Yellowstone Part 1: Fishin' with Daddy: July 2013

After another long day in the car driving from Utah to Wyoming, we finally arrived at the Murdock cabin in West Yellowstone, which would be our home from the next 5 days. 

The property was absolutely gorgeous and sat right on a lake, perfect for fishing. Taber was so excited that when we pulled up to the cabin after driving for 8 hours, he jumped out of the car, grabbed his fishing pole and without unloading one other thing, went straight to the lake to fish. 

The next morning he was on the lake first thing again, this time with the kids in tow.

He was a master at reeling in those rainbow trout

Cam was like, "oh snap, that's my Dad!" 

Mama Rigg joined us on our 2nd day there

 Which is a good thing because she's the queen of the fish fry, and showed us how to cook these bad boys. They were thick and meaty and delicious!

 Every day before heading into the park we spent a little time fishing

 Cam thought the fish were hilarious. 

 Seems like every time they went out they came back with a fish

 and they loved the fishies

 Even if we didn't get to see Yellowstone I think the fishing alone would've made this trip worth it for Taber and the kids. So grateful to the Murdock's for letting us stay on their beautiful property!

Utah pit stop: Babies babies everywhere!

 After the wedding weekend in Colorado, we headed to Utah for a quick overnight visit with my family to meet the newest Uda babies.

Before hitting Udaville though we stopped at our friends the Draschil's to meet their newest baby, Soleil. 

She looked like such a pretty little princess in her flowery socks and pink painted fingernails. 

 We also got spoiled by Melinda who had a dozen gourmet cupcakes waiting for us from the sweet tooth fairy bakery. This is one of the many reasons I love Melinda, she just gets me. :)

 Then it was off to Udaville to meet MORE BABIES! My sister Sarah, and my brothers Josh and Jake all have new babies so I got to do lots of snuggling!

 Akira was just a week or so old when we saw her and Lucette was 5 months old.  Akira is my brother Jacob's first baby and Lucette is my brother Josh's first baby girl. Such sweet little snuggle bugs. 

 Cam was especially excited about the babies and thought it was the funniest thing in the world to actually hold them. Hopefully he'll like his new little brother or sister just as much. 

Two Well Rounded Little Ladies

As the girls get into more hobbies and activities it's fun to see what well rounded little ladies they're becoming. 

They love to swim and this year Teya conquered the diving board and the BIG slides at the water park.

Brinley also conquered the diving board after only one 2 week session of swimming lessons! (her first time taking them.) She's a natural little fish!

They love animals and aren't afraid to catch frogs, lizards... or chickens.

And to their Daddy's great pride and joy, they LOVE fishing.

and are becoming fine little fisherwoman

They've also have picked up on our running hobby and are always game for a kid race

They did a one miler back in September at their school

Brinley with good relaxed form at the beginning. 

Teya trekking up the hill towards the end.

The proud sweaty finishers.

They also just started taking their first hip hop class and are enjoying their intro to the world of dance. 

Love these cute little well rounded ladies. 

Grand Junction, CO and The Rigg-Gibson Wedding!!!

After a long journey in the car we arrived late Thursday night at the Rigg Ranch in Grand Junction.

It was awesome to see all the little Rigg cousins together and to be out of the car! 

The house was full of wedding guests so we headed over to the hotel where the whole extended family was staying for a good night's sleep.

When we woke up we headed down to the lobby for breakfast and found it overflowing with Rigg cousins and relatives! The kids had a blast wrestling with their big cousins.

Then we did a little swimming at the pool

That evening we had a rehearsal dinner where we met up with even more Rigg relatives!

There was lots of yummy food and even better company!

(Also, Taber was lookin' mighty fine in that dark blue Guayabera, just sayin'...  ;)

Late that night my parents rolled in from Pleasant Grove. The kids were so excited to see them!

The next day it was wedding time! Taber was one of the groomsmen and Brett was the officiator so they got to wear some pretty sweet tuxes. Mama Rigg looked gorgeous as the mother of the bride. 

The wedding was in the backyard of the Rigg Ranch right in front of the lake. It was an incredibly beautiful setting.

