We have been home from our trip almost a whole week and I haven't gotten anything posted. Sad. We spent a week in the midwest. Started in St. Louis, hit Independence, Liberty (jail), Far West, Adam-ondi-Ahman, Nauvoo, Carthage, and back to St. Louis for the big wedding. Seven of the nine kids were able to be there and all but one joined us in Nauvoo. It was a fun trip with some crisis moments but what is a family vacation without those? :) Thank heavens for some borrowed GPS units!! So here are a few shots from our trip.

Nauvoo:

Anna's introduction to horses.

The happy couple - Mitch and Keri.

The best part about being the only girl in a family of boys is you are always surrounded by good looking men. :)

Anna's first swimming experience. Obviously not too successful. She loves baths but this water was a lot colder than her bathtub.

Pretty Flowers - for now

I am so proud of my front flower bed. I had quite a few flowers volunteer back from last year and just filled in the empty spaces. I don't know if it will continue to look this way through the summer so I thought I would grab documentation now.

And then there were two

It isn't the best picture but you get the idea.

Here they come!

So I felt a tooth coming in at the beginning of this month but it has finally come in enough to see. It was great fun trying to get a picture of it and keep her tongue out of the way. Yesterday I could feel a second one coming in right next to it, just not visible yet. Let the chomping begin!!

Family Photo

Here is the Shurtliff family photo we took in February. This is 8 brothers, 4 sister in-laws, 2 parents, 1 husband, 4 granddaughters (1 of which is Anna), 2 grandsons and a partridge in a pear tree. :) The two sister in-laws that will or have joined the family this summer are not in this picture. Can't be in the family picture until you are legally family. Back row (left to right): Kyle, Jarom, Quinn, Dad, Matthew, Vance, Bryce, Mitch. Middle row (left to right): Reese, Emily (Quinn's wife), Mom, Tamera (holding Anna), Heidi (holding Jerkia), Shane. Front row, kind of (left to right) Emily (Reese's wife, holding Kindee), McKay, Maylee, Peter, Julie. I hope that makes sense. If it helps "families" are wearing the same color. Mom, Dad and single boys are wearing blue but then the marrieds picked a color and dressed their family in it.

Trek to MT and WY

So we left Idaho Falls for Montana on April 15 feeling pretty good about the sunny sky. The further North we went, the cloudier it got. Here is what it looked like in Island Park. So we skated through Island Park and West Yellowstone and only had one really bad white out. We arrived safely in Billings but unfortunately the bad weather slowed us down so much that we weren't able to go and see Custer's Last Stand. Matthew really was looking forward to that and I felt bad we didn't make it there. The next day was all wedding stuff. I got this picture that shows everyone having a wonderful time.It was freezing! That is why we got married in August. We took a two hour drive to Burlington, WY for the reception after the luncheon and entertained ourselves for a couple of hours by taking pictures of the grandkids that were there. The three girls (Anna, Jerika, Kindee) and Peter (Shane's little boy). Vance's wife Heidi made all of the matching dresses and headbands for the girls. She did a wonderful job!!

The girls with their Dads.

The girls with their Moms
Notice how Anna is the same height as the girls even though she is two months older than Jerika. Of course Jerkia's parents are super tall and Anna's Mom is short. She doesn't have a chance.
Peter and the girls.

Anna loving all of the attention.

We headed back to Idaho Falls on Friday and went the Jackson Hole route and it was sunny the whole way. Anna was a wonderful little passenger, thank goodness. Hopefully she will be that good when we are in St. Louis in June.

We spent a day recovering in Idaho Falls on Saturday and back home on Sunday. Oh, and for those who know Kyle, here is a picture of the happy couple.

Anna Defies Gravity

Ok, so maybe that is an extreme title but hey...I am a Mom. As you can tell from the picture on the left Anna is sitting up! Of course I don't dare go too far from her as you can see in the action picture on the right, she is still not too stable. We will keep working on that part. Still trying to get her to roll over and lay on her tummy but I will take what I can get.