Part 3

We spent Friday in Evanston, and, no offense to the good people of the Queen City (odd nickname for that town), but we will not spend another July 4th there. The insane display of reckless residential fireworking still boggles my mind. And I live in ABQ, a city with no apparent laws. It was a 6 hour long post-apocalyptic scene of fire and brimstone.

Anyhow, the day began with a birthday celebration for Isaac and Ryan. First we have Isaac with his gift from the grandparents Turner, an outdoorsy backpack complete with lantern, binoculars, and whistle:
He spent the rest of the day enthralled with the gift, and when he learned that my mom has all of those same things, he was overjoyed.

Summer and I gave him a dozen or so packs of astronaut ice cream:

And my folks gave Ryan an RC car, which he quickly became quite skilled at driving:
The next day we left town for the Evans family reunion in Ogden. The drive took us along I-84, past Devil's Slide, which is even cooler than I remembered.

Once there, we settled down for a few hours of food and fun. The most fun was watching the babies do things like this:

And this:And this: Fears of Ben and Evan getting into a death match were ill-founded, as Evan is much too scared of his cousin. This may be why: I was amazed at how fast Ben moves, as well as how cute that nose crinkle thing is. One of my favorite moments, however, came when I was holding Evan and mom was holding Ben and we traded. Both babies looked around, confused at this disruption of the natural order of things and then, in unison, cried until harmony was restored to their little universes.

The older kids had fun on the playground, where Ryan did this: And Allyson this: That evening we stayed in Eagle Mt. again before leaving for the long drive home Sunday. We decided for this trip to take food instead of eating out on the way, and we loved it. It was less expensive, faster, more fun, and on a Sunday trip, less guilt-inducing.

All in all, we enjoyed the trip immensely. That said, we're not leaving the state again until Xmas, at the earliest.