 Taber rocked his duties as a groomsmen. 

 And Regan made the most beautiful bride. There wasn't a dry eye when she walked out of the house with Papa Rigg to walk down the aisle.

The Newlyweds! I don't think I've ever seen Regan so happy. :)

 It's so wonderful to see her with someone who loves and treasures her the way Corwin does. We couldn't be happier to have him in the family.

 After the ceremony we headed over to the country club for the reception.

 There was singing...

(Taber and I sang a duet that Regan had requested)

 And Dancing...

(This little girl was cutting the rug full throttle till after 10pm!)

And just a whole lot of fun!! The food was amazing and I can honestly say that I haven't danced as hard as I did that night in years!! It was awesome!

Little miss Teya and Brinley jointly caught the bouquet, which was probably the highlight of their night, and Brett's oldest son Landon caught the garter. 

The next day we had enchiladas at the Rigg casa and said goodbye to all the family.

 But not before the kids got soaking wet in the sprinklers, with a 4 hour drive to Pleasant Grove ahead, and all the clothes packed deep within the Yukon. Little stinkers!

It was a quick trip but so amazingly awesome to see everyone and especially be there for Regan and Corwin's big day. We wouldn't have missed it for anything!

Road trippin' with 3 little kids and a pregnant lady

At the end of June we set off an an epic road trip to go to Colorado for Aunt Regan's wedding, then to Utah to meet the two new Uda baby nieces, and then to Wyoming to do some family vacationing at Yellowstone. It was a LONG LONG LONG time to be in the car, especially for a nauseous pregnant lady and 3 crazy kids (well more like 2 well behaved little girls and a wild Tasmanian devil) We survived it though thanks to lots of snacks, mini DVD players, iPads, and the tranquilizer my doctor gave me to drug the kids.  (kidding kidding! just seeing if you were paying attention :)

The girls were rockstars and did amazing in the car. Of the 14 days we were on vacation I think 6 of them were spent just driving. They handled it like champs.

Cam tried to be good like his sisters, but coloring only held his attention for about 30 seconds. 

That's where the tranquilizer came in handy. ;) 

Seriously though, it was always a nice break when this guy would finally fall asleep. 

Even these two nodded off a couple times. Road trips wipe you out.

We tried to take "technology breaks" (since I freely admit that the kids spent the majority of our time in the car plugged into electronic devices) But they would get bored pretty fast.

So we took plenty of pit stop breaks. Getting out to stretch, do some exercises, let them run around and climb on stuff and just get out of the car and enjoy some fresh air. 

We also stopped at many a McDonald's play land where the the kids consumed hundreds of chickens nuggets and collected dozens of worthless happy meal toys. You do what you gotta do to break things up. 

Mama got sick of nuggets after the 20th happy meal so a couple times we stopped for some Mexican food. When you got a craving, you have to obey. 

Most of the time I felt like Cam in this picture. Just kind of, "blah..When is this going to end?" But Taber was the bomb and drove the entire time, giving me a chance to rest and read! Normally I can't read in the car (especially when I'm already nauseous) But I brought Thomas S. Monson's biography and would read it out loud to Taber to keep us entertained. We were able to get through quite a bit of it without me getting sick, so that was awesome. 

And of course the girls favorite part of road tripping was getting to stay at hotel's with swimming pools! Didn't matter if we got in at 10pm, they would jump out of the car, put on their suits and beg Daddy to take them to the pool, which he kindly did. 

Next up: Grand Junction, CO and the Rigg/Gibson wedding!

Baby Rigg #4 Coming this February!

So before I blog about our trip out to Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, I thought it would be appropriate to announce (for anyone who may not know already from looking at the giant bulge in my belly) that we are expecting baby number 4 in February!

I found out I was pregnant in the beginning of June and got slammed with major morning/all day sickness shortly thereafter. I was exhausted and nauseous and pretty much useless for about 6 weeks, the worst of it being during our epic 2 week road trip out West. I tried to suck it up the best I could and push through it but it was definitely an exhausting trip for me. Totally worth it though to see all our family and be there for Regan's wedding. So that's the exciting news at the Rigg casa! We couldn't be happier to see our family grow!