Summer of the stay-cation

So, Brent and I have decided that we can't afford to head out to Disneyland this year, even with the change jar savings plan. Boo. As consolation, we've turned our Disneyland fund into a trampoline fund. I wonder how Sam's Club will feel when we bring in several hundred dollars in coins to pay for a new tramp :) I might actually do that, just for fun. (Ok, no, I won't do it, regardless of how much fun it might be to see the cashier's reaction. They'd just send me to the bank anyway and quite frankly, I don't have that kind of time to waste and if I did, you'd better believe that I'd be sleeping.)

Anyway, even though we've accepted that the happiest place on earth is out of reach for us, we still want to have a lot of fun this summer ("fun" can be a bit of a reach for us too), so we've decided that instead of going on vacation, we'd take our weekends to do fun things that are closer to home. I believe it is referred to as a stay-cation, if you will. So far we've made our trip to Park City, spent an evening at Cowabunga Bay and headed up to Ogden to the dinosaur park.

I'm sure most Utah residents have long known about said dinosaur park, but until I was invited to go with a couple of Brent's sisters, I didn't even know it existed. Ogden is a lot father away than I thought it was. I swear I could see Idaho before we actually got there, but it was SOOO worth it.



This is Brent's sister, Laura. It gets a little confusing. Sometimes, when we are having a difficult time distinguishing which Laura is being referred to, one will try to clarify by referring to "Laura Stringham" which is really, super helpful since we'll both answer to that name too. I dated Brent for a surprisingly long time before he bothered to tell me that his oldest sister and I share a name. In all fairness, we only dated for like three weeks before we got engaged and I'm fairly certain that I met her either before then or shortly thereafter, but even three weeks of very serious dating seems like a long time to hold out with that kind of powerful information. Seriously, if my brother had been named Brent and this guy came up to me and said "Hi, I'm Brent." I'd probably have said something like "Brent? Really? That's weird because I have a brother named Brent. " I mean, who doesn't bring up that kind of thing?

But I digress.

Laura is awesome. When I married Brent, Laura was like this big, huge unexpected signing bonus, she's a gift that keeps on giving.



Brent likes this photo because of Charlie's hair. He won't let me cut it because he wants it to grow into a lovely pompadour like Conan O'Brien.



Methinks no.



The girls loved the park and loved playing with their cousins (not pictured). Brent's only little sister, Cheryl and her kids were there too (talk about fun people, we don't spend nearly enough time with them either). So was Laura's daughter, Jessica... unlike our camera. Brent was the photog and although I'm glad his fancy schmancy phone takes photos and has tetris on it and lets me check my email and facebook when I'm not home or when I'm just in the other room and I'm too lazy to walk to the computer, it DOES make it a little harder to chase small children around in an attempt to catch them in adorable/heartwarming poses.



And a rare family photo. Sorry folks, this is as good as it gets.

Stay tuned for further documentation of our summer of the stay-cation. It's sure to thrill.