also read for awhile to keep herself busy!  The library has a set of 4 of these books about different trains and she loves them.  She reads these 4 books over and over and asks us to read them to her all the time.  

When we got up there we had dinner at the Pie pizza place by the University of Utah.  Then we walked the short block up to the concert.  The concert was good but our kids were not about to sit and listen after being in the car all afternoon. We ended up spending most of the concert in the foyer, we could still hear all the music and the kids really enjoyed listening out there while being able to dance and move around.  We made some friends out there too with a few other parents who were out with their kids doing the same thing.  It ended up being kinda fun! We left a little early though with tired kids to head down and get settled into the hotel.  During the concert and on our way out it was snowing and the kids were super excited to run around in the snow!

Walking to the car in the snow! 

It's snowing! 

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel, played, and then got ready to go to the graduation.  We went over to Erich and Allies for a little while because Calin was dying to play with their light sabers!  This was probably our only chance we'd get to make it over to their house so we tried to get over there for at least a little bit to let him play since he'd been talking about them since we'd seen them in October! We ate some lunch there and then headed to the graduation.

Having fun with the light sabers. 

Thankfully the graduation wasn't too long so it wasn't too bad to keep the kids entertained as we watched Josef!

Me and the graduate!! Congratulations Josef! 

After the graduation we headed back to the hotel to change and to do a little shopping before going out for Josef's celebration dinner! It was a very nice dinner with the whole family!  Lynn, Jan, Peter, and his wife also came with us and took some fun family pictures of us after dinner.  Love this family of ours!

After dinner we went back to the hotel to play games with everyone since Josef and Summer had to fly back the next day.  It was a very brief time all together but still fun and good to be with everyone!

Calin drew lots of pictures while we played games and Clara wandered
around playing with toys and trying to disrupt the game. 

Saturday morning we had breakfast at the hotel again with Josef and Summer before they had to leave to catch their flight.  WE also briefly saw Allie and Erich to say goodbye before heading up to Salt Lake.  We did some shopping at IKEA with my parents and Becca looking for some new furniture options.  After IKEA we had some lunch and then went up to Max and Karen's for naps and to visit and relax.  After the kids woke up we headed up to the very crowded and busy and COLD temple square.  It was lots of fun though and the kids loved it despite being cold! It got kinda late since it had taken us so long so after that we grabbed a quick dinner at City Creek and then headed back to Max and Karen's to get kids to bed. Grandpa wasn't able to make it to temple square as he was home sick for the afternoon and evening.

Sunday we stayed to hear Becca talk in church and then headed home that afternoon to make it back for Hollie's birthday party! It was a fun filled weekend with lots of family!   We sure are grateful we have such wonderful families we get to spend time with and grateful Josef graduated so we could all get together!!