Great Strides 2012 (Utah)

I've talked before about the best thing Paul and I got from our birth class when I was pregnant with Garrett, new friends, Matt and Dana. We love these two so much and are so very thankful our paths crossed. Their little man was born just three weeks before ours, and when he was two and a half weeks old he was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis. Every year the CF Foundation has a fund raiser 5K called Great Strides. We made it to Salt Lake last year for it, and we made the trip again this year, and our plan is to be there every year until there is a cure. And there will be! I could go on and on about new drugs that are currently being tested for this awful disease, and the amazing results they are seeing that are treating the underlying causes of CF, and not just the symptoms, but I won't. But if you're interested, look it up, it's so exciting! So, that was the reason for this trip, but I'll get to that in a minute.

Here's a little of the other fun stuff we fit in on our quick trip.

A picnic at the park with Grammy and Grandpa.Playing in the backyard with Uncle Dave. We spent a lot of time in the yard.

I also did some shopping with my Mother's Day gift cards. We had a barbecue at my parent's house for Jordon's birthday, and then my mom and dad babysat the kids and Jordon and Kate's baby so the four of us could go to a movie. We finally got them the read The Hunger Games a couple of weeks ago, so we went to see it with them. Just as good the second time around. But I didn't take pictures of any of that.

Great Strides. It was a beautiful day. Perfect for a walk through Salt Lake City. I love the sea of blue for Team 'Jason's Journey'.Garrett walked a lot of the time. He had a lot of fun and loved having Grammy there. My mom, Jordon, Kate and baby B all came and supported the J man, too. It was such a great event.Top left: Matt, J, and Dana. Bottom left: Jordon, B, Kate, Lulu, Paul, me, and G. And Bottom right: Dana and me.
We had dinner at the Mchenry's, but story time with Erik and little C bug was the only picture I took. A good-bye breakfast with the Elbert's. But it wasn't really good-bye...
That night there was a Solar Eclipse and Kate reminded me about it that afternoon. They had to drop something off to us, but they'd spent all day trying to find eclipse glasses but EVERYONE was sold out. My mom happened to remember buying some 13 years ago in Germany and she was able to find them in her scrapbooks. So we had mom's birthday dinner and then a total eclipse party and we invited the Elbert's to stay and watch. It was so cool! Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Barbara were over for dinner. Scott and Laura came, then the Elbert's, then my brother Dave showed up on his way home from Vegas, then my uncle, aunt, and a couple cousins stopped by to bring my mom some birthday brownies, then some neighbor kids came over...the party just kept growing! I wish I had a camera that could have really captured it, but these turned out ok. It was a good last night in Utah. We flew home bright and early yesterday morning, and the kids and I slept all day.
The kids did pretty well on the flights. On the way there they were just tired enough to NOT sleep, and they both acted like they were on the verge of a meltdown. Fortunately with snacks, bottles, sippy cups, an ipad, and a lot of passing back and forth, we made it almost tear free. And on the early flight home they were just tired enough to be super mellow and even sleep part of the time. I'd do it again, but I don't think we will before Garrett's old enough that we have to buy him his own ticket.

This was one of the best trips to Utah that we've had in a long time.