Sun Valley 2012

Recently, Sam and I took our kids to Sun Valley for the Annual Utah Bar Conference.  When we were married, we generally went to Sun Valley every year and took the kids.  Our kids really love it and were sad they didn't get to go last year (when we were in the throws of getting separated.)  This year, Sam got a condo and invited me to come along and split up our time with the kids.  It was very Bruce and Demi of us. I am proud that we can do stuff like this for our kids.

Here are the highlights:

The Opening Reception.  The first night, the Bar puts on a reception for all the attorneys and their families.  We get there the second the thing starts so we can get all the good food (because we are classy like that.)  After dinner, I ate two gigantic peanut butter cookies and took one home in my purse that I wolfed down later that night.

There is free ice-skating at the reception and luckily every year, Sam gets the coveted job of dragging the kids around the rink.  His back will never be the same:

Ryan looked extra cute in skates:

We always feed the ducks that first night.  This year, the ducks had mysteriously disappeared so we fed the swans instead.  Yes, there was a "Please Don't Feed the Swans" sign but I justified it because there were no ducks...(good rationale right!)  The best was that my mom (who was also up there) went table to table asking people if they were going to eat their roll and collected a bunch of rolls to feed the swans.  She has no dignity when it comes to her grand kids:

The Paddle boats:  This year, my kids were begging to do the paddle boats.  They looked really cute in their life jackets (and I felt like an awesome mom for a few minutes)

Then we started peddling and Buster and Sammie were dead weight.  Imagine peddling a bike up hill through water.  That is basically the idea of paddle boats.

Luke and Ryan enjoyed it though:



Sun Valley is gorgeous in the evening.  I loved hanging out on the grounds with our good friends the Hawkins and just tossing a football around:

And stealing kisses from this guy:

One of the funnest and most hilarious parts of the trip was discovering this pogo stick at a toy store on the property:

Luke became obsessed with it and got really good at it.  I decided to try it and it is way harder than it looks.  My kids got some awesome photos of me doing it.  They could really blackmail me one day:

I challenged our friend Jason (who is about 6'6) to give it a try and he did..I love this action shot.  Hilarious:

I will always associate Sun Valley with biking.  I was able to take a bike ride with my parents on Friday because that was Sam's day to have the kids (Notice my sweet Goldilocks Jersey!  That was a gift.)



We also did lots of swimming but for some odd reason I have no pictures from that (except one of Sam cramping as he got out of the pool that he would kill me if I posted!)  It was so great to see so many old friends in Sun Valley as well.

I rode home with my parents and they introduced me to the Jack In the Box taco.  Where has it been all my life?  I ate three and they were delicious!

Sammie didn't want to say goodbye to her BFF Halle.  But hopefully they will get to do it all again soon!